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Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

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Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#81

Post by doktrin »

greenyoda wrote: post #80
doktrin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's driven by the amount of material that students need to ingest over a 3 month period. As sciguy noted, this is totally normal in academic settings as well. For instance, OS (15-410) at CMU requires 70+ hours a week. That's a single class. These are of course completely different animals, but the scale of learning is similar. Getting a solid intuition for not only web applications but programming fundamentals when…

Just because CMU does it too doesn't mean that it's reasonable. Students who are stressed out and sleep-deprived aren't going to be learning effectively - there's lots of research that indicates that sleep is necessary for forming long-term memories.[1] Better to split the course into two semesters. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_and_Memory

You've touched on an important point. Namely, that bootcamps actually can't very feasibly split or extend their curriculum. It's not a coincidence that most of these schools offer 10-12 week sessions. Moving past that and the logistics of relocation, tuition, expenses & health care become much more difficult to manage.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#82

Post by mr_spothawk »

dasil003 wrote: post #23

I've only worked with one bootcamp grad, but I've done a fair bit of hiring over the past 15 years, including a number of junior folks. My main concern with bootcamp grads is that it is not much of a positive signal. My (admittedly biased and unscientific) sense is that you really have to be hopeless to flunk out. The training period is so short that the assignments are necessarily small and limited in scope, so they…

> you really have to be hopeless to flunk out.

Are you assuming that you can get into the camp as a hopeless flunky? That may be true for some bootcamp environments but is certainly not the case for all of them.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#83

Post by blairbeckwith »

I hired one. She got rejected from my company for a developer position, but I hired her for my team anyways for a hybrid business development/programming role.

This was ~2 months ago; she's learned enough in two months that we're going to hire her at the end of her contract as a full-time Rails developer. I'm not sure that the 10 week bootcamp was enough for her to pass our screening, but in the two months she's been here she's more than proved herself as capable.

As a business guy, I can't comment much on why she was denied originally, but so far it's worked out.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#84

Post by famousactress »

joesmo wrote: post #79
famousactress wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'd kindly submit that those people are completely fucking it up. I also doubt you're correct about "most". Again, I'm hiring you holistically.. not your ability to program. I think especially if your ability to program is a new facet to your otherwise rich and interesting existence then you're hurting yourself not sharing more.

Unfortunately, what you want goes against every single source of resume advice I've ever read. In fact, I'd like to see a source that doesn't advise against it. It's likely that the candidates are reading the same material and thinking that this is what employers want. IMO, the advice is spot on. The only things under consideration in a hiring decision should be things that directly reflect one's skills as pertaining…

> In fact, I'd like to see a source that doesn't advise against it.

I just gave you one :) As far as legality, there's an enormous difference between wanting to know how someone approached and what they learned from a previous career (or school, or serious hobby, etc.) and crossing the line into discrimination. It's not that difficult.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#85

Post by yizzerin »

jcdavison wrote: post #65
fishtoaster wrote: post #25

I worked with a Dev Bootcamp grad who had worked at a consultancy of some sort for 8 or 9 months before joining our company. It was definitely an interesting experience. I've worked with a number of fresh college grads, and I more or less know where they tend to be weak/strong. The dev bootcamp grad was pretty much the opposite of a college grad. He was strong with our specific tools (rails), good development practic…

i'm a dev bootcamp grad and I feel like you just described me well, but i'm very crafty with products and am very business leaning (mba as well), though I haven't had too much trouble doing things in js, my data structure/algo stuff is weak and I care about improving it.

check out the Algorithm Design Manual by Steven Skiena. It's fun, accessible and very practical.

Re: Ask HN: If you worked with a grad from a code bootcamp, how effective were they?

#86

Post by johnsmithbob »

nathan-wailes wrote: post #69
throwaway_camp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have encountered a number of people who share your sentiment, that attending a bootcamp is a negative signal. I went through one of these bootcamps after a few years of learning on my own. While it was an awesome experience and I learned a lot, I find it necessary to pretend it never happened - it's as if the years I spent teaching myself and my passion for the subject are undone by association with a bootcamp.

Have you not encountered people with the opposite sentiment? I'm in your same situation (but I haven't gone to a bootcamp yet) so I'm wondering what I should do.

I suggest not going, but at least be careful which one you pick. We've interviewed a bunch of people from General Assembly LA and none of them have the right kind of experience for us to hire, so now we don't really consider anyone whose only experience is GA.

Have you tried applying for jobs? Working anywhere >> going to a dev bootcamp (with the possible exception of NYC Hacker School, which seems incredibly impressive and self-motivated)

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