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There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to start. First, to say there's no skills gap is insanity. I refuse to believe anyone in the i

There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to start. First, to say there's no skills gap is insanity. I refuse to believe anyone in the industry actually believes that - even the worst bootcamps are placing folks, they just place folks that are not well prepared and shift the burden of training to the company. I'm constantly blown away that some of those people get jobs, and they somehow keep them, as the companies just start training from almost scratch. That really sucks, and a lot of companies are (rightly) wary of that, and a lot of companies throw bootcamp resumes straight in the trash can, but there are enough that won't that it doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong, most of the skills gap is for capable engineers, and if you understand data structures, algorithms, architecture, memory management, etc. you'll get a job very quickly. We're talking within a week. But most bootcamp grads don't know any of that stuff, so the market is flooded with junior rails devs. (And even those folks still slowly get OK jobs). There are audited, standardized reports from an organization called CIRR. Look at them - you'll see 90%+ placement rates, audited and from third parties. Granted there are a lot of lies on the home pages of bootcamp grad websites, but the perception HN has is much worse than reality at the good bootcamps. I know the internal financials of quite a few bootcamps, and most are making a killing. It's really not hard to make money by charging $10,000/head so long as you keep demand. Iron Yard got out ahead of its skis and tried to open 16 locations at once. I have no idea what happened to Dev Bootcamp but the only way they could be losing money is if their expenses were absurd. They were bought for $80 million. I think the most likely scenario is the acquirer tried to change things up and killed everything.

ellius 9y ago
Is there a good way to learn those skills at a professional level outside of a university setting? I feel like I've taught myself a sufficient amount of front end, back end, ops (Docker, IaC etc), but I'm at a loss for how to test my ability with algorithms and data structures, memory management, etc. I've picked up some books, but I don't have a good way to measure my ability or demonstrate it to employers.
- austenallred 9y ago
  The free way is of course with books (http://teachyourselfcs.com http://teachyourselfcs.com is a good guide), but if you're looking for a school you could do something like bradfield or something like https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science (disclosure - I'm a cofounder of Lambda School). As far as demonstrating it to employers, that comes down to the interviewing process, which is in and of itself pretty broken, but they'll probably just ask you a lot of contrived questions about that stuff.
- octalmage 9y ago
  Create some open source projects in the field you are interested in! This is a great way to demonstrate that you know what you're doing, especially if others are using your project and collaborating with you. When I interview people I always look at their GitHub and dig into their work. Just make sure that your code has tests and has ok documentation. Bonus: if one of them gets popular you'll have companies coming to you.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  I'm a self-taught web developer, and I can tell you that the skills and knowledge gap between web development and "real" software engineering is huge, enough to where I seriously consider going back to school to pick them up, even though I already make $100k+, I've reached the top of my earning potential. If I knew a program tailored to people like me that would give me a reasonably-accredited certificate and teach me the math and theory, I'd pay perhaps $20k for it. I'd go back to college, but I really don't want the pain of all that undergrad coursework.
  - staticautomatic 9y ago
    Have you considered the Georgia Tech online masters in comp sci?
    - auston 9y ago
      Do you need a degree to do that? Or can you test your way in?
walshemj 9y ago
why do you seem to think that training is something the companies should avoid if at all possible?
- austenallred 9y ago
  It's not something they should avoid, it's just something many are not currently prepared to do.
hasenj 9y ago
> There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to start. Exactly my thoughts. The whole premise if false. It conflates people coming fresh off a coding bootcamp with "competent programmers". It's not even funny.
JCzynski 9y ago
>Don't get me wrong, most of the skills gap is for capable engineers, and if you understand data structures, algorithms, architecture, memory management, etc. you'll get a job very quickly. We're talking within a week. Empirically, that's totally false. The people I knew who went to the same bootcamp (App Academy) as me and had the strongest skills took longer, not shorter, to get jobs. The average was around 9 months.
- austenallred 9y ago
  How deep doesn't App Academy go into stuff like data structures, algorithms, memory management, architecture, scaling, etc.? I see mention of algorithms on the site, but not much else that would lead me to believe developers understand more fundamental CS concepts.
  - learc83 9y ago
    As deep as you can go in 13 weeks while also covering tooling, best practices, and example projects in 2 languages. i.e., not very deep.
  - JCzynski 9y ago
    Not very; about 10 hours is spent on that with instructors, plus more time practicing it in the form of whiteboard questions. Which means there was a wide variance from most knowledgable to least.
    - austenallred 9y ago
      Ya that'll do it
- bcassedy 9y ago
  The opposite was true for my cohort. There seems to always be at least one or two of the top students that are dead set on making as much money as possible so they take the extra time to brush up skills and projects to land interviews with and be successful at the absolute top tier companies (Google/Facebook + Unicorns). a/A also really pushes the idea that students should leverage offers against each other. I suspect that combined with the success of Haseeb's article is that top students are now more likely to push very hard to get top dollar for their worth instead of taking ~10k less and getting to work sooner.
jmtame 9y ago
"They were bought for $80 million." AFAIK that's not public info. How'd you find out about this?

