Exactly, in my case I got into programming through interest and started teaching myself how to build web apps in python/django and continued pursuing my interest in learning a bunch of other interesting things.

"but falls short when they want to do anything more complex." yes right! and for situations like this doing hard projects goes a long way to make you a better engineer. You don't get to do them because you weren't taught in University or in bootcamps - How many bootcamps will even teach things like that?