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They can and they do. Which is somewhat problematics. A lot of companies are trying to scale, and with the demand for software developers being so high (plus th

by shados 9y ago

They can and they do. Which is somewhat problematics. A lot of companies are trying to scale, and with the demand for software developers being so high (plus the push for diversity), bootcamp "grads" are a pretty popular target. But companies rarely make the difference between a CS major (especially those with multiple internships or coops often spawning longer than the bootcamp on their own) and bootcamp graduates. So they both start as SWE or Junior/Associate SWE. Often there's a drastic difference in ramp up and output, and people around them won't always know why (unless people stalk them on linkedin or ask). That puts a ton of burden on teammates that may not be properly prepared to coach these people (they go through the same hiring process, same onboarding process, etc). Don't get me wrong, its a failing on the companies who hire people they are not prepared to handle, but they're often pressured to. It's a really awkward situation.

doktrin 9y ago
> So they both start as SWE or Junior/Associate SWE > That puts a ton of burden on teammates that may not be properly prepared to coach these people You hit the nail on the head. Bootcamp grads will typically require more coaching than 4-year CS grads. Companies that don't realize this are setting themselves and their new hire(s) up for a painful experience. In my opinion, fresh bootcamp grads are ready to be apprentice developers. Unfortunately, that's not really a role / distinction that any 21st century companies even recognize, probably because that also means recognizing the additional costs involved : apprentices require mentoring, and mentoring costs money. It's simply greedy thinking on the part of a hiring company to believe they can get a 4-year CS grad on the cheap & easy by going the bootcamp route. It's bad management not to account for the latter's steeper learning curve & onboarding requirements. Ultimately there's no such thing as a free lunch. Even talented people can't magically leapfrog the learning curve by cramming out webapps for 3 months. There will be gaps in their skillset - gaps that are best bridged with hands-on guidance from a senior developer. This applies to all junior devs, obviously, but doubly so for bootcamp grads.
- shados 9y ago
  > gaps that are best bridged with hands-on guidance from a senior developer Yup. Also, there are situations where that gap becomes problematic to fill. As a lot of bootcamp people get hired, you start getting in situations where everyone in the team is a bootcamp grad. Then they don't have someone with an actual CS background to compensate. I only have an IT degree myself (which, while longer to get, for all practical purpose is just a longer bootcamp). That was fine: I learnt a lot on my own, and 15-20 years ago, everyone else on my team had a CS background. I got coached, i learnt, I went from there. Fastforward today and people without CS backgrounds might not have someone who does anywhere near. You don't know what you don't know, and have no way to be guided in the right direction. That's bad news.
morgtheborg 9y ago
Huh. I went through devbootcamp 3 years ago and stay in touch with a fair amount of people who did bootcamps. Haven't really heard this one before. The anecdotes I've heard are actually the opposite direction; that the bootcamp grads hit the ground running because they know the framework and general toolset for web dev (plus are usually spending a huge amount of time outside of work leveling up) and the CS majors take longer to be productive. Of course, as their careers go beyond "junior", the bootcamps grads need to do major lifting to catch up in other areas beyond basic web dev. But early on, I've only really heard good things. Curious.
- shados 9y ago
  People from good universities do co-ops, internships, and side work. They know the frameworks already too. And then you have some who don't, but come from MIT or CMU and pick that stuff up faster than I can link to the tutorial (well, once they're done complaining its not Haskell anyway, lol) Though it does remind me of a company I worked for that hired a lot of bootcamp peeps, and it was hailed as a giant success by management. Meanwhile the rest of the team was grumbling about having to do 2x the work as they had to pick up the slack. (Now, obviously, I do know some people who went through bootcamps that do amazing. I also know some 100% self taught engineers who are now Principal engineers or similar at Google or Microsoft. The above is just what I've seen to be the common case). Teaching React or how to build an API controller to someone we just hired is never the bottleneck. Interns pick that up just fine, no matter where they come from.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    I think the majority of it is sheer time. A bootcamp grad has generally been coding for three months. A CS grad has (ideally) been programming for four years. Take a bootcamp grad after 3.5 years of work vs a fresh CS grad and it's (often) a no-brainer, up until you start running into the need for theoretical knowledge a CS grad has. I've never once heard a bootcamp talk about scaling or architecture in any real way.

by shados 9y ago

doktrin 9y ago

> So they both start as SWE or Junior/Associate SWE > That puts a ton of burden on teammates that may not be properly prepared to coach these people You hit the nail on the head. Bootcamp grads will typically require more coaching than 4-year CS grads. Companies that don't realize this are setting themselves and their new hire(s) up for a painful experience. In my opinion, fresh bootcamp grads are ready to be apprentice developers. Unfortunately, that's not really a role / distinction that any 21st century companies even recognize, probably because that also means recognizing the additional costs involved : apprentices require mentoring, and mentoring costs money. It's simply greedy thinking on the part of a hiring company to believe they can get a 4-year CS grad on the cheap & easy by going the bootcamp route. It's bad management not to account for the latter's steeper learning curve & onboarding requirements. Ultimately there's no such thing as a free lunch. Even talented people can't magically leapfrog the learning curve by cramming out webapps for 3 months. There will be gaps in their skillset - gaps that are best bridged with hands-on guidance from a senior developer. This applies to all junior devs, obviously, but doubly so for bootcamp grads.

shados 9y ago
> gaps that are best bridged with hands-on guidance from a senior developer Yup. Also, there are situations where that gap becomes problematic to fill. As a lot of bootcamp people get hired, you start getting in situations where everyone in the team is a bootcamp grad. Then they don't have someone with an actual CS background to compensate. I only have an IT degree myself (which, while longer to get, for all practical purpose is just a longer bootcamp). That was fine: I learnt a lot on my own, and 15-20 years ago, everyone else on my team had a CS background. I got coached, i learnt, I went from there. Fastforward today and people without CS backgrounds might not have someone who does anywhere near. You don't know what you don't know, and have no way to be guided in the right direction. That's bad news.

morgtheborg 9y ago

Huh. I went through devbootcamp 3 years ago and stay in touch with a fair amount of people who did bootcamps. Haven't really heard this one before. The anecdotes I've heard are actually the opposite direction; that the bootcamp grads hit the ground running because they know the framework and general toolset for web dev (plus are usually spending a huge amount of time outside of work leveling up) and the CS majors take longer to be productive. Of course, as their careers go beyond "junior", the bootcamps grads need to do major lifting to catch up in other areas beyond basic web dev. But early on, I've only really heard good things. Curious.

shados 9y ago
People from good universities do co-ops, internships, and side work. They know the frameworks already too. And then you have some who don't, but come from MIT or CMU and pick that stuff up faster than I can link to the tutorial (well, once they're done complaining its not Haskell anyway, lol) Though it does remind me of a company I worked for that hired a lot of bootcamp peeps, and it was hailed as a giant success by management. Meanwhile the rest of the team was grumbling about having to do 2x the work as they had to pick up the slack. (Now, obviously, I do know some people who went through bootcamps that do amazing. I also know some 100% self taught engineers who are now Principal engineers or similar at Google or Microsoft. The above is just what I've seen to be the common case). Teaching React or how to build an API controller to someone we just hired is never the bottleneck. Interns pick that up just fine, no matter where they come from.
- austenallred 9y ago
  I think the majority of it is sheer time. A bootcamp grad has generally been coding for three months. A CS grad has (ideally) been programming for four years. Take a bootcamp grad after 3.5 years of work vs a fresh CS grad and it's (often) a no-brainer, up until you start running into the need for theoretical knowledge a CS grad has. I've never once heard a bootcamp talk about scaling or architecture in any real way.