341–350 of 357 posts
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We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14523374 and marked it off-topic.
Why? To add to it, did you hell-ban me? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14525098 That had 3 points.
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I'm glad you had a good experience, but I'm uncomfortable with your analysis here. If plenty of folks enter a boot camp and wash out because they aren't prepared, I don't think that's much about the students. I think that's a huge failure on the part of the boot camp program. The theory of boot camps is that you turn anybody who qualifies into somebody basically competent. E.g., US military boot camp drop out rates a…
>I don't think that's much about the students. I think that's a huge failure on the part of the boot camp program. If you want a silver bullet for success, go to an ivy league or similarly-pedigreed school. There are plenty of people graduating from the top schools that burn out on their programs, but still get into successful gigs based on the reputation of their degree, and the connections they made. Didn't study h…
I am fine with the programs being hard. But these programs should only accept students who are likely to make it through. If they create a hard program but take anybody who can write a check, then it's a badly run school.
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There is a YouTuber I like to watch sometimes because he occasionally uploads videos demonstrating really unique and high level programming skills. His day job? A bus driver. I saw that in the comment section of YouTube, people always ask him "why don't you go code for a job and make tons of money!". His response is that coding is something loves to do, and he wouldn't want to risk losing that love for it, by making…
I believe you're referencing Bisqwit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bIcbnDXSRg
That guy is awesome. I love all of his videos.
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 think senior titles in general are given out too easily in the software industry. Compared to many other professions and industries, the idea of anyone -- bootcamp graduate or not -- being senior within 3 years is kind of laughable. That's not to say it doesn't happen in other professions, but it's often reserved for the truly exceptional -- being considered senior within a few years of starting your career is for…
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Why? To add to it, did you hell-ban me? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14525098 That had 3 points.
We banned you quite explicitly ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529059 ), because you violated the HN guidelines repeatedly. That's not allowed here. Personal attacks are particularly unwelcome.
I'm not happy about how that thread went down. I'm not going to breath more life into it.
As for the subthread, there's a two hour limit to edit/delete, heh. I had an email draft open about removing one of the subthreads.
I'd like to be able to go back to edit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14519547 and just let people know what free resources exist w/o the bootcamp comments.
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>I don't think that's much about the students. I think that's a huge failure on the part of the boot camp program. If you want a silver bullet for success, go to an ivy league or similarly-pedigreed school. There are plenty of people graduating from the top schools that burn out on their programs, but still get into successful gigs based on the reputation of their degree, and the connections they made. Didn't study h…
This seems pretty much unrelated to what I was saying. I am fine with the programs being hard. But these programs should only accept students who are likely to make it through. If they create a hard program but take anybody who can write a check, then it's a badly run school.
I hope you can see how the above disagreements are still related... It seems self-evident, no?
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Couldn't agree more. A bootcamp dev with 3 years coding experience might have 7 years of professional experience they are building on. I know several bootcamp devs with very relevant backgrounds too. 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.
>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…
Both get hired at a FinTech company. Is software developer A or B more likely to rise to the level of "senior" in the next 5 years? I'd say B... Already has tons of domain specific knowledge that will help him focus solely on the technical issues at hand (instead of trying to understand how Balance Sheets work or something), has 7 years experience as a working professional and all the soft skills associated with this, and has experience as a manager.
IMO, too many SWEs think that the technical stuff is the only aspect to their job. Often (depending on company size, etc) there are many, many other skills required to be a successful employee.
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There is a YouTuber I like to watch sometimes because he occasionally uploads videos demonstrating really unique and high level programming skills. His day job? A bus driver. I saw that in the comment section of YouTube, people always ask him "why don't you go code for a job and make tons of money!". His response is that coding is something loves to do, and he wouldn't want to risk losing that love for it, by making…
I believe you're referencing Bisqwit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bIcbnDXSRg
What are you doing now? I'm a front-end developer at an NYC unicorn. I used to work full-stack but I think backend work is boring to me. I also run a consultancy where I build random projects for clients. So far, I've built an iOS app and a couple one-off web apps. I am on my third job. I left the first because I didn't like AdTech, then I worked in media, and now I work in a nerdy infrastructure monitoring company. I finally feel like I found a fit.
Do you feel that the bootcamp prepared you for the jobs you got? It was necessary and the best RoI I have ever gotten on anything in my life.
Do you think most of your cohort are still working as developers? Yes. Most of them are on their first or second job. My cohort had about 14~ people and they went to Google, Tumblr, couple into regular startups(Finance, Health, AdTech), and a few at unicorns. I don't know anyone who graduated who didn't find a job. A couple people got kicked out for doing badly in the bootcamp, like 1 or 2. I haven't followed up with the people kicked out.
I mainly learned Ruby/Rails at my Bootcamp but I'm pretty much only writing functional JavaScript (ES2017/Sagas/Redux) now with a hint of Python (2.7). I straight up love my job. I've flirted with a bunch of stacks throughout my jobs: Angular, Rails, PHP, Scala...and found I like working with Python/JS the best...
My only regret is going to a bootcamp so focused on Ruby, but at the time the financial model was the only viable decision...and I don't think any bootcamps existed yet that were focused on JavaScript.
The only real critique I have of the bootcamp is I also wish I would have more career guidance. My career has progressed financially but I am not sure that I am doing the right thing, whereas if I had an extensive network from university I could compare/contrast, talk to fellow alumni, brainstorm career ideas, etc.
I'm kind of on my own career-wise. I already got my 10x+ RoI, which is more than my uni education gave me, and a better lifestyle.
I've also helped 3 friends go to a bootcamp and they've ended up at Hack Reactor or App Academy. All of them have jobs. I think going to a bootcamp is fine as long as you pick an extremely selective one like a/A or Hack Reactor.