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BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

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Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#41

Post by PragmaticPulp »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #37
awb wrote: post #6

Has anyone had success hiring bootcamp grads? I’ve interviewed dozens and their resume will say something like “Fellow at [bootcamp]” or “Instructor at [bootcamp]”, and it turns out they made a simple programming 101 app and taught a 1hr intro to JavaScript class. None have ever passed an initial screening by me for mid level dev jobs, but I’m curious if anyone else has hired a bootcamp grad for a junior role and had…

I recently advertised a role and had over 2000 applicants (yes, really). The vast majority of applicants went through bootcamps. Personally, I'm fine with that, heck, I'm Head of Engineering and I'm a university drop-out i.e. didn't even complete a course! One thing that irked me was bootcamps that have clearly told students to mark on their CV that they were somehow employed at the bootcamp. When I'm getting 50+ app…

> One thing that irked me was bootcamps that have clearly told students to mark on their CV that they were somehow employed at the bootcamp.

I've seen this, too. At some point, everyone coming out of certain bootcamps was an "instructor" rather than just a graduate. I suspect one of them is running a scheme to have their own grads teach their own classes for reduced tuition.

I second the cover letter section. GitHub goes a long way, but it needs something unique. I know exactly what projects are taught at local bootcamps because they're in every single bootcamp grad's GitHub profile. Show me something you worked on by yourself.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#42

Post by IggleSniggle »

awb wrote: post #6

Has anyone had success hiring bootcamp grads? I’ve interviewed dozens and their resume will say something like “Fellow at [bootcamp]” or “Instructor at [bootcamp]”, and it turns out they made a simple programming 101 app and taught a 1hr intro to JavaScript class. None have ever passed an initial screening by me for mid level dev jobs, but I’m curious if anyone else has hired a bootcamp grad for a junior role and had…

I’m coming from the other side of things. I was a non-programmer with a programming passion that used programming as a part of my work voluntarily, but didn’t know the first thing about the kind of programming that companies hire for.

I took a coding boot camp when I decided to leave academia to join industry, and it was a useful primer on the “in” technologies that folks would be hiring for, and of the “style” of code that was fashionable at the time. I would not have hired any of my classmates (well, I might have hired one as a junior), but the bootcamp did what I needed it to do, exposing me to the “culture” of programming at tech companies.

I was hired as a mid-level and quickly progressed to senior at a large global tech company. I have been at a few different tech companies now and haven’t run into any major challenges or problems, and have only received positive feedback from my peers and managers.

If I were evaluating who I was then as a potential hire today, I’d probably consider me a risky hire with unknown potential. I think it helped that I had a number of usable “products” that I had made over the course of my career as a solo programmer that didn’t really fit any mold. I also think it helped that I didn’t have any trouble with basic algorithm brain teasers, finding them sort of fun at the time I was interviewing. I’ve never tried leetcode but I suspect I’ve only seen leetcode “easies.” Thankfully I haven’t had to do any of that for any of my subsequent jobs as I don’t think I’d have the patience for it anymore.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#43

Post by AlbertCory »

I interviewed a number of veterans & spouses for Operation Code:

https://operationcode.org/podcast

Not all were bootcamp grads; a lot went to traditional 4-year colleges. One guy said that in his bootcamp, several of the students had a job offer before they even finished.

Things may be different now, a few years later, but we tend to underestimate how many regular old businesses need a web site and some kind of analytics. They don't pay like FAANG companies and they can't hire the sort of people who'd work there.

Edit: I should have mentioned that one of Operation Code's signal achievements was to make code schools eligible for GI Bill money. I found, in asking vets why they enlisted, that "paying for college when you get out" is a big, big motivator. There are some who study remotely while they're still in.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#44

Post by mritchie712 »

ucm_edge wrote: post #20
awb wrote: post #6

Has anyone had success hiring bootcamp grads? I’ve interviewed dozens and their resume will say something like “Fellow at [bootcamp]” or “Instructor at [bootcamp]”, and it turns out they made a simple programming 101 app and taught a 1hr intro to JavaScript class. None have ever passed an initial screening by me for mid level dev jobs, but I’m curious if anyone else has hired a bootcamp grad for a junior role and had…

I hire them and give them a task somewhere between support engineer that executes well documented code snippets in run books and junior engineer that does very basic CRUD web app development. Making internal dashboards for the customer success team, etc. Give them about 32 hours of work a week and 8 hours of tutorials on other things. Build them up from there. I still lose about 35% of them. A combo of firing for lac…

Do you build those apps from scratch? Or are you using something like Retool?

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#45

Post by sbisker »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #37
awb wrote: post #6

Has anyone had success hiring bootcamp grads? I’ve interviewed dozens and their resume will say something like “Fellow at [bootcamp]” or “Instructor at [bootcamp]”, and it turns out they made a simple programming 101 app and taught a 1hr intro to JavaScript class. None have ever passed an initial screening by me for mid level dev jobs, but I’m curious if anyone else has hired a bootcamp grad for a junior role and had…

I recently advertised a role and had over 2000 applicants (yes, really). The vast majority of applicants went through bootcamps. Personally, I'm fine with that, heck, I'm Head of Engineering and I'm a university drop-out i.e. didn't even complete a course! One thing that irked me was bootcamps that have clearly told students to mark on their CV that they were somehow employed at the bootcamp. When I'm getting 50+ app…

I’ve noticed that a lot of bootcamp grads are, in fact, legitimately hired by their bootcamps - just not to write code. They are often brought on term by term as TAs until they find work.

I suspect this practice is a bit disingenuous of the bootcamps, a way to pad their “successfully employed” rates while keeping labor costs low. But it is hard for me to fault the candidates for putting those experiences in their resume. They need that money to keep their job searches going, and recruiters are always biasing against gaps on the resume.

If you’re being paid by them for any reason, put it on your resume. (And if you’re not…move it to the education section, where it belongs.)

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#46

Post by SamReidHughes »

vcsmjk wrote: post #3

Glad to see this, Lambda School is extremely scummy. Can’t be bothered to operate legally, and lied about it: https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1211717254712135680?lan... I really think that the law should be changed so that doing stuff like that would have been a prison term for the CEO (Allred).

Ah yes, prison for trying to teach something useful across a zillion regulatory domains, sinecures for administrators at “real” universities while students rack up piles of debt for English degrees.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#47

Post by ramraj07 »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #46
vcsmjk wrote: post #3

Glad to see this, Lambda School is extremely scummy. Can’t be bothered to operate legally, and lied about it: https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1211717254712135680?lan... I really think that the law should be changed so that doing stuff like that would have been a prison term for the CEO (Allred).

Ah yes, prison for trying to teach something useful across a zillion regulatory domains, sinecures for administrators at “real” universities while students rack up piles of debt for English degrees.

Just because one route is rotten doesn’t validate alternate scummy routes. Cops are rotten so drug dealers are good? Lol.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#48

Post by andrew_gs »

awb wrote: post #6

Has anyone had success hiring bootcamp grads? I’ve interviewed dozens and their resume will say something like “Fellow at [bootcamp]” or “Instructor at [bootcamp]”, and it turns out they made a simple programming 101 app and taught a 1hr intro to JavaScript class. None have ever passed an initial screening by me for mid level dev jobs, but I’m curious if anyone else has hired a bootcamp grad for a junior role and had…

I hired a bootcamp grad and she's doing well. She did already have a mechanical engineer degree though and did program as part of that degree and so has a good mindset for solving problems. I hired her explicitly as a junior role though, I can't imagine hiring a bootcamp grad into a mid-level role directly - that would seem to be setting them up to fail?

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#49

Post by [deleted] »

awb wrote: post #6

Has anyone had success hiring bootcamp grads? I’ve interviewed dozens and their resume will say something like “Fellow at [bootcamp]” or “Instructor at [bootcamp]”, and it turns out they made a simple programming 101 app and taught a 1hr intro to JavaScript class. None have ever passed an initial screening by me for mid level dev jobs, but I’m curious if anyone else has hired a bootcamp grad for a junior role and had…

[deleted]

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#50

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

sbisker wrote: post #45
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently advertised a role and had over 2000 applicants (yes, really). The vast majority of applicants went through bootcamps. Personally, I'm fine with that, heck, I'm Head of Engineering and I'm a university drop-out i.e. didn't even complete a course! One thing that irked me was bootcamps that have clearly told students to mark on their CV that they were somehow employed at the bootcamp. When I'm getting 50+ app…

I’ve noticed that a lot of bootcamp grads are, in fact, legitimately hired by their bootcamps - just not to write code. They are often brought on term by term as TAs until they find work. I suspect this practice is a bit disingenuous of the bootcamps, a way to pad their “successfully employed” rates while keeping labor costs low. But it is hard for me to fault the candidates for putting those experiences in their res…

Good bootcamps won't need to pad their employment numbers, because they'll be producing good quality candidates. So all you're really doing is highlighting the fact you went through a lower quality bootcamp. There's so many bootcamps I don't know which ones are legitimate and which are scams. Without that signal on the candidate's CV, I'd have no idea where the one the candidate has been through ranks. However, to me that's a clear indication that the bootcamp (or perhaps the candidate) are dodgy.
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