I'm curious how you are contractually obligated to join the team for 18 months. What about salary, benefits, etc. While this could be a great opportunity, I would feel uncomfortable not knowing what package I would be getting after the 5 months. For all I know, they could pay us 10K for 18 months of work with no benefits.
Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
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Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
No guarantee it will be high-paying, and the word "required" implies that at some point in this process you become beholden to your educators. They certainly don't want any applicants taking the paid education and leaving, so I can imagine some print, fine or otherwise, indemnifying a worthy student (one who is offered a job) should they not fulfill this 18-month requirement.
Still sounds better than dumping 4 years and $160K on a normal degree and then finding no jobs afterward. I've got a friend now who is a cook in a kitchen. I've been trying to convince him to learn Ruby. This is a killer thing for him. He's making like $12/hr now. Even a "bad" paying programming gig will surely beat that.
You're comparing an intensive 5 month apprenticeship to getting a university CS degree. My personal view is that neither will prepare you for a job as well as just building stuff in your free time.
Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#53How much do you get paid to fill out the application?
I love the idea that you're "edgy" and thinking outside the box, but honestly, have you really thought your application process through?
As an ugly introverted nerd who still has trouble getting a date, but builds killer software apps and loves doing it, the last thing I ever want to do is spend multiple days in order to enter your beauty contest.
So you'll end up choosing the prettiest people who present the best and write the prettiest code regardless of how important or influential it is.
You'd just be better off bringing everyone in for the first week of the class. By the end of that week, you'd have a much better idea of who would succeed in your program than your seemingly random method of choice.
I've written lots of cool stuff and would love to learn Ruby in what appears to be a great program like yours, but I'm just not hungry enough to subject myself to more superficial rejection. There are already plenty of women around for that.
Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#54Ah, if only this was more realistic to us full-time students out there.
Nonetheless, the concept sounds very fresh and exciting, and I hope this spawns a Summer variant for people my age!
Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#55This is similar to another Ruby development training opportunity posted last month, Dev Bootcamp
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3267133 http://devbootcamp.com
Summary of differences I see so far are that Hungry Academy:
- has a different tuition sign (they pay you rather than you pay them).
- is for one employer rather than whoever they can connect you with.
- is in DC rather than the Bay Area.
- is 5 months rather than 2.
Both promote themselves as being compatible with those who have no programming experience, and have an ambitious learning schedule.
(Sidenote: I was accepted for the Feb-March cohort to devbootcamp.)
Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#56I've always disliked the term "hungry," usually it seems to be meant literally, ie. "we know you currently can't afford to eat, and we're going to exploit your weak position mercilessly." Not to say this is necessarily what's going to happen here of course, but be careful boys and girls.
LivingSocial started with the name "HungryMachine" and one of the company's core values is "Live Hungry" -- that's the inspiration.
We don't want to exploit anyone, hah. In fact, it's quite the opposite -- we want to bring more people into this ridiculously bountiful world of software development.
Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#57I loved the program and the proposal.
As for the form, how about asking for HN users or githut accounts. They say more than a cover letter.
And was I the only one that didn't really got excited with the video? I rather get more leadership from the mentors when selling the idea.
Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#58How much do you get paid to fill out the application? I love the idea that you're "edgy" and thinking outside the box, but honestly, have you really thought your application process through? As an ugly introverted nerd who still has trouble getting a date, but builds killer software apps and loves doing it, the last thing I ever want to do is spend multiple days in order to enter your beauty contest. So you'll end up…
We're engineers -- not pretty people. We don't care what your face looks like, but watching you explain who you are and what you're good at can give great insight into your personality.
The application is more about whether you feel like a good fit for the team than it is your programming skills. It doesn't mean "do you look good", it doesn't mean "is your English great," and it doesn't mean "Does this look like I 'expect' a programmer to look?"
We're trying to find out "is this a person I want to spend every day of my career with?"
We'd LOVE to bring everyone out for one of our in-person sessions, but are expecting a thousand applications for our 24 spots. Getting all those people in one place would be a massive undertaking and a huge waste of time for the 976 who aren't selected.
Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#59Is the job salary negotiated before the program? I feel like it must be hard to accurately judge someone's programming value before they learn how to program. What happens if, at the end of the 5-month program, they offer you a desperately low-paying salary? Have you wasted 5 months and moved to DC for nothing?
Something tells me that after making it though a program like this, you'll have plenty of job options, with the one from Living Social just being one.
Those others don't matter though because by going through the class you've signed on for an 18 month stint with LivingSocial.
Re: Hungry Academy - get paid to learn Ruby
#60I loved the program and the proposal. As for the form, how about asking for HN users or githut accounts. They say more than a cover letter. And was I the only one that didn't really got excited with the video? I rather get more leadership from the mentors when selling the idea.
Check out the instructions for the application and you'll see that, if you're a developer, we specifically ask for a project posted on Github.
Sorry you didn't dig the video. I'm happy to have one where I don't say "Damn, I look stupid/fat/messy/blah" :)