Latest / The Career Change Podcast with Fexingo: Switching Fields, Bootcamps, and Reskilling / How Bootcamp Grads Can Pivot Into Health Tech
Transcript
- Lucas: So you've finished a coding bootcamp, you've built your portfolio, and you're looking at job boards. And you keep seeing the same couple of industries pop up — fintech, e-commerce, SaaS. But there's one sector that's quietly hiring a ton of bootcamp grads, and it's not getting nearly the attention it deserves: health tech. Luna: Health tech. That's interesting. I feel like a lot of people assume you need a medical background to even get a foot in the door. Lucas: Right. And that assumption is exactly what keeps the competition lower. The reality is, health tech is a massive umbrella — it covers everything from electronic health records to telemedicine platforms to health insurance analytics. And most of those roles don't require you to know what a femur is. Luna: Okay, so what's the entry point for a bootcamp grad? Say I just finished a 12-week program focused on full-stack JavaScript. Where do I even start? Lucas: Well, let's start with the single biggest employer of bootcamp grads in health tech, and that's Epic Systems. Epic builds the software that runs a huge chunk of American hospitals — medical records, scheduling, billing. They're headquartered in Verona, Wisconsin, and they hire hundreds of software developers every year. They don't require a healthcare background. They test for problem-solving and coding ability. Luna: I've heard of Epic. Isn't their interview process famously tough? Lucas: It's rigorous — they do a coding assessment, a system design problem, and a lot of behavioral questions. But bootcamp grads pass it every day. The key is that they're looking for people who can learn their proprietary language, MUMPS, which is old and quirky. But if you can pick up JavaScript in 12 weeks, you can pick up MUMPS. Luna: So Epic is one route. What about startups? There are a ton of digital health startups out there. Lucas: That's actually where most of the growth is. Companies like Ro, Hims & Hers, Noom — they're all built on modern tech stacks. React, Node, Python. Bootcamp grads fit right in. And the problems are genuinely interesting. You're building features that help people manage chronic conditions or get a prescription without a physical visit. Luna: But I imagine those startups want some domain knowledge. How do you show you understand healthcare without having worked in it? Lucas: Great question. And the answer is: you don't need to know medical terminology, but you do need to understand the regulatory environment. The single most important concept is HIPAA — the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It governs patient data privacy. If you can talk about HIPAA compliance in an interview, you immediately sound like you belong. Luna: So study HIPAA basics. What else? Lucas: Learn about FHIR. That's Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources — it's the standard for exchanging health data between systems. It's basically a RESTful API for healthcare. If you've built a CRUD app with Express, you already understand the structure. But being able to say 'I've worked with FHIR resources' on your resume is a differentiator. Luna: That makes sense. So you're saying the tech skills transfer, you just need to know the vocabulary and the rules. Lucas: Exactly. And I want to give you a concrete example. A listener named Priya wrote in. She was a retail store manager for seven years, did a bootcamp last year, and she just accepted a job as a product analyst at a health insurance company called Oscar Health. She told me she had zero healthcare experience. But she built a side project using a public dataset of hospital ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That project showed she could work with health data, even if it wasn't patient data. Luna: That's smart. She basically created her own healthcare experience. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the playbook. You don't need a job in healthcare to prove you understand the domain. You need a project that shows you can think in healthcare terms. Luna: Before we go deeper, I want to acknowledge something. If this episode is helping you think about your next career move — I mean, that's why we do this. And the way we keep the show free of ads and sponsors is through listener support. If you found today useful, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small gesture that keeps us independent. Lucas: Totally. It means we can keep diving into niches like health tech without worrying about pleasing a sponsor. Okay, back to it. So you've got the project, you know HIPAA and FHIR — where do you actually look for jobs? Luna: