Have hired twice from them, both are total winners. But took a lot of pruning to get there!
Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
121–130 of 264 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#122When I was interviewing over the summer, the VAST majority of candidates I got for my mid-level rails position were from one of these bootcamps. I'm willing to give anyone a try, and so I interviewed a lot of them over the phone, and gave nearly all of them the coding exercise. Which they almost universally failed to complete. Still, I wound up hiring one as very junior. And that's exactly what she is. I don't have t…
Would you mind sharing the exercise? I'm writing a book and would like to know the pass-rate of my students.
Not the person you were asking, but I always loved giving this quiz in interviews: http://rubyquiz.com/quiz9.html
I always say I don't care what language they do it in.. I just like to see how they approach the problem.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#123Graduate of App Academy NY here:
I just don't mention the boot camp, unless explicitly asked. The "Rails dev in 12 weeks" pitch understandably sounds like a scam at first glance. Fortunately it isn't, and I'm happily employed.
As others have mentioned, almost no one in our cohort came in without prior programming experience. They seemed to be screening for types who:
* Had prior programming experience
* Did not major in CS in college, if they went to college
* Performed well in technical interviews
Teaching is very hands off; per day, you're given a partner, a project, and limited guidance from an available TA/instructor. I rarely talked with our main instructor. Workweeks were expected to be around 90-100 hours.
I graduated a while ago, so this information may not be current. I also can't speak to graduates of other schools. At the time, it seemed like a good way to grab otherwise smart people who missed out on CS in college, and give them the opportunity to retrain.
Edit: Formatting
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am a graduate of a code/bootcamp school. I will say that the instruction was good but definitely were areas that were lacking. I think the short timeline is the biggest factor in that. Most of these schools are ~12 weeks but I think an additional month would be better suitable. Where this school did lack however, is the staff. The people behind the scenes that are supposed to be helping us find jobs and get us read…
...are you willing to name the school you attended?
Yeah, you need to name names. There are lots of us who had great bootcamp experiences and it's irresponsible to sully their reputations because you had a bad experience at one school.
At least do it to help other students avoid paying a bunch of money for a bad experience. That kid who posted about the nightmare at Coding House did the whole community a big favor.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#125I went through DevBootcamp in SF after doing business development for a YC company for a year. My day to day job was interacting with engineering teams, and I found it really frustrating not understanding what people were talking about once the conversation left the business realm. When my boss asked me to checkout one of the developer bootcamps as a potential partner I decided to apply.
I had always been interested in computers and the web, but never made the leap to building something with substance. It's really hard to figure out how all the moving parts of web development work together if you're on the outside looking in. I would read books, follow tutorials, ask friends to teach me, but I would always get stuck on something stupid like installing Postgres. The most important thing I learned at DevBootcamp was how to figure that shit out by myself without wasting time spinning my wheels in frustration.
The numbers that the schools boast about post bootcamp success are really inflated. Very few people who I graduated with found 100k jobs right out the gate. Most settled for 60-80k range, and it took a few months of looking (not bad though!). I'm currently in my second engineering job working on a Java stack. A job in a language and framework that DevBootcamp did not teach.
I think a lot of people don't understand that most of these programs are highly selective and fucking BRUTAL... I was at school grinding away most nights till 1 in the morning. Not only are they challenging in technical sense, but emotionally intense. Being stuck in a room with 30 really smart people who are sleep deprived and being forced to do yoga after a marathon coding session is not easy. I saw people cry on numerous occasions.
Getting a job is hard because of the assumptions people have about these programs. Everyone I went though the program with (and finished) might not have had a CS degree, but they ENJOYED PROGRAMING . Something I can't say about everyone I work with. I went though many interviews where I could tell the person I was white-boarding with wasn't going to give me a shot. I remember being in a final round technical interview and was asked a standard algo question. After answering the problem the person interviewing me asked me how I got to the solution... I had been asked it a million times before and googled the answer after the first time it stumped me in an interview. He did not like my answer.
Good programers are confident and enthusiastic.
Having a CS degree and a math background does not make you good at your job or a great engineer. It's probably a requirement to work on some of the really hard stuff. Google X/Palantir stuff...
