What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp • Hacker News Board

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#161

Post by seangrogg » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

vibrato wrote: post #108

cagataygurturk wrote: post #78

So whoever hired the guy should feel bad. He explains the strategy to boost his payroll, he was hiding the bootcamp he was attending and he was showing himself as experienced dev. And also why would you hire someone if 300 other companies were not interested in that person? Ironically his lack of experience shows itself even in the first fancy function he writes on the blog post. Would not this unnecessary if block b…

how could a company feel bad?

Because companies (at least corporations) are people according to tax law, silly. =)

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#162

Post by irrational » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

jmeister wrote: post #46

dood wrote: post #6

Are people in America seriously getting offers of $120k with no degree, no experience, and not even a side-project? That is mind-blowing. In London, probably the biggest/richest market outside of USA, that sort of salary is beyond what most experienced developers get, even some very good ones. I must be missing something here (some sort of bubble?) because I can't see how businesses can be profitable paying those sor…

I think it's a combination of two factors: 1. Programmers have lower status in the UK relative to the US - UK is more status/class conscious in general whereas US is more about money/productivity/impact. 2. Due to a bigger entrepreneurship culture in the US the opportunity cost for programmers is higher and that drives salaries higher across the board.

>UK is more status/class conscious

Can you give an example of what this means? I'm a programmer and I have friends that are mechanics, lawyers, teachers, doctors, accountants, electricians, radio engineers, server-cpu designers, etc. Some of us live in McMansions while others of us live in 1 bedroom apartments or anything in between.

Would our jobs determine what status/class we belong to in the UK? Or is this based more on your family background (aristocracy)? In the UK would we not be as likely to be friends if we belong to different status/classes?

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#163

Post by ThrustVectoring » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

jankedout wrote: post #136

bluedino wrote: post #120

>> I applied to 291 companies, did 32 phone screens, 16 technical screens, 13 coding challenges, 11 on-sites, and received 8 offers. How much time would that take? Figure 15 minutes per company - 4,365 minutes, or 72 hours. And that's time just spent finding the company, changing around a cover letter, and then emailing it and responding etc. 32 phone screens? Let's say 30 minutes each, that's 960 minutes, or 16 hour…

I can't believe he sent out that many solicitations. With an air of smugness, I'm glad I busted my ass in high school to go to a top CS school. I've probably sent about 30 resumes in my life and gotten phone interviews for all but one, offers from 15. Regardless, I'm glad to see that developers who go to bootcamp can get phenomenal salaries. I have a few friends going through them now.

You probably haven't sent out ambitious enough solicitations. Like, if your response rate is that good for CS roles, you likely could have busted your ass for getting multiple competing offers from companies with gigantic piles of cash, or much more senior positions, or finding a business co-founder with good skills and connections.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#164

Post by linkregister » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

dood wrote: post #6

Are people in America seriously getting offers of $120k with no degree, no experience, and not even a side-project? That is mind-blowing. In London, probably the biggest/richest market outside of USA, that sort of salary is beyond what most experienced developers get, even some very good ones. I must be missing something here (some sort of bubble?) because I can't see how businesses can be profitable paying those sor…

The median for software development in San Francisco is about $120k [1]; this means that even experienced developers are getting paid around this amount. Sort by the highest salary and you'll see Twitter, Dropbox, etc.

It looks like Square starts at about 100k for a new grad (uni degree). Seems high but it's more credible than $120k for a bootcamp grad.

Remember that median rent for a 1 bedroom in a non-trendy area is around $2900/month [2,3] and taxes should take about 39% of salary at that level of income. It is far more expensive to live in San Francisco than most of Europe.

1. http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=software&city=SAN+FRAN...

2. https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/San_Francisco-California/...

3. http://sf.curbed.com/2016/9/23/13034910/san-francisco-rent-a...

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#165

Post by seangrogg » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:15 PM UTC

ryanmccullagh wrote: post #129

I wonder how much Live Coding he had to do. I've been interviewing like crazy lately, and I've learned I hate live coding, and "thinking out loud". You're in a room with your laptop hooked up to the monitor, and 2 people are watching you code. Any small typing mistake or mouse movements can be a negative on your review. Live coding should die.

I've done this twice and both times it was a pretty positive experience on the whole, but I made sure to be really open about stuff and ask questions where I thought they were appropriate. I would imagine the experience really comes down to the company, the interviewers, etc - but I figure if they're going to be watching me code it's now pair programming and I treat it as such.

