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Ask HN: Any “bootcamps” or courses for intermediate/advanced people?

• modalduality 9y ago
  Recurse Center: https://www.recurse.com/ https://www.recurse.com/. Anecdotally, not so easy to get in.
  • sotojuan 9y ago
    OP here. I'm an alum! Fall 1 2016. It's not quite the same thing - RC is self-directed. You do what you want instead of following a course or teacher.
    • giggles_giggles 9y ago
      Summer '13 saying hi from across the batches. Self-directed, but plenty of experienced folks to rub off on you, in my experience. The diversity of experience at RC was incredible when I was there. Definitely fantasize about going back for another batch sometimes -- I know so much more now and I'd get so much out of doing it a second time.
  • sidcool 9y ago
    Is this online as well?
  • jraines 9y ago
    I can't believe there's still not an equivalent in the Bay Area
  • pyrophane 9y ago
    This looks neat. If I had a 6-month sabbatical from work I'd apply, but unfortunately I don't know when I'll ever have the opportunity to do something like this.
    • levthedev 9y ago
      They just started doing half batches recently, which are only 6 weeks. Some employers are actually OK with this, given the assumption that you come back as a stronger (and maybe even nicer) programmer.
• mcx 9y ago
  If you're in SF: https://bradfieldcs.com/ https://bradfieldcs.com/
  • sotojuan 9y ago
    This looks like what I am looking for, but I'm in the other side of the country. Thanks though, will keep it in mind.
  • ricky1477 9y ago
    Would be nice if they had something like this in DC
  • jtmcmc 9y ago
    has anyone had experience with this? I'd love to get some actual reviews of this place?
    • ozanonay 9y ago
      Hi! I'm one of the instructors, if you ping me at oz@bradfieldcs.com I can connect you with past students or answer any questions you have :)
• zengr 9y ago
  I have done CodePath twice and highly recommend for iOS and android bootcamps. https://codepath.com/ https://codepath.com/
  • morgtheborg 9y ago
    Agreed. I learned a lot there.
  • bogomipz 9y ago
    The site states: >"Students must pass a rigorous selection process to be admitted to any of our programs." Would you be able to share what that selection process entails exactly?
    • calren24 9y ago
      From my experience, selection process was submitting your resume, going through a short phone screen (15-20 minutes, mostly just chatting about why you're interested and your background) and completing a intro project (it took me around 8-10 hours)
• arshakn 9y ago
  https://fellowship.ai https://fellowship.ai is machine learning focused program but also has a good deal of python in the mix. Our acceptance rate is ~6%
• eorge_g 9y ago
  This is heavy ruby/rails focused but has other content as well. Tagline is "Get the junior out of your title" https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/ https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/
  • chriswoodford 9y ago
    I've been advocating Upcase to Junior Rails devs for a couple years now. Has a lot of great content around improving your testing skills, refactoring, and best practices for object oriented design. although most of the content is ruby/rails based, the concepts are widely applicable to improving your skills as a software engineer.
• otterpro 9y ago
  Big Nerd's Ranch (https://www.bignerdranch.com/ https://www.bignerdranch.com/) especialy for mobile app development. Their bootcamp is called "retreat", and they also work as developers and publish books.
