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

medium.freecodecamp.com

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

#201

Post by 59nadir »

seangrogg wrote: post #131
Bartweiss wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this is one of the largest problems facing the bootcamp industry in general: * Other players in the space will likely make the industry look bad * If you graduate the wrong people they can paint your company in a negative light By and large, companies that get a bad university applicant who can't build a web app don't let it paint their experience of universities as a whole. But if the same applicant was from…

Lots of people hold the same view about people who've come straight out of university; they simply can't code at all. I think it's less common nowadays, but it was whined about a lot in a IRC channel I frequented that people who came from university usually had to be taught even the most basic things about actually doing.

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

#202

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

franciscop wrote: post #157
seangrogg wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that there is a considerable amount of loose change floating around in the bay area tech scene that makes it possible for even young companies to pay large salaries to developers. $100k is pretty common for L1 developers, $120k is roughly average for anyone that can show they've built something before. I can't speak to a lot of programs, but HR is roughly 800 hours of cultivating people with "enough exp…

Totally real question, could you please ballpark estimate from a simple glance at my github how much I could be making in the US? I'm curious to know what's there to offer: http://github.com/franciscop/ If you want to adjust it with some extra notes: winner of worldwide NASA competition; degree in Industrial Engineering in Spain with final year project on Neural Networks in Tokyo University; organizer of one of the b…

In Los Angeles, right now, assuming you're qualified to work in the U.S. and speak fluent English, you could easily make $100k at the right company--maybe $130k, which goes a pretty long way. SF, maybe add as much as $20k. In either market, if you're remotely competent, you'd be able to get a job extremely easily.

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

#203

Post by mordocai »

enraged_camel wrote: post #167
mordocai wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

I literally have enough breadth of knowledge to figure out a problem at any level of the stack from top to bottom with some help from google/books. And no, I don't mean finding it on stackoverflow/stackexchange and copying an answer :). This is what I define as working knowledge, that I know enough to be able to debug issues in the subject with help from resources which I also know how to access. Depending on my familiarity with the particular piece of technology and the difficulty of the problem this may take me anywhere from seconds to weeks. I don't just say this either, I have actively debugged issues at most "levels" of the linux application/OS stack throughout my relatively short career so far.

Basically, you give me a problem and I have the tools I need to figure out the solution or root cause without help from any other team members(though help can certainly speed things along). The only question is going to be time.

> 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.

My depth of knowledge in each area shrinks and grows as I need to use it. As said above though, I have just enough depth in every area to "be dangerous" as they say. I certainly have more breadth than depth in most things but I match or beat my peers in depth on the technologies I deal with daily.

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

#204

Post by Jemmeh »

ubersoldat2k7 wrote: post #4

How do you even manage this amount of information? A notebook can help but once you hit the 20 applications mark, it's impossible to know to which companies you applied for.

Spreadsheet for who you applied to, if you've followed up, links to their site, notes on how you applied/if you know anyone, etc. And also Google calendar to make sure you follow up on correct days. "Tuesday call back #29 CoolCompany Inc."

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

#205

Post by seangrogg »

franciscop wrote: post #157
seangrogg wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that there is a considerable amount of loose change floating around in the bay area tech scene that makes it possible for even young companies to pay large salaries to developers. $100k is pretty common for L1 developers, $120k is roughly average for anyone that can show they've built something before. I can't speak to a lot of programs, but HR is roughly 800 hours of cultivating people with "enough exp…

Totally real question, could you please ballpark estimate from a simple glance at my github how much I could be making in the US? I'm curious to know what's there to offer: http://github.com/franciscop/ If you want to adjust it with some extra notes: winner of worldwide NASA competition; degree in Industrial Engineering in Spain with final year project on Neural Networks in Tokyo University; organizer of one of the b…

I've not ever really had my github brought up in interviews nor known anybody else that has. If you could direct me towards a resume, though, I'd be totally happy to try and estimate.

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

#206

Post by Bartweiss »

59nadir wrote: post #201
seangrogg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is one of the largest problems facing the bootcamp industry in general: * Other players in the space will likely make the industry look bad * If you graduate the wrong people they can paint your company in a negative light By and large, companies that get a bad university applicant who can't build a web app don't let it paint their experience of universities as a whole. But if the same applicant was from…

Lots of people hold the same view about people who've come straight out of university; they simply can't code at all. I think it's less common nowadays, but it was whined about a lot in a IRC channel I frequented that people who came from university usually had to be taught even the most basic things about actually doing.

I certainly thought this was the general consensus. People seem to strongly prefer a substantial team project, reputable internship, or prior job when hiring new grads.

Without that, there's too much fear that you'll get someone who doesn't understand code reviews, writes unmaintainable horrors, or is generally inculcated into the write-once, read-never pattern of class assignments.

