> you wouldn't expect someone who's an assistant manager at McDonald's to finish their law degree and start a new job as senior partner at the law firm
I think the metaphor's a little off (I have programming experience, and what'd be more apt is a McDonald's corporate ops manager moving into in-house legal after getting law degree + passing the bar), but I get what you meant!
If you were in a similar position, how would you build a portfolio that shows you have programming skills, and aren't just good at prompting?
You might see it that way, but employers won't. You can't skip the line because you think you're good enough to, almost every junior engineer thinks the same way.
There's so much more to programming that just being able to write code without relying on AI. Otherwise boot camps would have been more effective.
Until you have years under your belt of dedicated building, you're not a senior engineer