I assume LinkedIn is one, but are there niche job boards? Lucas: Yes. HealthTechJobs.com and HealthcareITJobs.com are solid. Also, the American Medical Informatics Association — AMIA — has a career page. But the hidden channel is conferences. The HIMSS conference is the biggest health tech event in the world. It's expensive, but many bootcamp grads volunteer at the event in exchange for a free pass. That's how you network into a job. Luna: And for the bootcamp grad who wants to stay remote? Health tech seems like it might require being on-site at hospitals. Lucas: It's changing fast. Telemedicine companies are fully remote. Health insurance tech is mostly remote. Even some hospital IT departments are hybrid or remote. The pandemic forced interoperability and remote access. So don't assume you have to relocate to Madison for Epic. There are remote roles at Cerner, Athenahealth, and startups. Luna: What's the typical salary range? I want to know if it's competitive with fintech. Lucas: It's a bit lower than fintech at the entry level. A junior developer at a health tech startup might make $75,000 to $95,000. At Epic, starting is around $80,000 plus a relocation bonus. But the trade-off is stability and mission. Health tech is less volatile than consumer tech. People don't stop getting sick in a recession. Luna: That's a good point. So it's a slower grind but a safer bet. Lucas: And the ceiling is high. Senior engineers at Epic can make over $150,000. And if you move into product management or solutions architecture, you're looking at $120,000 to $180,000. Luna: Let's talk about the skills gap. I've heard that many health tech companies use older tech stacks — like.NET or Java — not the trendy stuff. Is that a problem for bootcamp grads who learned MERN stack? Lucas: It's a challenge. But a bootcamp grad who learned one stack can learn another. The key is to show adaptability. In your resume, list your bootcamp stack, but also mention that you're comfortable picking up new languages quickly. And if you have time, build a small project in C# or Java and host it on GitHub. That proves you're not one-trick pony. Luna: What about data science roles in health tech? That seems like a natural fit for bootcamp grads who did a data science track. Lucas: Huge. Health tech is drowning in data — claims data, clinical data, patient-generated data. Bootcamps that teach Python, SQL, and machine learning are directly applicable. Companies like Optum, Humana, and Flatiron Health hire data analysts from bootcamps. The difference is you need to understand some basic healthcare metrics — like readmission rates or risk adjustment. Luna: So a data science bootcamp grad could build a project predicting hospital readmissions using a public dataset and that would be a strong portfolio piece. Lucas: Exactly. And that project, combined with knowing HIPAA, makes you a very attractive candidate. You've shown you can handle the data and you respect the legal boundaries. Luna: I want to pivot to something that's been on my mind. A lot of bootcamp grads are career changers — they might be older, they might have families. Health tech companies tend to have better work-life balance than startups. Is that true? Lucas: Generally, yes. Hospital IT departments are not going to ask you to pull all-nighters. They value stability because patient safety depends on it. Startups are more intense, but even they are usually less 'move fast and break things' than a typical consumer startup. Breaking things in healthcare can mean someone's medical data is exposed. So the culture is more deliberate. Luna: That sounds appealing for someone who wants a career that's meaningful but not all-consuming. Lucas: Right. And that's why I think health tech is an underrated play for bootcamp grads. It's not as sexy as fintech or as fast as e-commerce, but it offers depth, stability, and a clear mission. Plus, the demand for talent is only going to grow as healthcare digitizes further. Luna: So if I'm a bootcamp grad listening right now, what's the one action I should take this week? Lucas: Two things. First, spend two hours learning HIPAA basics — there's a summary on the HHS website. Second, fork a public health dataset from HealthData.gov and build a small visualization or API. Put it on GitHub. Then apply to three health tech jobs. You'll be surprised how quickly you get a response. Luna: That's a solid plan. And if you want more guidance, we'll have show notes with links to those resources. Lucas: Health tech might not be the flashiest destination for a bootcamp grad, but it's one of the smartest. And if you care about building things that actually matter, it's hard to beat. Luna: Well said. I think we've given listeners a real roadmap today.