Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#11

Post by barrkel » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:12 PM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #3

I think the biggest factor causing these bootcamps to go out of business was stated in the article: there is no IT worker shortage. The fact that most of the people attending those bootcamps already held Bachelors degrees strongly implies that. If there was a real worker shortage, employers would be hiring people without degrees and have them do the best they can. I think bootcamps arose as a result of an industry-wi…

There's lots of work for people with skills. Worker shortage under one perspective is a logical impossibility - it just means salaries are too low - but from the other side, there's plenty of things that could be automated that aren't because salaries are too high, hence a shortage.

This is all aside from the difficulty of grading devs to establish different salary levels, of course. I personally don't think my salary is too high ;-)

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#12

Post by ryanmarsh » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:16 PM UTC

"than there are people looking to pay, on average, $11,000 for 12 weeks of intensive training"

...able to pay $11,000 and not work full time for 12 weeks

FTFY

There isn’t really much evidence of a “skills gap”

Except that hiring is nearly everyone's biggest problem in tech and, you know, that whole crazy H1B thing.

Companies and Gov't job programs should be paying for dev schools not poor people. If they did it would all work out fine. As a matter of fact Iron Yard's corporate dev boot camp has been the profitable part of the business for some time.

I'm flabbergasted by this article. I'm not going to waste the time to reply to every one of the ridiculous assertions.

America desperately needs more skilled programmers in almost every market. Dev boot camps can and do get people to work. Many people in the position of needing a dev boot camp can't afford to go without work and pay for it at the same time (or at all).

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#13

Post by lisa_henderson » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:17 PM UTC

Great teachers are expensive. This needs to be emphasized more. Even if there is strong demand for the dev bootcamps, the bootcamps still have to hire great teachers. The teachers are highly experienced developers, the kind of people who could be making something between $120,000 to $160,000. So the schools face some very high expenses.

A comparison might be made to retail. Sometimes you'll see a store that is very busy, full of customers, and then it goes out of business. Why did it fail when it was so busy? Often the reason is that the landlord raised the rent.

High costs can kill an otherwise good business idea.

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#14

Post by ellius » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:19 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #7

There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to start. First, to say there's no skills gap is insanity. I refuse to believe anyone in the industry actually believes that - even the worst bootcamps are placing folks, they just place folks that are not well prepared and shift the burden of training to the company. I'm constantly blown away that some of those people get jobs, and they somehow keep th…

Is there a good way to learn those skills at a professional level outside of a university setting? I feel like I've taught myself a sufficient amount of front end, back end, ops (Docker, IaC etc), but I'm at a loss for how to test my ability with algorithms and data structures, memory management, etc. I've picked up some books, but I don't have a good way to measure my ability or demonstrate it to employers.

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#15

Post by matwood » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:20 PM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #3

I think the biggest factor causing these bootcamps to go out of business was stated in the article: there is no IT worker shortage. The fact that most of the people attending those bootcamps already held Bachelors degrees strongly implies that. If there was a real worker shortage, employers would be hiring people without degrees and have them do the best they can. I think bootcamps arose as a result of an industry-wi…

> there is no IT worker shortage.

There is no junior worker shortage. A bootcamp grad is competing with other bootcamp (100+ boot camps) grads, and people who just self started and got to coding.

Finding mid-level and senior people is actually quite challenging.

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#16

Post by trentmb » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

pjdemers wrote: post #10

People are realizing that even though coding pays well, it's not a job for everyone. We hired 4 people out of boot camps. All had a decent level of skill (of course they did, we choose the 4 we liked out of dozens available). However after a few weeks, two of them left, saying: "there is no f'en way I can do this 40 hours a week for the next few decades". And they went back to their old jobs and old pay.

> "there is no f'en way I can do this 40 hours a week for the next few decades"

Not a bootcamp grad, but I just hit my two year mark a couple weeks ago and want to blow my brains out.

Writing internal web applications is the most mind numbing thing ever. It's gotten to the point where I have so much trouble keeping focused at work.

The real issue is that I have no idea what field I'd pivot into.

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#17

Post by ryanmarsh » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

pjdemers wrote: post #10

People are realizing that even though coding pays well, it's not a job for everyone. We hired 4 people out of boot camps. All had a decent level of skill (of course they did, we choose the 4 we liked out of dozens available). However after a few weeks, two of them left, saying: "there is no f'en way I can do this 40 hours a week for the next few decades". And they went back to their old jobs and old pay.

That sounds to me like a resounding success. 50% of your hires from a 12 week program worked out? Do you realize what that would mean for the country if we could put people back to work that cheaply?

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#18

Post by austenallred » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

ellius wrote: post #14

austenallred wrote: post #7

There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to start. First, to say there's no skills gap is insanity. I refuse to believe anyone in the industry actually believes that - even the worst bootcamps are placing folks, they just place folks that are not well prepared and shift the burden of training to the company. I'm constantly blown away that some of those people get jobs, and they somehow keep th…

Is there a good way to learn those skills at a professional level outside of a university setting? I feel like I've taught myself a sufficient amount of front end, back end, ops (Docker, IaC etc), but I'm at a loss for how to test my ability with algorithms and data structures, memory management, etc. I've picked up some books, but I don't have a good way to measure my ability or demonstrate it to employers.

The free way is of course with books (http://teachyourselfcs.com is a good guide), but if you're looking for a school you could do something like bradfield or something like https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science (disclosure - I'm a cofounder of Lambda School).

As far as demonstrating it to employers, that comes down to the interviewing process, which is in and of itself pretty broken, but they'll probably just ask you a lot of contrived questions about that stuff.

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#19

Post by arcanus » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

lisa_henderson wrote: post #13

Great teachers are expensive. This needs to be emphasized more. Even if there is strong demand for the dev bootcamps, the bootcamps still have to hire great teachers. The teachers are highly experienced developers, the kind of people who could be making something between $120,000 to $160,000. So the schools face some very high expenses. A comparison might be made to retail. Sometimes you'll see a store that is very b…

What is the average boot camp instructor salary?

Re: Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?

#20

Post by acdha » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

ryanmarsh wrote: post #12

"than there are people looking to pay, on average, $11,000 for 12 weeks of intensive training" ...able to pay $11,000 and not work full time for 12 weeks FTFY There isn’t really much evidence of a “skills gap” Except that hiring is nearly everyone's biggest problem in tech and, you know, that whole crazy H1B thing. Companies and Gov't job programs should be paying for dev schools not poor people. If they did it would…

> America desperately needs more skilled programmers in almost every market.

Outside of a few hotspots like SF, do offered wages really back that up? It's good being a developer but it certainly doesn't look like a desperate shortage.