  • randomstep 9y ago
    disclaimer: I am an instructor for Big Nerd Ranch, teaching our various iOS courses. That said, I came to BNR after being blown away by the quality of their Mac programming book, years ago. I believe deeply in what we do. tl;dr: Big Nerd Ranch offers short retreats for intermediate and advanced instructors. They are not cheap but they are thorough and powerful, as long as you're willing to put in the work. Details: We have short (typically 5 day), intensive courses. The instructor leads the class through a series of lectures and intense labs, building out real applications throughout the week. The instructor works with each student to help them maximize what they can learn and achieve during the week. There is no magic for scaling across different ability levels, but there are ways to do this better or worse. Our courses target intermediate to advanced level learners. We intentionally build our chapters, demonstrations, and lectures to be very dense with material. For the advanced students, they're able to glean API gotchas and sharp corners, as well as real world tips (pretty much all our instructors are also active consulting developers), and lots of looks at different working practices. Seeing another developer work is a great way to learn new techniques. For intermediate or closer to beginner students, they won't that level of detail as much, as they're still absorbing all the new APIs, design patterns, and details necessary to just get apps building and shipping. Our courses allow you to get out what you put in. In other words, there's not any particular magic to leveling up. You have to put in the hard work yourself. But I believe our retreat-style approach - where we remove or take care of all possible distractions, and provide expert aid at your call - gives you the best chance to maximize how much you can learn in a week. Food and lodging is included. You'll spend the week learning, programming, and going for hikes every day. It's sort of my ideal world. :D We don't call them bootcamps half-heartedly. You'll be exhausted by Friday. But if we've done our job right, you'll feel like you've just shortcut several months of work in leveling up as a developer.
    • 9y ago
• prettygenius 9y ago
  Does anyone have experience with https://www.udemy.com/intermediate-advanced-java-programming/ https://www.udemy.com/intermediate-advanced-java-programming...? I've been eyeballing it for a while, $10 is cheap but I'm afraid that's also indicative of the quality.
• soham 9y ago
  [Disclaimer: Shameless self-promotion] We run something called Interview Kickstart: http://Interviewkickstart.com http://Interviewkickstart.com . It's a part-time bootcamp focused on preparing for technical interviews at (so-called) top-tier places i.e. places which interview heavily in DS/Algos and Large Scale Design for their core engineering roles, and also make staggeringly high offers. Think G/F/A/Netflix/Amazon/MS etc. It is intense and also taught by Sr. Engineers working in core systems at these places. There is a rigorous academic take to it, with homework, tests, mock interviews etc. A little known fact, is that many people come to the program with no intent to look for a job. They are already at good places, paid well, and just want to get better as an engineer, which I think is what you're looking for. Many have figured out, that the structure and the forcing function challenges them to be better. Most of your peers will have backgrounds in CS/CS, and you'll also see people coming FROM some of the same companies others are aspiring to go to (e.g. Amazon, Microsoft etC). We start an online cohort every month, where people join from all over US and Canada (and sometimes even other countries). Feel free to check it out.
  • Retric 9y ago
    Just a suggestion for possible improvements... Looking at the sight I really just wanted two questions answered. How much time? How much money? The first took a while to find: Two 4 to 6-hour sessions per week, for 8 weeks. 200+ hours of work. The second looks sketchy: Tuition: Not cheap
    • soham 9y ago
      Thanks! Will consider. With that comment on pricing, we just want to deter people who think this can be done cheaply.
      • OJFord 9y ago
        Isn't it possible that someone considers whatever your price is to be 'cheap'? Why not just list the price, and deter whoever's deterred?
      • atmosx 9y ago
• valbaca 9y ago
  Udacity Nanodegrees are geared toward "post-beginners looking to specialize" (my words, not theirs). https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree For example, the Android nanodegree assumes you're already familiar with Java and OOP, but not with Android. The "Full Stack Web Developer Nanodegree" suggests you have "Beginner-level experience in Python." (direct quote) https://www.udacity.com/course/full-stack-web-developer-nanodegree--nd004 https://www.udacity.com/course/full-stack-web-developer-nano... These courses are not cheap, they take a lot of time, but if you have the time and money, they are absolutely worth it IMO.
  • parthdesai 9y ago
    If you are at intermediate level, you can always just follow video lectures/assignments for free and try to improve on your own. That's what i do.
