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Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

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Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#271

Post by bogomipz »

crispyambulance wrote: post #226
JohnDotAwesome wrote: post #217

Is anyone surprised by the amount bootcamp folks in this thread who are now in "Senior" roles after only a few years? I'm not trying to diminish their accomplishment; Their accomplishment is astounding. But are bootcamps really that effective? I remember interviewing a ton of bootcamp grads from a couple of schools in Austin, TX and being largely unimpressed. You know that feeling after you interview someone where yo…

I expect that many people who enroll in bootcamps are coming from domains other than sw development. As such, they may have years of experience and skill-sets which complement the new skills they picked up at bootcamp. Its not the bootcamp alone which is responsible for any person's success or advance, its a combination of factors, just like it would be if you replace "bootcamp" with "university degree".

>"I expect that many people who enroll in bootcamps are coming from domains other than sw development. As such, they may have years of experience and skill-sets which complement the new skills they picked up at bootcamp."

I don't doubt the value complimentary skills at all but 3 years of actual software engineering experience and exposure and say 7+ years are very different things. I don't think there's any substitute for "rubber on the road."

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#272

Post by iopuy »

crispyambulance wrote: post #268
bogomipz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example, 5-10 years as a Certified Public Accountant before working at a fintech company. Or working as a nurse then going to a healthtech company" Can you explain how being a CPA would help give you seniority in a software engineer role at a Fin Tech company or how nursing experience would help give you seniority as a software engineer at a health based tech company? Isn't being "senior" in this context of soft…

Keep in mind that "senior" or other title doo-dads don't really have a fixed meaning. Also, depending on the workplace you may be undervaluing domain experience. Yeah, of course, a taxi driver isn't going to ascend at Uber because of Taxi driver skills. But a high-skilled experienced CPA with a knack for software development could do really well against 20-something SWE's at a fintech company.

At my company, and every other large company I have worked for titles absolutely have a fixed meaning. There are standard pay bands that are largely predicated on your title.

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#273

Post by tryitnow »

JohnDotAwesome wrote: post #217

Is anyone surprised by the amount bootcamp folks in this thread who are now in "Senior" roles after only a few years? I'm not trying to diminish their accomplishment; Their accomplishment is astounding. But are bootcamps really that effective? I remember interviewing a ton of bootcamp grads from a couple of schools in Austin, TX and being largely unimpressed. You know that feeling after you interview someone where yo…

As another commenter mentioned - this is probably due to selection bias.

My best guess is that bootcamps aren't a bad deal for smart motivated people.

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#274

Post by xiaoma »

bacontacos wrote: post #267
xiaoma wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many, many HR grads followed a similar path and many read HN. I personally knew just about everyone in the first 7 cohorts. During that time I saw success after success from the other students with some getting promoted and leading teams with just a year or two. Several have now founded startups. I'll also add that my account is 3275 days older than yours and isn't a throwaway.

Just missed you! I was in 9. To the above poster that was flagged, it sort of sounds like you're accusing me of lying, but I'll give you the benefit of best intent and answer your questions. Yes, I created this account just to make this comment. I was introduced to HN by someone in my bootcamp cohort. Never felt the need to comment on something until a post that was directed right at me. Never made an account either…

I had been "semi-technical" and messing with a WP blog and doing simple tutorials for years myself! When I attended HR, their marketing materials made it clear it was for taking you from "20 to 100" instead of "0 to 60".

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#275

Post by throwthisawayt »

I finished AppAcademy about 2.5 years ago. It took me about 4 months to find a job and I've been working as a full stack engineer since. I mostly work in Java & Typescript (Angular) now.

My trajectory has been pretty solid - we had several people join when I started and I've been at the top of my cohort. I've been promoted and given a raise while my company went through layoffs and perform well even compared to the CS grads from Stanford & Berkeley who joined at the same time.

I expect to be promoted to the senior title in 1-2 years, but I will probably job hop somewhere else in the next year so I can get exposed to tougher cs areas (distributed systems, scaling, information retrieval, etc)

My close friends at the bootcamp work at companies like Pivotal Labs, Pinterest, Yammer, etc. it's definitely a biased sample but I've seen many people do well. Many fail as well, but that's expected.

