Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

Post by SeoxyS » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 2:23 AM UTC

teechap wrote: post #156

kenneth wrote: post #53

I've hired two people out of Hack Reactor and they were both awesome. Much better than most of the newgrads I've hired out of CS programs. I was quite wary at first, but after being very impressed in interviews, they won me over. The caveat is you have to be very selective in interviewing. Hand out small take-home test projects, and look for guys that not only do a good job, but go above and beyond. Most of the tech…

What company? Just curious. I'm at HR now :-)

Post by jmarc » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 6:29 AM UTC

jmckib wrote: post #183

GolfyMcG wrote: post #119

My team (a small healthcare startup) spent a lot of time looking at this for our first hire so I feel like I could provide some insights. First off, I think it varies quite widely on the school. We talked to people from General Assembly and the quality varied A LOT. There were some people who I would have said were capable of being a junior developer and some who I would say are hardly employable. None of them were e…

App Academy claims on their homepage that SF graduates receive an average salary of $100,000. So unless they are blatantly lying or fudging the statistics somehow, it's not BS.

Post by ska » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 7:08 AM UTC

Pixelicious wrote: post #228

ska wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care about capability, not credentials. That said, a BS from a decent CS program has some value, if only as a filter. And programs like these "bootcamps" have a similar value with a much lower bar. In both cases you need to know the program to really figure out how to scale it in your decision. Running an educational program is hard, I agree. And if you guys are doing a really excellent job of it over, say, 10 week…

(Disclosure: I'm a college dropout who went through Hack Reactor and can, for the first time, afford a comfortable lifestyle) Hack Reactor focuses entirely on JavaScript and Web Development, after baking in the basics (algorithms, logical thinking, recursion vs iteration, introductory functional programming and TDD). And it is incredibly successful. I think you're underestimating the difference between college and im…

Post by sp3n » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 8:38 AM UTC

basicallydan wrote: post #88

sp3n wrote: post #18

yes i hired a guy who had been through a general assembly course in london, he had also had a couple short of internships before he got to us. hired as a junior javascript developer and he is doing very well

Hey, GA Instructor here! Did he do FEWD or WDI?

Post by subelsky » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

seandhi wrote: post #127

subelsky wrote: post #118

I 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…