I think most of the people coming out of these camps are dangerous enough to make an impact anywhere they go. Given a shot and a little finishing polish they will become great engineers.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#126When I was interviewing over the summer, the VAST majority of candidates I got for my mid-level rails position were from one of these bootcamps. I'm willing to give anyone a try, and so I interviewed a lot of them over the phone, and gave nearly all of them the coding exercise. Which they almost universally failed to complete. Still, I wound up hiring one as very junior. And that's exactly what she is. I don't have t…
Would you mind sharing the exercise? I'm writing a book and would like to know the pass-rate of my students.
Unfortunately we don't make it public.
The core challenge isn't the problem itself, but that we require them to make a rails app of it - including an ability to save the information put in, and add comments.
None of it is a particular challenge, but it could be tedious. There's definitely some minimal amount of integration involved. What I find interesting is that when I ask people I know and regard as good programmers, they balk at the amount of time the exercise might take.
When I interview the bootcamp programmers, they always say they can get it done in a day, no problem. And usually don't finish.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#127I know an awesome Node developer here in Baltimore with no prior experience, who had gone to a bootcamp for six months, and who was offered an intermediate-level position. Talking with her I felt like she was more of a colleague than a brand-new dev.
Do her initials happen to be AK, from Nashville? If so, I know exactly who you are talking about. She used to come to a meetup that I organize for teaching beginners Ruby on Rails before she moved to Baltimore. She's fantastic.
Also, if we are talking about the same person, I will say that the quality of people coming out of the program that she attended is really high. One of my co-organizers is also a graduate, has a little over one year of real experience now, and he is way more knowledgeable than I would expect of someone of similar experience. I had another graduate working for me for a few months, and he was able to hit the ground running.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#128I was a freelance web developer for a few years (utilizing skills I picked up growing up) when one of my clients hired me to come on-board full-time for my first salaried position. My supervisor wanted me to build a team, so he had me right a job req. I sent it to him, and he sent it back with the addition: "Bachelor's degree in CS". I pointed out that, not only is my degree not-in CS, but I would probably be dissuad…
This very similar to what I did. I didn't have a college degree and as a result I thought that I had no chance. I didn't really know what I wanted to do at 18 so I followed in my family's footsteps and went to a top ten business school. I absolutely hated it, got depressed and screwed up my grades freshman year. After moving back home, I realized that I would spend all of my time reading about the stuff I had learned in AP Computer Science so I decided to give being a developer a go. So I started by freelancing for small businesses while learning, practicing and reading constantly on the side. While it was slow in the beginning, after a few years business picked up and I had constant work on larger and larger projects and made solid money.
When I was 23, I was hired for a 6 month contract working with one of the big four consulting firms creating the UI on a project for a major financial firm. I made sure to go above and beyond on the project, and at the end of the engagement the financial firm offered me a full time position as a Senior Front End Developer making ~$125k plus a 12% annual bonus. I was so surprised at the offer I called the developer who offered me the job just to make sure he knew about my terrible educational background. He said "Frankly, college isn't a good indicator of actual skill, I just put it on the list because HR requires me to. I have let more people go with CS degrees from Stanford than anywhere else because they come in and think they know everything. I want people who are constantly trying to improve. People who may not know, but will figure it out and make it happen."
I had always been weary of applying for developer jobs simply because I had messed up in school. I knew that I could was good at it but I was scared that the blemish on my resume had destroyed all hope. It turns out I was completely wrong and should have applied for a "real" job years earlier. Now the age that most people are graduating and becoming junior devs, I am senior dev without a degree leading a team of 6 made up of top CS program grads.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#129I have, four total from DevBootcamp in Chicago across two companies. You have to be critical and fight the right people, but all four have proven to be amazing additions to the team and wise beyond their years.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?
#130We are exploring this avenue with our Junior Software Engineer position and have had success in the past hiring less experienced but sharp and quick study engineers.
I think the key is to keep a balance of experience within the team so there is mentorship available and to have clear expectations on both sides on ability, how fast one might learn, and the relationship to that and salary. Roughly speaking, if a junior engineer is willing to start at 60% the salary of an experienced engineer but grow by 10-20% a year, it works.