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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

#211

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

throwawaysbdif wrote: post #21
Slackwise wrote: post #7

This whole hardcore quizzing and testing during interviews has to go. As far as I can see, all it does is create selection bias for people who memorize things or like to practice interview questions. Maybe that's just me being too old for that kinda' crap.

I have been interviewing the last couple months and have the same opinion. I've been coding for years and have some pretty complex stuff up on my GitHub. I quickly found out that nobody looks at your GitHub, maybe 10% max. didn't matter that I had code from two weeks ago that did complex segmented locking on a concurrent hashtable. still got asked "what is threading" level questions at every place. After botching my…

Can confirm. I interview candidates on a regular basis. Company policy that we never invest time in checking a candidate's GitHub. But I do anyway.

Because of the startling amount of people unable to explain the code in their repositories, I've found code quality / problem complexity / stack similarity alone to be a worthless metric. On the other hand, I've found it to be invaluable to get candidates to explain their code and why they made the decision that they did. It's exactly how a practice assignment works, except candidates are much more passionate about the choices and have invested more time in the project overall.

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

#212

Post by logfromblammo »

Sorry_Rum_Ham wrote: post #143
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…

I mean, call it what you will, but a lot of these people are getting offers, man. Good ones. Which is more than I can say for myself with my comp sci degree and two years experience. Although my location is likely to blame for that.

More than I can say for my BS CS plus 17 years.

As I have had 7 different jobs for 12 different employers (due to mergers/acquisitions, by the most generous count), and have needed to run the entire interview gauntlet all 7 times, my primary career goal is no longer to earn more money. It is to never have to do another effing software-industry interview, ever again.

But damn. For $120k/year, in the region where I now live, I might just put Expo2 to whiteboard one more time.

I get tired of justifying my own existence to people who are only pretending to care that I am not actually a human-form automaton to crank out code. In short, the software-industry interview has always been stupid, but it has also become increasingly arrogant and rude. Is it really worth it to put up with the crap-on-you parade for a few more measly dollars in the paycheck?

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

#213

Post by chrisbennet »

iamatworknow wrote: post #135
chrisbennet wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the boot camp grad is still going to be a junior developer but I can kinda see where someone with a "vocational" (code camp) educated applicant might actually be more productive than a college educated applicant for certain jobs. To use an imperfect analogy, who would be better at actually building houses; a vocational school grad (who built houses all day as part of his education) or a college educated archi…

True, but when I think of "junior" or "entry-level" anything I think of someone with no real world, on the job experience, and that applies to boot camp and college grads. Boot camps might very well be better than college programs in terms of preparing someone to use development tools and methods as opposed to focusing on the theory behind them, but at the end of the day, you're still not doing "real" work where your…

Oh, I agree. For one thing, Senior engineers have lots of failures under their belt. Another trait of Seniors is knowing when "good enough" is good enough for the task at hand vs. the "best" way they were taught in school.

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

#214

Post by hn_user2 »

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…

I was taught:

For the first 2 years, live on 50% of your income. Eat Ramen, coupons, live like a begger, and save up 1 year of income.

Then divide that by 12 and use that as a salary for a year while collecting another year. Repeat. Steady income, always a year behind.

Of course this was back when I was trying to go into film. A bit more unstable than software development.

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

#215

Post by jaawn »

chrisbennet wrote: post #106
iamatworknow wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the part I didn't understand at all. You go through a CS program for 4 years or more and end up as a junior developer and that's fine, but if you go through a 12 week coding bootcamp you're somehow more qualified and shouldn't be "benchmarked against junior developers"? I do realize I'm making an assumption that there was no prior CS experience before the bootcamp, but isn't that the crowd they're targeting?

I think the boot camp grad is still going to be a junior developer but I can kinda see where someone with a "vocational" (code camp) educated applicant might actually be more productive than a college educated applicant for certain jobs. To use an imperfect analogy, who would be better at actually building houses; a vocational school grad (who built houses all day as part of his education) or a college educated archi…

This is a fair point, but most vocational programs last years not months, so that is where the analogy breaks down here. I think "vocational" code schools offering 2-year degrees would be very, very attractive as an alternative to a traditional CS degree (both for students and hiring managers), but that's not what we're looking at.

According to a quick Google search, the average program length for these boot camps in 2015 was 11 weeks. That is on par with a single semester at a university. Even if you take a heavy course load of only practical CS courses, one semester is not nearly enough to prepare someone fully for a full-time dev position at top-tier companies. Sure, they may be able to answer the interview questions...but then what? I'm pretty skeptical of this trend and don't see it ending well for most of the boot camp graduates or companies who hire a large number of them.

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

#216

Post by sushid »

AlexC04 wrote: post #2

well first thing - that code at the top can be simplified. function getDevJob(studying, hardwork, luck){ return study && hardwork && luck; } But more seriously - I actually really like point #2. I firmly believe that job interviews have a strong bias towards people with experience doing job interviews. Your "offer-ladder" seems to confirm that for me. It reminds me of that freakonomics article about how real estate a…

Looks like your refactor could use a test or two :p

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

#217

Post by pwm »

atemerev wrote: post #71
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 don't know how anybody would stay in London (or move to London) given local software engineer salaries for non-financial projects. I was once offered a role of Scala software engineer with £45000 starting salary. I assumed it was a joke, but it wasn't.

Most experienced devs are contracting.

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

#218

Post by AlexC04 »

sushid wrote: post #216
AlexC04 wrote: post #2

well first thing - that code at the top can be simplified. function getDevJob(studying, hardwork, luck){ return study && hardwork && luck; } But more seriously - I actually really like point #2. I firmly believe that job interviews have a strong bias towards people with experience doing job interviews. Your "offer-ladder" seems to confirm that for me. It reminds me of that freakonomics article about how real estate a…

Looks like your refactor could use a test or two :p

OMG - you're 100% right and I've already passed the "you're still allowed to edit or delete this post" time limit imposed by HN.

This is going to be a black mark on my OCD coder's soul for the rest of time. A code typo immortalised next to my name.

/sigh.

There's a lesson for me... Never. Ever. Attempt to be clever on hackernews.

Thanks for pointing it out.

... I wonder if HN mods would be willing to spare me this suffering. Undoubtedly a waste of their time.

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

#219

Post by iainmerrick »

linkregister wrote: post #94
TorKlingberg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two years ago $120k was just £77k (still good). Salaries are famously sticky as a number, and do not change quickly when currencies move after events like Brexit.

It makes sense they wouldn't; have costs of living in London increased since the referendum? I was under the impression rents and real estate values were down.

Financial journalists are warning that the cost of goods and services are likely to rise, e.g. Robert Peston: https://twitter.com/Peston/status/798482965856546816

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

#220

Post by nanodano »

ARothfusz wrote: post #89

> Coming out of Hack Reactor, my weaknesses were data structures and algorithms. ... > At Hack Reactor, we’re trained to mask our inexperience. In our personal narratives, we purposely omit our bootcamp education. I fail to see how they prepared this student for a career in software development. Sounds like they get a Masters in technobabble.

I had the same thoughts. Programming is nothing BUT data structures and algorithms. Being weak in those two areas basically means you are weak at programming. He also talked about how he didn't like they immediately equated him to a junior dev when realizing he only had bootcamp experience. IMHO, a bootcamp is essentially like taking one elective at university on making web apps.
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