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Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

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Re: Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

#41

Post by theaccordance »

kzisme wrote: post #38
theaccordance wrote: post #35

I've been a bootcamp instructor for the last 2 years and have seen the full spectrum of students come through in that time; it's not so much about the programs themselves but rather the students as individuals. Some have a better understanding of their career goals and are more dedicated than others, and it typically reflects on the placements they'll receive after completing the program. IMO it's no different than t…

What does the general curriculum cover in a bootcamp? I'm just curious to compare it to the traditional 4 year degree etc.

Bootcamp curriculum is specialized to a career path, you can't compare it to the whole of a traditional 4 year degree. If anything, it relates closest to a declared Major/Minor within that 4 year degree.

Re: Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

#42

Post by woah »

danpalmer wrote: post #14
bshimmin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it probably depends massively on the skills and experience of the person attending the bootcamp. If the extent of their technical skills is being able to make a good-looking Powerpoint, then I'd be astonished if 12 weeks were enough to make them even minimally employable (unless they really are some kind of eidetic wunderkind); if, however, they had a hobbyist's knowledge of - let's say - a few web technologi…

This is the thing. I could imagine hiring a person with a basic knowledge in that set of stuff to work on a typical startup Rail app. Great. But if the company decided that they needed a new component that would be a standalone Java service (or whatever), I a) wouldn't feel confident that the person would be able to pick up Java in a reasonable amount of time, and b) wouldn't trust them to structure the application i…

I wouldn't trust a recent cs grad to do that either, if the language wasn't Java.

Re: Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

#44

Post by 3pt14159 »

ldd wrote: post #19

so, um, as someone who has considered entering into a bootcamp program, I have a question: Why are there so expensive? (10k is more than what I am paying for my BSc degree at McGill)

Canada genearlly has 3 to 1 subsidies for studies. For my program (Engineering at Waterloo) It cost me $12k per "year" (per two semesters) all in (books, coop fees, tuition, endowment fund, lab fees) and it cost the government about $30k over the same period. Which means the overall cost of my degree was around $170k. I was also able to claim back the taxes on a portion of what I paid, so the total cost is slightly higher.

Looked at from this lens, $10k isn't much for a program that will give you skills to earn about the same salary after a year of work that a physical sciences engineer can attain.

Re: Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

#46

Post by kendallpark »

danpalmer wrote: post #2

I'm also interested in this question, not because of the issue of saturation, but more because I am skeptical that a bootcamp that lasts ~12 weeks could teach someone enough to be a professional software developer.

I think there are strengths and weaknesses to the approach.

I got a BS in Computer Science from liberal arts school with a theory-focused CS department.

Pros:

- I developed a very strong sense of code smell. Intuition. My department cared about elegance and good coding practices. I used to be a TA and my prof even had a couple points dedicated to "style" on his grading rubric. I don't think this is something you can pick up in 12 weeks, but at the same time, there are plenty of college CS programs that don't teach best practices.

- Algorithms. Data structures. Systems. Math. Yeah, I probably never have to write out a proof as to why a program is O(nlogn) again but not all programming jobs are full-stack dev stuff. These subjects are a lot more difficult to teach yourself than just reading a book about Javascript. There are a lot of careers in programming that require strong theoretical CS knowledge. Go to Glassdoor and look at the interview questions for entry-level programmers at Google or Amazon.

Cons:

- Didn't know anything about industry practices. None of our professors had ever held a job in the industry.

- Teaches "irrelevant" stuff. Now, this is a commonly cited as an issue with traditional education. I actually disagree because you never know what's going to be relevant in your future. If you go after a specific subset of the field from the start ("I am going to be a full-stack developer") you are inherently limiting your future. You don't know what you don't know. And you don't know if that's something you're missing out on because you never tried it.

Re: Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

#47

Post by vonmoltke »

airwot4 wrote: post #8

I've come across many developers who have been through the bootcamp process. Some were great, some less so. The worst thing that bootcamps can do is to encourage developers to simply "pad" their GitHub accounts with exercises in order to have used as many technologies as possible. I've seen developers bragging solely about the number of repos and commits they have in GitHub. Generally speaking though, some people com…

> The worst thing that bootcamps can do is to encourage developers to simply "pad" their GitHub accounts with exercises in order to have used as many technologies as possible. I've seen developers bragging solely about the number of repos and commits they have in GitHub.

Industry hiring practices are encouraging this; bootcamps are simply keying their students into it.

Re: Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

#48

Post by ldd »

woah wrote: post #43
ldd wrote: post #19

so, um, as someone who has considered entering into a bootcamp program, I have a question: Why are there so expensive? (10k is more than what I am paying for my BSc degree at McGill)

McGill is subsidized right?

It is subsidized in the sense that local (Quebec students) pay less than Canadian students and significantly less than international students.

Re: Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

#49

Post by austenallred »

ldd wrote: post #19

so, um, as someone who has considered entering into a bootcamp program, I have a question: Why are there so expensive? (10k is more than what I am paying for my BSc degree at McGill)

There are full time bootcamps in Utah that include housing that are 9k. 12 weeks.

Re: Ask HN: Those who hired bootcamp graduates, would you hire them again?

#50

Post by Lawtonfogle »

danpalmer wrote: post #2

I'm also interested in this question, not because of the issue of saturation, but more because I am skeptical that a bootcamp that lasts ~12 weeks could teach someone enough to be a professional software developer.

Unless a bootcamp graduates 100% of those who sign up and has no filters on who may apply, there is some selection effect. Even without these there is some selection effect in just the people having to choose to attend.

If you took 100 random people and put them in a coding bootcamp, I would expect far worse results.

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