• Maven911 9y ago
  this is more of an AI bent to it but I have heard good things about the following in NY that comes with a job placement: http://ivydatascience.com/ http://ivydatascience.com/
• werber 9y ago
  Not a bootcamp, but egghead.io is a fantastic resource, and udemy can be an awesome resource for specific classes (but there is a lot of junk to wade through)
• austenallred 9y ago
  Lambda Academy of Computer Science - a six month, full-time deep dive into software engineering and computer science. Closer to a CS degree than a one-month bootcamp. You need to know basic programming before enrolling. It's free up-front and takes a percentage of income after you get a job, or you can pay up-front. https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science (I'm a co-founder, happy to answer any questions)
  • sosodaft 9y ago
    I'm a currently-employed web developer (bootcamp grad) and I'd love to see a part-time (nights and/or weekends), cash up front offering to deepen my CS knowledge. Just throwing that out there in case part-time something you guys have thought about. I'm sure I'm not the only bootcamp grad that could use an in-depth CS program.
    • austenallred 9y ago
      Yeah, we think about it a lot. We want to be very careful about scaling into something like that because the part-time dynamic is very different than full-time, and the most important thing to us is our student experience. It would also be long, if we used the current curriculum. Like... a year long. We're not sure if that's too much of a commitment for most folks, so we're asking.
      • hello_newman 9y ago
        I'm in a similar boat to the person above (bootcamp grad working as software developer). I have been trying to do a comp-sci degree but that cost, degree requirements (classes unrelated to my major) and actually going to school after work is a major pain. I would definitely pay for a year long (or more) part time CS course if it was intense and online. I'm doing that already, but it would save me a lot of time/money of not having to actually commute to school.
        • austenallred 9y ago
• zumu 9y ago
  How about moocs? Am algorithms class will level you up for sure. https://www.coursera.org/specializations/algorithms https://www.coursera.org/specializations/algorithms comes to mind.
• crispyambulance 9y ago
  Advanced folks will have very specific needs that are hard to meet for any course with a pre-determined curriculum. Perhaps a better approach would be to hire an expert from a consultancy, negotiate a detailed custom curriculum together and go from there? It would certainly be expensive but perhaps within reach for a small group or for heavily motivated individuals?
  • btilly 9y ago
    Exactly this. Any self-taught intermediate person will have learned some things, missed others, and the pattern of what is missed varies widely by person. Therefore it isn't, "Oh, you're intermediate, this is what you need." Instead it is, "Here are the basic things that you happened to miss." So it may be valid to swallow your pride and do the basic course, most of which you know, to find what you don't. Or to trust that you can fill in holes yourself on demand. (People's belief about how well they can do this tends to exceed their actual ability...) Or to have someone evaluate you to find those blind spots.
  • xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
    I have had the same thought about college-courses. Why have 100+ people paying 2k+ for a course being taught by a grad student. If you could cut out the middlemen (schools), we could probably get better "professors" (i.e. one of the best people in the field - im sure people in industry would love to pick up an extra 10-20k to teach 1 class a year) for cheaper and in smaller class room settings. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........Just gotta figure out how to do the signaling properly so businesses will look at the classes you took and think 'I want to hire that person.'
    • sbov 9y ago
      That's what you get for going to a research school: grad students teaching classes. I went to a non research school (a CSU) back in the early 2000s, and all classes were taught by real professors, but it isn't as prestigious as a Stanford or Berkeley. Beyond that, the teachers for night classes were all from industry. I took a graphics class taught by someone who previously worked on OpenGL at SGI, a database class taught by someone who was at the time working on DB2 at IBM, and a j2ee class taught by someone who at the time was working at Sun Microsystems.
• southphillyman 9y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't most bootcamps geared toward preparing people for jobs? I feel like in this current market having to attend a bootcamp as a experienced developer would send off negative signals about one's ability to stay up on current tech/trends.
• sixhobbits 9y ago
  I'm working with Hyperion Development[0] which has a wide variety of online bootcamps with 1:1 mentor support. We have courses targeting beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Currently we are just about to deploy a big update but have a look and you might find what you are looking for. [0] https://hyperiondev.com https://hyperiondev.com
  • bogomipz 9y ago
    Asking people for all of their contact details in order to simply read course descriptions seems pretty lame. I also can't imagine that's doing the business any favors.
