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A different take, and I'm not sure if this is controversial or not. The "prestige of your alma mater" is not just some empty signal. Of course it's not cut and

A different take, and I'm not sure if this is controversial or not. The "prestige of your alma mater" is not just some empty signal. Of course it's not cut and dry, but yes, you tend to find much higher quality software developers graduating from the top of their class with a CS degree from MIT or Stanford than you do graduating from Codesmith. I'm honestly a little baffled this is even a semi-controversial take to begin with. I've always felt like coding bootcamps were pretty much doomed to fail. I don't know why so many in the industry tried to denigrate the profession in the first place by pretending that a ~20 week bootcamp would suffice. It's like if the New York Philharmonic said "We're going to expand beyond the old stuffy prestige names of Julliard and Curtis, and instead start looking for non-traditional students who took a semester long 'Learn the Cello in 12 weeks' course." But even then, the biggest problem with coding boot camps wasn't competition from AI, it was offshore competition. People in the US spent a ton to be trained in basic skills like front end web development when there are millions of people around the world willing to do that, at a similar or higher level of skill, for $20/hr or less. I don't mean to denigrate people who took non-traditional routes to software development. On the contrary, some of the best programmers (and, especially, dev managers) I've ever worked with don't have CS degrees. Speaking of cello, for some reason an inordinate number of top programmers I've worked with have music degrees. But all of these folks just had a certain way of thinking - very detail oriented, extremely logical, extremely self-motivated, that is just not common among people at large. It's not surprising companies try to find talent where the pool is full rather than doing needle-in-a-haystack searches.

mikert89 1y ago
The problem with this is it creates a caste system that gets locked in based on how you did on math tests when you were 14. There is certainly predictive power, but people get into these schools for all sorts of reasons. Also, there are unforeseen consequences. Take venture capital, its actually relatively easy for a harvard grad to raise money, the reason being: - everyone is trying to get an early piece of a company from the next bill gates/mark zuckerberg - they fund every harvard grad since returns on a win like that are 10,000X. -> consequence is almost all early stage capital gets allocated to ivy grads -> most companies owned by ivy grads -> caste system the hope is that ai eliminates this vetting process by giving leverage to everyone
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  > it creates a caste system that gets locked in based on how you did on math tests when you were 14. I agree, but then again, if you look at areas like sports and the arts, the vast majority of people who are stars were also standouts when they were 14 (or often younger). It doesn't do any good to pretend that someone who was coding since elementary school wouldn't have a huge (and warranted) advantage over someone who didn't pick it up until their 20s. I also agree people get into top colleges for lots of different reasons, but (at least in my experience), graduating from a top school just got your foot in the door, but you still had to go through the same judgement gauntlet as everyone else after that.
  - mikert89 1y ago
    This isnt the correct comparison, since most people getting into the top schools are completely undifferentiated, all have maxed out GPAs and near perfect/perfect SATs. There are for more people with the profile to get into harvard, than there are admits. The breakdown is a composition of: 1. legacy admits 2. athletic admits 3. dei admits 4. actual brilliances admits but even in the 4th bucket, they are allocating those spots based on alot of non performative criteria. with sports, its more like, "who ran 40 meters the fastest" I live in NYC, I meet the ivy types all the time. I have gotten very cynical about it
- atmavatar 1y ago
  It has at least as much to do with how wealthy your family is as it does with how well you do on standardized testing. I was accepted to MIT, but my family wasn't poor enough to receive need-based aid, and we certainly weren't wealthy enough for me to go without aid (especially because it would have been out-of-state tuition), so I ultimately went elsewhere. I expect a fair number of others here have similar stories. A big part of the reason ivy-league and other elite schools are selected for is that they are a strong signal for family wealth.
  - hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
    > especially because it would have been out-of-state tuition I'm calling bullshit on this story because MIT is not a public school - there is no in-state vs. out-of-state tuition, and as someone who did a ton of cost comparisons on the private vs. public schools where I was accepted, I have difficulty believing someone who was accepted to MIT would confuse this fact.
8n4vidtmkvmk 1y ago
I don't think you two are disagreeing. That was the parents point, no? It's hard to pick candidates otherwise. Which is sad, because there are some good candidates without degrees from top tier schools (myself included, but I was lucky to get in after 8 years of trying). Boot camp on its own though.. I don't disagree with you there. I was never convinced this stuff could be properly learned in such a short period of time. Perhaps just well enough to pass an interview. Combine that with some self learning and freelance work, then quite sure.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  > Feels like an admission that they have no real way to vet candidates otherwise. That's the statement I disagree with. Software companies (good ones anyway) have plenty of tools to vet candidates. It's just that they'd rather go fishing where the pool is full than where it's mostly minnows.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 1y ago
    Ah, sure. If you take "no real way" at face value instead of meaning the hard way is less cost effective. But I'm not them so I don't know
hellisothers 1y ago
I think your point is valid for some value of “software development” that is in the realm of highly mathematical or intellectual. For the other 90% of software development that is just shipping functionality on time with low drama I’ve found bootcamp graduates to be as good if not better at least for junior developers. It’s more like having gone to a trade school where the trade is shipping software. Arguably, for the type of developer this article is discussing, I see AI coming for the junior “mathematical” or “algo” developer before the product/feature focused developer.