That being said, tech interviewing in almost all current forms sucks and we need a better method. As has been said for years now.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#166

Post by lloyd-christmas » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:15 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #114

bertjk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His profile indicates that he graduated from UC Berkeley and previously pursued I-banking, so I wouldn't exactly call that "no degree, no experience." Also, a good coding bootcamp, properly applied, can easily be worth more than a typical random "side project", IMO.

That's a huge point. "Code bootcamp" can mean a huge variety of things. At its best, it often means "technical, business experienced, just transitioned into intensive software study", which is an enticing candidate. At its worst, it means something like "paid $50k to learn basic Javascript". Lumping those two together makes it really hard to draw any conclusions about experience.

The average age in my class was 28. People weren't ex-baristas. They were people from various backgrounds, often technical-related. I was a Math and Econ double major with a minor in applied statistics, then spent 6 years in finance doing equities trading. I was drastically more qualified than the average 22 year old with a CS degree.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#167

Post by enraged_camel » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:15 PM UTC

mordocai wrote: post #137

krosaen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would definitely distinguish between html / css / javascript and server side application code, be it in ruby or python, I just didn't think working on the server side application logic completed the "full stack". To me full stack means you are into the systems a bit too and would be capable of setting up the stack itself (and perhaps enhancing it, or setting up custom batch systems), not just working effectively wi…

I call myself full stack and mean what you mean. I typically have to explain that when I say full stack I mean "literally full stack" as in I have a working level of knowledge with every piece of the system from hardware/kernel to networking to databases to application. I do agree that when people use the term though they just mean "I can code in a backend and a frontend language".

>>when I say full stack I mean "literally full stack" as in I have a working level of knowledge with every piece of the system from hardware/kernel to networking to databases to application

That seems like an impossible definition to fulfill by most humans today, though. I mean, how "deep" do you take it? Pre-processed code? Assembly code? Object/Machine code?

Computers today (especially server-based systems) are so massively complex that I don't see anyone possessing working knowledge of "literally" the entire stack.

And then there's the question of the depth of one's knowledge. I'd argue that the more you spread it out, the thinner it gets at each level of the stack, just by virtue of the fact that one has only so much time to spend on learning, practicing and keeping their skills up-to-date.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#168

Post by nikanj » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:17 PM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #154

Rainymood wrote: post #115

On a related tangent, this is why it is so important to have a so called "Emergency fund"! An emergency fund is a little bit of money (often 1-6x average monthly expenses) such that if you get canned you can survive for 1-6 months without having to work so you can focus on applying for jobs and getting a new job without having to stress when your next bill is due. I agree that 6 months living expenses is on the high…

Depending on how often you expect to need an emergency fund and what the relevant interest rates are for illiquid saving (eg: paying down student loan debt) and unsecured borrowing, it may make more sense to have your emergency fund in an unsecured line of credit or credit cards. Example with made-up numbers: Suppose you spend $2000/mo, you have an unused line of credit of $10000 @ 10%, your student loans are at 5%,…

Make sure to be diligent in checking the terms for that LOC. Many banks reserve the right to cancel it if there's substantial change in your financial situation, e.g. if you were to lose your job.

Make sure your emergency fund remains accessible if you get into an emergency.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#169

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:19 PM UTC

seangrogg wrote: post #149

krosaen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would definitely distinguish between html / css / javascript and server side application code, be it in ruby or python, I just didn't think working on the server side application logic completed the "full stack". To me full stack means you are into the systems a bit too and would be capable of setting up the stack itself (and perhaps enhancing it, or setting up custom batch systems), not just working effectively wi…

The term "full stack" often only seems to denote someone with both front- and back-end experience; anything below the server application is often considered the domain of "operations". I do think it would be nice if the term carried more meaning, but given most companies are running their systems on top IaaS/PaaS offerings from Amazon/Google/Microsoft/etc and tend not to care about things beneath the application laye…

> anything below the server application is often considered the domain of "operations"

So people who write operating systems and virtual machines are 'operations'? I don't think that makes sense.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#170

Post by MikeKusold » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 8:21 PM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #148

dmitrygr wrote: post #110

> A study by Triplebyte has found that bootcamp grads are weaker in these areas than computer science grads. Really?! Who'da thunk? > At Hack Reactor, we’re trained to mask our inexperience. In our personal narratives, we purposely omit our bootcamp education. Hm... > Why? Otherwise, companies automatically categorize us into junior developer roles or tag us as “not enough experience.” And you think that after a few…

Given the people I've interviewed who had extensive "fundamental" "CS" "education", vs. the people I've worked with who've done bootcamps, I'll take the bootcamp any day of the week and tell the CS folks to get a refund from the university, because the CS folks straight up can't code on average.

I guess that would depend on if you are looking for a programmer or an engineer.