    • sixhobbits 9y ago
      I'll submit this as feedback to our team :)
• asimpletune 9y ago
  There's a great option here in SF called BradfieldCS.
• jbot29 9y ago
  I have been working on this idea for a little bit. Started putting together a list of intermediate projects for people that finished a bootcamp. It is still in its infancy. I ran a programming bootcamp for a year and a half and think there is a need for this, but still figuring out the right way. https://github.com/Jbot29/intermediate-programming-projects https://github.com/Jbot29/intermediate-programming-projects
• jancsika 9y ago
  > I'm past the stage where I need a course on Python syntax or HTML. It's hard to guess what stage you are at. What have you built so far in Python?
• ozanonay 9y ago
  Hi! I'm one of the instructors at Bradfield: https://bradfieldcs.com https://bradfieldcs.com . We teach computer science to strong programmers, typically those who were self taught, attended bootcamps or weren't quite satisfied with their conventional CS experience. We teach in small classes, strictly in person in SF. I know this sucks for folk (like OP) who are outside SF, but honestly you can't teach this stuff to a high enough standard remotely. We do get plenty of interstate and international students who visit for a course or two. We also maintain a self-teaching guide https://teachyourselfcs.com https://teachyourselfcs.com for those who don't need the full classroom experience. Happy to answer any questions in person: oz@bradfieldcs.com
  • trill_winds 9y ago
    Current student here - I went through a bootcamp and have been autodidacting ever since. I've gone through coursera, udacity, edx, MIT OCW, Stanford Lagunitas, OSS's computer science program, and finally Bradfield. Bradfield was by far and large the best experience I've had learning advanced material. Oz (commenting above), is the most talented and natural pedagogue I've met. The best thing about Bradfield though is that it has the feel of a lifestyle business run by people whose call to arms in life is learning and teaching computer science. This isn't an interview skills factory - the focus is on learning and loving an important and fascinating branch of science, mathematics, and thinking. Personally, I think that difference ultimately makes you a better interviewer and engineer in practice, but again, that's not the point. Still one of the best decisions I've made yet.
  • cusack 9y ago
    I did https://bradfieldcs.com https://bradfieldcs.com after working as a IC for awhile and found it hugely valuable. I didn't have a CS undergrad and worked in Node, so skipped the majority the deeper fundamental studies around databases, networking, and computer architecture since I was abstracted from them in day-to-day work (or at least thought I was...:)). I took a 10wk leave from work to go full-time through Bradfield and would recommend it to anyone that's spent time working as an engineer and is interested in leveling up generally or refining a specific skill set. The stuff I learned there has ended up showing up almost daily for me at work and I've since been promoted to technical lead.
• vikp 9y ago
  I'm the founder of Dataquest (https://www.dataquest.io https://www.dataquest.io) -- we teach data science online from the basics, and have a comprehensive curriculum that includes machine learning, spark, and data visualization. You can skip the Python basics and start with more intermediate/advanced material (and build your own projects!). We also have a data engineering path that teaches more CS fundamentals, and may be a good fit (this is still being developed, but has a few courses).
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• baron816 9y ago
  I highly recommend Frontend Masters: https://frontendmasters.com/courses/ https://frontendmasters.com/courses/. Lots of different courses taught by the likes of Douglas Crockford, Kyle Simpson, Ryan Chenkie, and Kent C Dodds. It's not just front end stuff--they cover data structures and algorithms, building REST apis, Electron and React Native, testing and debugging, functional programming, prototyping, and even SEO.
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• nilkn 9y ago
  This is not exactly what you're looking for, but it's somewhat similar and may be of interest to some readers of this thread. The Google Brain team accepts residents: https://research.google.com/teams/brain/residency/ https://research.google.com/teams/brain/residency/ It's similar to a one-year research-focused advanced degree in machine learning (with the focus being, of course, entirely on deep learning).