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

#207

Post by civilian »

paulddraper wrote: post #190
ptmcc wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You live on the other 80%.

By "live", I mean "do the optional parts of life", like vacation, date, spend money on hobbies, rent a place other than the cardboard box under the bridge, etc. The problem with an absolute is its absoluteness.

So, you just need to acknowledge the risk you're taking on. You can "live", but if you lose your job and are unable to get one for 6-12 months, then not having a savings will be a disaster. What if you're disabled? You'll have to hire a lawyer to help you get on SS, and in the meantime you can't break your apartment lease or car payments to dynamically lower your cost of living quickly.

It's just a classic retelling of The Ant and the Grasshopper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper

I've also found that the things you mentioned--- vacation, dates, hobbies, are actually more flexible than you think. Lift tickets make skiing an expensive hobby. But hiking or snowshoeing gives you a somewhat similar experience for much less. You can do some research on yelp and pretty easily control the cost of your dates, and once you're serious with someone, they don't/shouldn't care about you being frugal. Similarly, vacations can be done on the cheap. A vacation doesn't mean a trip to Europe, it could mean finding some cool small town nearby and enjoying it. (I feel pretty ashamed at how little I've explored the Western united states, despite having been to Europe & China.)

I'd also say-- you work as a programmer. If you have friends in their 20s/30s who are non-programmers, you should ask or estimate what they're making. They're probably having as much fun as you for much less.

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

#208

Post by m3Lith »

jonasvp wrote: post #133
cianmm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely not the case in Ireland, and I would imagine the rest of Europe. While there is the odd tax that an Employeer might need to pay on having an employee (probably benefits related), if a job says it pays, say, €60k, that's €60k pre tax. Tax is then deducted from that and you get your payslip which displays both pre and post tax numbers, and you receive the post tax amount.

I don't know about Ireland but that's definitely not true for Germany. While the amount usually talked about in negotiations is pre-tax (since people have differing tax rates due to children, marriage, etc.), there's a significant difference from there to the actual cost to the company. In my company we pay about 25% on top for social security, worker's benefits, health insurance, etc. This is without any company-pro…

Yeah, similar here in Lithuania. You can say there's three salaries a person can be valued at.

There's the official one which you would declare (pre-tax, or "on-paper"), the actual you get (post-tax, or "hands-on") and the one that shows your actual cost to the employer (pre-tax salary + 31% additional tax).

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

#209

Post by jaawn »

mordocai wrote: post #134
jeremymcanally wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because that's what a lot of these bootcamps sell. I've interviewed several grads, and while it's not universal, many of them literally tell their graduates they're going to be better prepared for the Real World™ than their college educated counterparts. Almost like, "You'll be better than a CS grad. All they can do is explain and apply the fundamental thinking process behind all this 'engineering' crap. You ,…

To be fair, for 99% of web development being able to select elements based on their CSS class is seriously way more useful than being able to explain and apply "engineering crap". Pretty much until you get to the point where you need to scale infrastructure you won't use any of your CS degree when working on most web applications.

Also to be fair, learning how to select elements by CSS class is so trivial that it doesn't effectively separate levels of developers. Whether you choose the basic JavaScript version or one from a popular framework, it should take less than a minute to look up if you don't already know it. I imagine that seasoned developers (and possibly recent CS grads, depending on school) are much, much less likely to waste time wondering why $(".myClass") is giving them a "$ is undefined" error in their Angular/React/etc... project.

I might be wrong, I don't have any direct experience with boot camps, but stripping dev skills down to just the minimal, core, practical skills needed to build a working prototype in the language-of-the-month seems like just the latest version of the same short-sightedness that has been plaguing businesses for years. Low-risk, long-term success will always come from building on experience, not "hacks" and short cuts. There will be exceptions/outliers, but they're just lucky, not a model to be copied.

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

#210

Post by sedachv »

seangrogg wrote: post #131
Bartweiss wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this is one of the largest problems facing the bootcamp industry in general: * Other players in the space will likely make the industry look bad * If you graduate the wrong people they can paint your company in a negative light By and large, companies that get a bad university applicant who can't build a web app don't let it paint their experience of universities as a whole. But if the same applicant was from…

> By and large, companies that get a bad university applicant who can't build a web app don't let it paint their experience of universities as a whole. But if the same applicant was from a bootcamp suddenly all bootcamps are terrible sources of any serious talent and they'll never be considered if they're in the applicant pool.

This exact thing happened in the late 1990s with Visual Basic/HTML schools. A bunch of unaccredited for-profit courses issuing certificates and promising jobs sprang up during the dot-com boom and were fairly popular. Everyone I had heard about that attended these things left the industry during the crash. I do not see any difference in the way the "bootcamps" are run or what they promise (the word "bootcamp" is new, though), and I think the outcome will be the same.

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