That's more common than you think. A respectable company Thoughtworks hired this way and boot camped and mentored people well the first couple years of their careers. I always like looking at the code and working with projects from their teams. Communication, working nicely with others, humility and the soft skills help you build a network so that when you need help you don't spin your wheels.

The bigO crowd will disagree but even the hard core comp sci types will go much further with real soft skills.