mikert89 1y ago

The problem with this is it creates a caste system that gets locked in based on how you did on math tests when you were 14. There is certainly predictive power, but people get into these schools for all sorts of reasons. Also, there are unforeseen consequences. Take venture capital, its actually relatively easy for a harvard grad to raise money, the reason being: - everyone is trying to get an early piece of a company from the next bill gates/mark zuckerberg - they fund every harvard grad since returns on a win like that are 10,000X. -> consequence is almost all early stage capital gets allocated to ivy grads -> most companies owned by ivy grads -> caste system the hope is that ai eliminates this vetting process by giving leverage to everyone

hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
> it creates a caste system that gets locked in based on how you did on math tests when you were 14. I agree, but then again, if you look at areas like sports and the arts, the vast majority of people who are stars were also standouts when they were 14 (or often younger). It doesn't do any good to pretend that someone who was coding since elementary school wouldn't have a huge (and warranted) advantage over someone who didn't pick it up until their 20s. I also agree people get into top colleges for lots of different reasons, but (at least in my experience), graduating from a top school just got your foot in the door, but you still had to go through the same judgement gauntlet as everyone else after that.
- mikert89 1y ago
  This isnt the correct comparison, since most people getting into the top schools are completely undifferentiated, all have maxed out GPAs and near perfect/perfect SATs. There are for more people with the profile to get into harvard, than there are admits. The breakdown is a composition of: 1. legacy admits 2. athletic admits 3. dei admits 4. actual brilliances admits but even in the 4th bucket, they are allocating those spots based on alot of non performative criteria. with sports, its more like, "who ran 40 meters the fastest" I live in NYC, I meet the ivy types all the time. I have gotten very cynical about it
atmavatar 1y ago
It has at least as much to do with how wealthy your family is as it does with how well you do on standardized testing. I was accepted to MIT, but my family wasn't poor enough to receive need-based aid, and we certainly weren't wealthy enough for me to go without aid (especially because it would have been out-of-state tuition), so I ultimately went elsewhere. I expect a fair number of others here have similar stories. A big part of the reason ivy-league and other elite schools are selected for is that they are a strong signal for family wealth.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  > especially because it would have been out-of-state tuition I'm calling bullshit on this story because MIT is not a public school - there is no in-state vs. out-of-state tuition, and as someone who did a ton of cost comparisons on the private vs. public schools where I was accepted, I have difficulty believing someone who was accepted to MIT would confuse this fact.

8n4vidtmkvmk 1y ago

I don't think you two are disagreeing. That was the parents point, no? It's hard to pick candidates otherwise. Which is sad, because there are some good candidates without degrees from top tier schools (myself included, but I was lucky to get in after 8 years of trying). Boot camp on its own though.. I don't disagree with you there. I was never convinced this stuff could be properly learned in such a short period of time. Perhaps just well enough to pass an interview. Combine that with some self learning and freelance work, then quite sure.

hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
> Feels like an admission that they have no real way to vet candidates otherwise. That's the statement I disagree with. Software companies (good ones anyway) have plenty of tools to vet candidates. It's just that they'd rather go fishing where the pool is full than where it's mostly minnows.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 1y ago
  Ah, sure. If you take "no real way" at face value instead of meaning the hard way is less cost effective. But I'm not them so I don't know

hellisothers 1y ago

I think your point is valid for some value of “software development” that is in the realm of highly mathematical or intellectual. For the other 90% of software development that is just shipping functionality on time with low drama I’ve found bootcamp graduates to be as good if not better at least for junior developers. It’s more like having gone to a trade school where the trade is shipping software. Arguably, for the type of developer this article is discussing, I see AI coming for the junior “mathematical” or “algo” developer before the product/feature focused developer.