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What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

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Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#41

Post by swampthinker »

jypepin wrote: post #34
austenallred wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before tax, $30,000 maximum, and currently only available in the US for a variety of reasons.

It's an interesting idea, but according to software engineering average salaries, seems like that "cap" will most of the time be met, making the cost of your bootcamp way higher than most. I don't really get the "it's costly argument" since it is still education, and most education (at least in the US) and usually way more expensive than that. I paid 10k upfront for 3 month bootcamp and got a job in a few weeks. Beca…

I'm going to second what the parent said just to reinforce it. $10k is a crazy amount of money for most Americans to drop for a purchase with that much uncertainty.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#42

Post by katpas »

austenallred wrote: post #23
pulpwave wrote: post #18

I used to teach front-end development at a bootcamp several months ago. What once was a great opportunity to share my 15 years of experience with various startups and fortune 500 tech companies ended up being a nightmare with management. First and formeost, I liked most of my students. They came from all kinds such as: Background Actors, wives of programmers, students, military veterans, teachers, and a hodgepodge of…

The incentives for the bootcamp model are just so completely broken. You suck in people with promises of a career, have them pay $10k each, and if they don't get a job it's somehow their fault. It's really hard for word of mouth and reputation to kill a bootcamp because the demand outstrips supply right now. You could really suck, buy users with advertising, and make a killing for a looooong time. I truly hope the fu…

At the course I did the model was the education is completely free, if you then get a job afterwards you're expected to let the bootcamp try to get a recruiter fee from the company that hires you.

Or you stick around, freelance out the space on the projects they help you find and then give them a 10% contribution of those earnings and also teach the next cohort how to code.

Seemed to work pretty well.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#44

Post by heisenbit »

twoshoes wrote: post #39

Companies here value skills in specific programming languages/tech stacks over skills in core Computer Science. They are hiring bootcamp graduates (who are overall weaker), over stronger applicants, just because the bootcamp graduate will hit the ground running quicker. It makes learning Computer Science in university less valuable, since university graduates lack knowledge in specific programming languages/tech stac…

I really don't care whether one knows Angular or CPU schedulers on day one. What I care is whether one has done programming and can listen. Knowing and doing are two different things and I found knowledge a poor predictor of ability to do - plenty of threads here on challenges of IT interviews. Knowledge gaps are relatively easy to fix but ability to analyze complex issues and then create solutions always felt to me a more innate capability. CS degrees are proof of ability to execute a longer project and having analytical skills. That is worth something but does not proof ability to craft new stuff or work in a team which are also vital.

Hiring is taking risks and hiring from boot-camps is likely riskier. Cost is lower and depending on the job, project, business and hiring managers risk profile one or the other decision makes sense.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#45

Post by lr4444lr »

My kitchen is a disaster. My whole house is just a mess. Anything that is not directly related to [the bootcamp] or to keeping me up and functioning, just goes by the wayside. […] I don’t remember the last time I had a shower.

Hmm. Maybe the bootcamps do give you a more realistic preparation than I had previously thought.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#46

Post by gaius »

alexashka wrote: post #13
badminton1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with self-guided learning are knowledge gaps. When you are learning on your own you will be biased towards things that interest you more. But the boring stuff is as important in the real world. You can interview a candidate that can impress you with fairly advanced concepts described in depth. But you may feel disappointed if probing for gaps... Sometimes having gaps in certain concepts come with risks. A…

I'd rather someone have theory gaps, than toolchain gaps where the person googles how to do every other feature asked of them and ends up copy-pasting from stack-overflow in the interest of time. If a project calls for knowledge in theory - hire one person who knows that aspect, and can either handle it, or teach it to others. The rest should be people who know their craft. Finding those is hard enough.

Too much theory and not enough practice is obviously a problem, but not having a solid mental model of the computation you want to do mapping to the underlying is far worse, or not knowing that want you want is a solved problem and trying to hack up your own rather than using it.

Who would you rather hire, someone who knows what a logistic regression is but has to look up the API calls, or someone who doesn't and tries to write their own classifier from scratch, but doesn't need to look up any syntax?

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#47

Post by watwut »

gaius wrote: post #46
alexashka wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather someone have theory gaps, than toolchain gaps where the person googles how to do every other feature asked of them and ends up copy-pasting from stack-overflow in the interest of time. If a project calls for knowledge in theory - hire one person who knows that aspect, and can either handle it, or teach it to others. The rest should be people who know their craft. Finding those is hard enough.

Too much theory and not enough practice is obviously a problem, but not having a solid mental model of the computation you want to do mapping to the underlying is far worse, or not knowing that want you want is a solved problem and trying to hack up your own rather than using it. Who would you rather hire, someone who knows what a logistic regression is but has to look up the API calls, or someone who doesn't and tri…

That question can be answered only if I know what position you are trying to fill. Some jobs are more suitable for one kind then others.

I don't mind new hire to not know API either way - senior programmers should be used to working with APIs they don't know. Tech changes constantly.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#48

Post by watwut »

twoshoes wrote: post #39

Companies here value skills in specific programming languages/tech stacks over skills in core Computer Science. They are hiring bootcamp graduates (who are overall weaker), over stronger applicants, just because the bootcamp graduate will hit the ground running quicker. It makes learning Computer Science in university less valuable, since university graduates lack knowledge in specific programming languages/tech stac…

I see a bit of problem with it too.

However, someone who learned "about memory management, virtual memory, I/O subsystems, CPU schedulers" should have easy time to get up to speed in same stack as bootcamp graduate. Bootcamp graduates have to learn basic concepts during bootcamp (that computer follows instructions, how conditions and loops work, how to debug systematically, how to split task to smaller ones, etc). CS graduate shold match them in short time.

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#49

Post by paulpauper »

A year and a half ago, my wife, Kristen, was an English teacher. Now she is a full-time software engineer at Microsoft. I followed her journey with excitement as she went from writing her first “Hello World” program, then her first full stack web app, to getting an apprenticeship and finally a full time job.

Damn that is impressive

Re: What I Learned from Researching Coding Bootcamps

#50

Post by Fifer82 »

paulpauper wrote: post #49

A year and a half ago, my wife, Kristen, was an English teacher. Now she is a full-time software engineer at Microsoft. I followed her journey with excitement as she went from writing her first “Hello World” program, then her first full stack web app, to getting an apprenticeship and finally a full time job. Damn that is impressive

Is it a case of who you know?
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