ellius 9y ago

Is there a good way to learn those skills at a professional level outside of a university setting? I feel like I've taught myself a sufficient amount of front end, back end, ops (Docker, IaC etc), but I'm at a loss for how to test my ability with algorithms and data structures, memory management, etc. I've picked up some books, but I don't have a good way to measure my ability or demonstrate it to employers.

austenallred 9y ago
The free way is of course with books (http://teachyourselfcs.com http://teachyourselfcs.com is a good guide), but if you're looking for a school you could do something like bradfield or something like https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science (disclosure - I'm a cofounder of Lambda School). As far as demonstrating it to employers, that comes down to the interviewing process, which is in and of itself pretty broken, but they'll probably just ask you a lot of contrived questions about that stuff.
octalmage 9y ago
Create some open source projects in the field you are interested in! This is a great way to demonstrate that you know what you're doing, especially if others are using your project and collaborating with you. When I interview people I always look at their GitHub and dig into their work. Just make sure that your code has tests and has ok documentation. Bonus: if one of them gets popular you'll have companies coming to you.
vinceguidry 9y ago
I'm a self-taught web developer, and I can tell you that the skills and knowledge gap between web development and "real" software engineering is huge, enough to where I seriously consider going back to school to pick them up, even though I already make $100k+, I've reached the top of my earning potential. If I knew a program tailored to people like me that would give me a reasonably-accredited certificate and teach me the math and theory, I'd pay perhaps $20k for it. I'd go back to college, but I really don't want the pain of all that undergrad coursework.
- staticautomatic 9y ago
  Have you considered the Georgia Tech online masters in comp sci?
  - auston 9y ago
    Do you need a degree to do that? Or can you test your way in?

walshemj 9y ago

why do you seem to think that training is something the companies should avoid if at all possible?

austenallred 9y ago
It's not something they should avoid, it's just something many are not currently prepared to do.

hasenj 9y ago

> There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to start. Exactly my thoughts. The whole premise if false. It conflates people coming fresh off a coding bootcamp with "competent programmers". It's not even funny.

JCzynski 9y ago

>Don't get me wrong, most of the skills gap is for capable engineers, and if you understand data structures, algorithms, architecture, memory management, etc. you'll get a job very quickly. We're talking within a week. Empirically, that's totally false. The people I knew who went to the same bootcamp (App Academy) as me and had the strongest skills took longer, not shorter, to get jobs. The average was around 9 months.

austenallred 9y ago
How deep doesn't App Academy go into stuff like data structures, algorithms, memory management, architecture, scaling, etc.? I see mention of algorithms on the site, but not much else that would lead me to believe developers understand more fundamental CS concepts.
- learc83 9y ago
  As deep as you can go in 13 weeks while also covering tooling, best practices, and example projects in 2 languages. i.e., not very deep.
- JCzynski 9y ago
  Not very; about 10 hours is spent on that with instructors, plus more time practicing it in the form of whiteboard questions. Which means there was a wide variance from most knowledgable to least.
  - austenallred 9y ago
    Ya that'll do it
bcassedy 9y ago
The opposite was true for my cohort. There seems to always be at least one or two of the top students that are dead set on making as much money as possible so they take the extra time to brush up skills and projects to land interviews with and be successful at the absolute top tier companies (Google/Facebook + Unicorns). a/A also really pushes the idea that students should leverage offers against each other. I suspect that combined with the success of Haseeb's article is that top students are now more likely to push very hard to get top dollar for their worth instead of taking ~10k less and getting to work sooner.

jmtame 9y ago

"They were bought for $80 million." AFAIK that's not public info. How'd you find out about this?