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#276

Post by Teknoman117 »

jimbokun wrote: post #248
scyclow wrote: post #185

Disclaimer: My post-bootcamp experience (Chicago 2014) was probably very different from what I'm seeing today (New York 2017). Every meetup I go to seems flooded with bootcamp grads, and it appears the market is oversaturated with bootcamp grads. Overall, it seems like it's much harder to get that first engineering job I graduated from Dev Bootcamp Chicago in 2014. Before starting, I was a financial analyst for three…

"However, the the technical skills I learned from the curriculum ended up being almost completely irrelevant the second I graduated." I hope both boot camps and CS curricula will emphasize this point very strongly. The exact technology stack you are learning right now is probably not the one you will be using in the near future, and that's OK. Learning to learn, and understanding the fundamentals of what makes a good…

The problem is that people misunderstand the point of getting a Computer Science degree. At the school I attended, the head of the department was upfront that what the degree would be teaching had nothing to do with any specific stack any specific company was using, learning those things would be up to us individually.

Personally, I ended up dual majoring in computer science and computer engineering. The idea was that the former is the abstract science behind programming (algorithms, complexity, etc.) and the latter is how and why computers actually work. Computer Architecture was probably one of the coolest classes I took in college.

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#277

Post by CellularArrest »

atemerev wrote: post #171
CellularArrest wrote: post #94

I graduated from The Iron Yard in Charleston about a year ago. I had a couple of interviews the week following graduation which didn't turn into anything. Since then I've been continually applying to jobs and trying to put a decent portfolio together. I can't seem to land an interview anywhere. Realistically, I'm aware my lack of a degree and long list of irrelevant jobs are likely getting my resume tossed into the t…

Care to send me a CV? sorhed at gmail

Sure, the info is in your inbox.

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#278

Post by rpeden »

throwzy1234 wrote: post #190
jnmandal wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While thats generally true, it can take years for people to get the hang of developing software, which I would distinguish from just programming.

That distinction clearly doesn't matter to employers. As this thread demonstrates, anyone can make 6 figures after spending a few weeks learning to program. They have every bit as much market value as long time software developers do. It's only a matter of time (a year or two at most) before we're all paid slightly more than janitors - the field clearly (demonstrably) has no barrier to entry whatsoever. Literally any…

I think that certain parts of the developer job market are easy to get into. And in those parts of the market, things feel a bit bubbly right now. And so you're seeing big salaries for new entrants to the market. If you jumped into the market and took a new job, you'd probably be able to match or beat them.

If the dev job market is in a bit of a bubble state, your experience will serve you well when it bursts. This is especially true if you have experience with distributed systems, or database optimization, or any number of complicated things that newcomers to the market aren't as likely to have.

I could certainly be wrong about the bubbliness of the market, though. I've been wrong about things often enough before. :)

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#279

Post by bogomipz »

crispyambulance wrote: post #268
bogomipz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example, 5-10 years as a Certified Public Accountant before working at a fintech company. Or working as a nurse then going to a healthtech company" Can you explain how being a CPA would help give you seniority in a software engineer role at a Fin Tech company or how nursing experience would help give you seniority as a software engineer at a health based tech company? Isn't being "senior" in this context of soft…

Keep in mind that "senior" or other title doo-dads don't really have a fixed meaning. Also, depending on the workplace you may be undervaluing domain experience. Yeah, of course, a taxi driver isn't going to ascend at Uber because of Taxi driver skills. But a high-skilled experienced CPA with a knack for software development could do really well against 20-something SWE's at a fintech company.

>"Keep in mind that "senior" or other title doo-dads don't really have a fixed meaning."

Now your shifting the discussion a bit with the concept of title inflation. I think the intention of "Senior" is very clear with respect to junior and mid-level career stages. It is not a "doo-dad" in the same way that something like "Customer Success Associate" is.

Re: Ask HN: People who completed a bootcamp 3+ years ago: what are you doing now?

#280

Post by gothrowaway »

> Bootcamp grad here who mentioned it prominently in my resume and blogged my experience and put up a YouTube video once a week while I was going through.

Mind telling us who you are so we can take a look at your code and background? YouTube channel and GitHub would be helpful for us in assessing what you learned when you went to the bootcamp.

> I'm not sure who filters out bootcamp grads, but I can say Google, FB, Apple, Netflix, and many many YC companies reached out to me repeatedly and I ended up working at a YC startup.

Why did you end up working at a startup? YC startups are great. But they're still not Apple.

Well you wanted to come in, namedrop all these companies. Despite how popular you are with Google, Apple, Facebook, you don't even manage to mitigate or point out the survivorship bias.

Codecamps spend 24-7 canvassing threads like this shilling to innocent people dreams of 100k jobs and working at Google. The people who get taken advantage of have no voice, and are drowned out.

> I'll also add that my account is 3275 days older than yours and isn't a throwaway. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14520857)

Your HN account age isn't your coding ability.

How about you show us your credentials so we can see?

If not, it's hard to give your account credibility. There had to be a reason why you were such a celebrity with all these companies, have a YouTube, but can't show it.

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