• shadyrudy 9y ago
  Want to learn SQL Server from the best? Check out SQL Skills: https://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-training/immersion-events-schedule/ https://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-training/immersion-even... They are the best and most comprehensive. Not associated with them, but a long time, satisfied customer.
• zitterbewegung 9y ago
  Although, part of the program is an intro to python development (which you can easily skip) https://www.dataquest.io/ https://www.dataquest.io/ is a set of guided lessons that teach you data analysis/science/engineering .
• tarheeljason 9y ago
  For data science: http://insightdatascience.com/ http://insightdatascience.com/ only accepts those who have completed a PhD
  • mindcrime 9y ago
    That has to be one of the weirdest things I've ever heard in my life. You don't need a PhD to do data science. Hell, most companies would be taking a huge step forward if they got somebody who knows how to do linear regression.
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• yamalight 9y ago
  Shameless self-promotion: If you are interested in front-end and/or node.js courses (javascript, react, webpack, all that kind of stuff) - I've been doing a free open source course called "Building products with javascript" [1] that is aimed at intermediate/advanced developers who want to learn javascript more in-depth. [1] https://github.com/yamalight/building-products-with-js https://github.com/yamalight/building-products-with-js
• markfer 9y ago
  I've actually been thinking about starting a Sales bootcamp aimed at teaching technical founders, or people with no background in sales. Not sure if there would be any interest though.
  • fillskills 9y ago
    That would be VERY USEFUL. Speaking as a tech founder who had to learn and appreciate sales after launch.
    • markfer 9y ago
      Mind if I email you with some more questions?
• gaius 9y ago
  At this level you should probably just take a Masters. I did mine part time over 2 years while working full time. Many if not most good colleges will offer some sort of programme.
• luckycharms810 9y ago
  Highly recommend 'Design of Computer Programs' on Udacity. Its a 300 level class taught by Peter Norvig, and while the quizzes and homework's aren't terribly challenging, its a great way to learn how to break down problems for an intermediate developer.
• spudsfurious 9y ago
  Profuse apologies in that this is not a so-called boot camp type avenue, but if you're really interested in some computer science concepts, UMass Dartmouth offers a computer science certificate. http://www.umassd.edu/extension/programs/computerscienceonlinecertificate/ http://www.umassd.edu/extension/programs/computerscienceonli...
  • spudsfurious 9y ago
    And.. what I forgot to add was that you really don't need to take the certificate. Look at a few of the 'foundation' courses they offer online for people without a CS undergrad, most notably: CIS 322 Data Structures and Fundamental Algorithms CIS 323 Fundamentals of Computer Systems
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• shalperin 9y ago
  I'm surprised that Coursera and Udacity don't figure higher in the responses. There are a tonne of advanced algorithms, machine learning, data science, and domain specific stuff on there like computational biology and computational neuroscience.
• lukas 9y ago
  I've been teaching classes on machine learning for engineers (shameless self promotion: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/technical-introduction-to-ai-machine-learning-deep-learning-tickets-34671486349 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/technical-introduction-to-ai-ma...) One of the coolest parts of teaching these classes is how awesome the people are that show up. The engineers that want to learn new things mid career are exactly the kind of people I want to work with and hang out with. I think there's a real opportunity for more classes like this.
• mjhea0 9y ago
  I am building out an advanced-beginner course at http://testdriven.io/ http://testdriven.io/. It details how to set up a set of microservices with Flask and Docker. Let me know your thoughts. Cheers!
• seanlane 9y ago
  MIT's OpenCourseWare [1] has a lot of great material that's as rigorous and in-depth as anywhere you'll ever find. I've been using it to supplement and extend areas where my alma mater's curriculum has fallen a bit short, or where I just want to focus. [1] https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm