4 ms·

Anyone actually successfully attended this boot camps and got a job offer for their coding skills? Specially for someone who never had any prior coding knowledg

by pavs 13y ago

Anyone actually successfully attended this boot camps and got a job offer for their coding skills? Specially for someone who never had any prior coding knowledge. I don't know why but this just smells like scam to me. Why would a company hire you, who just finished a boot camp, as opposed to someone who have years of coding experience and knowledge?

jcagalawan 13y ago
Boot camp devs who have never coded before attending boot camp are more likely to work for a significantly lower level of compensation than those who have experience.
- kybernetyk 13y ago
  As someone who runs a software business I can't even begin to imagine to hire someone who has only 3 months programming experience. Even if it was a super low paid position - it still would be wasted money. I guess companies in the valley are becoming really desperate - or they build trivial products where someone with almost no programming experience can productively fill a role.
hwang89 13y ago
I was in a Dev Bootcamp cohort of 10 students. All of us found jobs within 3 months of completing the program. Companies are looking to fill junior roles.
- codezero 13y ago
  Have any of the people moved on to more senior roles? I guess I am curious how this kind of bootcamp can prep someone to continue to grow/learn once in the office. Companies are always looking to fill junior roles until the economy hits a downturn.
  - coolsunglasses 13y ago
    I've worked with people that went through code bootcamps. It's anecdotal, but even after 1 year+ spent working as a programmer lots of hand-holding still involved. More so than a typical "junior" hire that went through uni + internships. I was originally keen on the idea of bootcamp hires because I've tutored a good number of people over the years but I'm beginning to see that it's closer to O'Reilly Cookbooks than SICP. Edit: To be more topical, while I'm generally irritated by anything that could be perceived as nanny-state brigading I have a hard time working up any froth on behalf the bootcamps after the experiences I've had with their students. Possible biases: didn't go to uni, self-taught programmer, some class-based baggage.
fremn 13y ago
I just completed a dev camp in november and the answer is yes. 80% of my class had positions as devs within two months of finishing. Our best student (who had taught himself a little code before) was hired within a week. Not saying all the schools are good. (some look slightly sketchy to me) "Why would a company hire you, who just finished a boot camp, as opposed to someone who have years of coding experience and knowledge?" An odd premise, its like asking why a company would hire someone straight out of college. Companies hire from devcamps because the good ones are taught by people who work in the industry and know what they would want a colleague to know, furthermore they ask the potential employers what they are looking for and teach that in a hands-on environment.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Not an odd premise at all. In a startup context, I won't even hire people with a fresh CS degree unless they have something else (personal projects, significant open source effort, real work experience) that convinces me they won't be a liability in a production context. I'd love to find out who's hiring these people, and how satisfied they are with the results. The two conditions where I can imagine hiring somebody with ~3 months total coding experience are A) when it's mainly a filter for ability to learn, and I expect to invest a lot of time getting them to the level of a production coder and then supervising their work, or B) a situation where output quality doesn't really matter. I'm hoping all those people end up in situations like A. But there are definitely things that fit B. Back in Bubble 1.0 there were people selling themselves as an "HTML programmer". And there were consulting shops billing total idiots [1] out at $1500/day plus expenses. Your developers don't have to be very good if your sales guys are great and you have at least one solid technical person to put out fires and impress clients. [1] this kind of idiot: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/02/the-nonprogramming-programmer.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/02/the-nonprogramming-...
  - BootThrowaway 13y ago
    There is a third possibility - the company hires the person but makes no investment and they can either quickly come up to speed on their own or they're canned. Seems like very few companies want to make any sort of investment in their people.
BootThrowaway 13y ago
Depends on what you consider prior coding knowledge. I went to one of the bootcamps. The people who spent substantial time learning on their own but had no formal CS background had little trouble landing full time jobs at the end of the program. Those with less experience had a harder time and tended to land internships, but everyone who finished the program landed a job within 3 months. The people who really did come in with zero knowledge ended up getting kicked out of the program. To your last question - why would a company ever hire a less experienced person? Everyone in the valley wants experienced developers but they seem to be in short supply these days. The best of the recruits from these bootcamps are making substantial contributions at their respective companies within a couple months on the job. In this hiring environment, there is value in taking a flyer on a less experienced but highly motivated candidate.
BWStearns 13y ago
I finished one a few weeks ago and had a lot of callbacks and several interviews within a week. I ended up taking my first offer since I liked that company the best out of the ones I had applied to, but there were two other companies who were moving towards an offer. You can learn a lot by coding for 12+ hours a day for 12 weeks in an environment with a) more experienced people readily available, and b) other students working on the same or similar problems. I had been teaching myself for about two years prior to attending, and having other people to talk about coding with (SO does not count in the sense I'm referring to) was a huge help. The staff were also pretty legit. I don't think that people will generally choose a bootcamp grad over someone with multiple years of coding experience, but that is primarily because they're not competing for the same jobs. I think as a bootcamp alum you're competing initially against recent CS grads.
patio11 13y ago
Why would a company hire you, who just finished a boot camp, as opposed to someone who have years of coding experience and knowledge? Because the market rates for Bob who just finished a boot camp and Cindy who has years of coding experience are very different numbers. (I also expect the market clearing price for Bob and Dave, who recently graduated Stanford CS but has no professional experience, are also different.) Concrete example: the going rate for 3-5 years of Rails experience in the Valley is creeping above $140,000 right now. I'm willing to bet you can get many bootcampers to agree to work for $80k. If you're willing to put them on a team with experienced Rails programmers and mentor them a bit, that's a heck of a lot more bang for you buck for e.g. just wiring up actions and views. You probably won't have them rearchitect a payment processor's queuing systems by themselves over the weekend while live transactions are flying over the wire but, hey, that's not a requirement for most Rails work (by count or by weight). Does this exploit Bob? Well, if we assume that prior to the coding camp Bob was a generic young liberal arts graduate, Bob's employment prospects in 2014 are a) not that great and b) likely offer a salary in the $30k a year range. $10k plus a few months of work plus opportunity cost strikes me as "More than possibly worth it" to secure an $80k a year job and the career trajectory that programmers have as opposed to the one that e.g. baristas or office managers have.
- dasil003 13y ago
  The problem with the bootcamps is that coding is now seen as a desirable and profitable career and the bootcamps are a lightning rod for people who want a good career but don't have the right temperament for professional programming. In theory a good bootcamp should accelerate your learning and give you a strong multiple over what you'd learn fighting your way through online resources. In practice, someone who does the latter is a much stronger signal to me as a hiring manager. In a way it reminds me of my experiences trying to work with outsourced teams in India 10 years ago where it was obvious that many of the programmers were there were simply clock-punchers encouraged to enter the field by their parents and saw programming more as a rote exercise of finding the right recipe rather than as a craft to be mastered through deep mental engagement.
  - pavs 13y ago
codeonfire 13y ago
Companies, particularly startups, need warm bodies in order to get investment and/or sell their company. If those bodies also happen to make a great product, all the better. If someone doesn't have the background, they can be made out as prodigies. As long as there is something resembling a product, x number of developers, and maybe some patents, certain types of investors don't seem to care. Developers are self taught by necessity. Someone decided to conflate this with the idea that self teaching doesn't really take any time at all. People who invest money don't study development so believe a six week course is all it takes, and sometimes it is if the product is a flashy but basic startup showpiece app. In my opinion this is the market that boot camps are preparing people for.
zigger 13y ago
I attended one of these bootcamps with zero coding skills (I waitressed & had two jobs before I attended) and had major difficulty finding a job as I learned a ton of incorrect information. It took me almost a year, until I found an unpaid internship, followed by another company who hired me because they found I had potential. I learned way more from working with companies who took more time to help me develop my skills than the main instructor at the school I attended. It was both embarrassing and frustrating to find that I was neglected to the point of learning false methods. Not to mention that the main instructor spouts so many prejudices against software practices/languages (TDD, Ruby, etc.) that it could influence a person against marketable skills that are actually fairly valuable. The thing that's made me hirable to companies is my determination to learn, and my ability to learn. Books, projects, internships or positions at companies with CTOs who are willing to take the time to say, "Hey, you don't know this. Learn it." is what will get you far, not a coding Bootcamp, in my opinion. Alternatively, if you want to be making 6 figures, the school's networks are amazing and they will definitely hook you up with jobs. I didn't get the chance to use the network too much, but I know that others have landed jobs immediately, and with great companies. I would say, if you have a ton of money, want the connections, and you're fairly technical already (ie. you know how to do some coding), this is for you. Otherwise you are absolutely capable of learning to code and find a job on your own. There are billions of resources online and at meet-ups that will give you a similar curriculum, basically for free or very little. To answer the 'Why would any one hire you?" -- They won't unless they really like you & your potential to grow.

by pavs 13y ago

jcagalawan 13y ago

Boot camp devs who have never coded before attending boot camp are more likely to work for a significantly lower level of compensation than those who have experience.

kybernetyk 13y ago
As someone who runs a software business I can't even begin to imagine to hire someone who has only 3 months programming experience. Even if it was a super low paid position - it still would be wasted money. I guess companies in the valley are becoming really desperate - or they build trivial products where someone with almost no programming experience can productively fill a role.

hwang89 13y ago

I was in a Dev Bootcamp cohort of 10 students. All of us found jobs within 3 months of completing the program. Companies are looking to fill junior roles.

codezero 13y ago
Have any of the people moved on to more senior roles? I guess I am curious how this kind of bootcamp can prep someone to continue to grow/learn once in the office. Companies are always looking to fill junior roles until the economy hits a downturn.
- coolsunglasses 13y ago
  I've worked with people that went through code bootcamps. It's anecdotal, but even after 1 year+ spent working as a programmer lots of hand-holding still involved. More so than a typical "junior" hire that went through uni + internships. I was originally keen on the idea of bootcamp hires because I've tutored a good number of people over the years but I'm beginning to see that it's closer to O'Reilly Cookbooks than SICP. Edit: To be more topical, while I'm generally irritated by anything that could be perceived as nanny-state brigading I have a hard time working up any froth on behalf the bootcamps after the experiences I've had with their students. Possible biases: didn't go to uni, self-taught programmer, some class-based baggage.

fremn 13y ago

I just completed a dev camp in november and the answer is yes. 80% of my class had positions as devs within two months of finishing. Our best student (who had taught himself a little code before) was hired within a week. Not saying all the schools are good. (some look slightly sketchy to me) "Why would a company hire you, who just finished a boot camp, as opposed to someone who have years of coding experience and knowledge?" An odd premise, its like asking why a company would hire someone straight out of college. Companies hire from devcamps because the good ones are taught by people who work in the industry and know what they would want a colleague to know, furthermore they ask the potential employers what they are looking for and teach that in a hands-on environment.

wpietri 13y ago
Not an odd premise at all. In a startup context, I won't even hire people with a fresh CS degree unless they have something else (personal projects, significant open source effort, real work experience) that convinces me they won't be a liability in a production context. I'd love to find out who's hiring these people, and how satisfied they are with the results. The two conditions where I can imagine hiring somebody with ~3 months total coding experience are A) when it's mainly a filter for ability to learn, and I expect to invest a lot of time getting them to the level of a production coder and then supervising their work, or B) a situation where output quality doesn't really matter. I'm hoping all those people end up in situations like A. But there are definitely things that fit B. Back in Bubble 1.0 there were people selling themselves as an "HTML programmer". And there were consulting shops billing total idiots [1] out at $1500/day plus expenses. Your developers don't have to be very good if your sales guys are great and you have at least one solid technical person to put out fires and impress clients. [1] this kind of idiot: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/02/the-nonprogramming-programmer.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/02/the-nonprogramming-...
- BootThrowaway 13y ago
  There is a third possibility - the company hires the person but makes no investment and they can either quickly come up to speed on their own or they're canned. Seems like very few companies want to make any sort of investment in their people.

BootThrowaway 13y ago

Depends on what you consider prior coding knowledge. I went to one of the bootcamps. The people who spent substantial time learning on their own but had no formal CS background had little trouble landing full time jobs at the end of the program. Those with less experience had a harder time and tended to land internships, but everyone who finished the program landed a job within 3 months. The people who really did come in with zero knowledge ended up getting kicked out of the program. To your last question - why would a company ever hire a less experienced person? Everyone in the valley wants experienced developers but they seem to be in short supply these days. The best of the recruits from these bootcamps are making substantial contributions at their respective companies within a couple months on the job. In this hiring environment, there is value in taking a flyer on a less experienced but highly motivated candidate.

BWStearns 13y ago

I finished one a few weeks ago and had a lot of callbacks and several interviews within a week. I ended up taking my first offer since I liked that company the best out of the ones I had applied to, but there were two other companies who were moving towards an offer. You can learn a lot by coding for 12+ hours a day for 12 weeks in an environment with a) more experienced people readily available, and b) other students working on the same or similar problems. I had been teaching myself for about two years prior to attending, and having other people to talk about coding with (SO does not count in the sense I'm referring to) was a huge help. The staff were also pretty legit. I don't think that people will generally choose a bootcamp grad over someone with multiple years of coding experience, but that is primarily because they're not competing for the same jobs. I think as a bootcamp alum you're competing initially against recent CS grads.

patio11 13y ago

Why would a company hire you, who just finished a boot camp, as opposed to someone who have years of coding experience and knowledge? Because the market rates for Bob who just finished a boot camp and Cindy who has years of coding experience are very different numbers. (I also expect the market clearing price for Bob and Dave, who recently graduated Stanford CS but has no professional experience, are also different.) Concrete example: the going rate for 3-5 years of Rails experience in the Valley is creeping above $140,000 right now. I'm willing to bet you can get many bootcampers to agree to work for $80k. If you're willing to put them on a team with experienced Rails programmers and mentor them a bit, that's a heck of a lot more bang for you buck for e.g. just wiring up actions and views. You probably won't have them rearchitect a payment processor's queuing systems by themselves over the weekend while live transactions are flying over the wire but, hey, that's not a requirement for most Rails work (by count or by weight). Does this exploit Bob? Well, if we assume that prior to the coding camp Bob was a generic young liberal arts graduate, Bob's employment prospects in 2014 are a) not that great and b) likely offer a salary in the $30k a year range. $10k plus a few months of work plus opportunity cost strikes me as "More than possibly worth it" to secure an $80k a year job and the career trajectory that programmers have as opposed to the one that e.g. baristas or office managers have.

dasil003 13y ago
The problem with the bootcamps is that coding is now seen as a desirable and profitable career and the bootcamps are a lightning rod for people who want a good career but don't have the right temperament for professional programming. In theory a good bootcamp should accelerate your learning and give you a strong multiple over what you'd learn fighting your way through online resources. In practice, someone who does the latter is a much stronger signal to me as a hiring manager. In a way it reminds me of my experiences trying to work with outsourced teams in India 10 years ago where it was obvious that many of the programmers were there were simply clock-punchers encouraged to enter the field by their parents and saw programming more as a rote exercise of finding the right recipe rather than as a craft to be mastered through deep mental engagement.
- pavs 13y ago

codeonfire 13y ago

Companies, particularly startups, need warm bodies in order to get investment and/or sell their company. If those bodies also happen to make a great product, all the better. If someone doesn't have the background, they can be made out as prodigies. As long as there is something resembling a product, x number of developers, and maybe some patents, certain types of investors don't seem to care. Developers are self taught by necessity. Someone decided to conflate this with the idea that self teaching doesn't really take any time at all. People who invest money don't study development so believe a six week course is all it takes, and sometimes it is if the product is a flashy but basic startup showpiece app. In my opinion this is the market that boot camps are preparing people for.

zigger 13y ago

I attended one of these bootcamps with zero coding skills (I waitressed & had two jobs before I attended) and had major difficulty finding a job as I learned a ton of incorrect information. It took me almost a year, until I found an unpaid internship, followed by another company who hired me because they found I had potential. I learned way more from working with companies who took more time to help me develop my skills than the main instructor at the school I attended. It was both embarrassing and frustrating to find that I was neglected to the point of learning false methods. Not to mention that the main instructor spouts so many prejudices against software practices/languages (TDD, Ruby, etc.) that it could influence a person against marketable skills that are actually fairly valuable. The thing that's made me hirable to companies is my determination to learn, and my ability to learn. Books, projects, internships or positions at companies with CTOs who are willing to take the time to say, "Hey, you don't know this. Learn it." is what will get you far, not a coding Bootcamp, in my opinion. Alternatively, if you want to be making 6 figures, the school's networks are amazing and they will definitely hook you up with jobs. I didn't get the chance to use the network too much, but I know that others have landed jobs immediately, and with great companies. I would say, if you have a ton of money, want the connections, and you're fairly technical already (ie. you know how to do some coding), this is for you. Otherwise you are absolutely capable of learning to code and find a job on your own. There are billions of resources online and at meet-ups that will give you a similar curriculum, basically for free or very little. To answer the 'Why would any one hire you?" -- They won't unless they really like you & your potential to grow.