11–20 of 76 posts
I'm a graduate from a bootcamp, and I can quite confidently say my company would hire again. I've been there almost a year and feel as if I contribute a significant amount to the team. Feel free to ama
Would you feel confident in starting a job at a company that used a language you don't already know?
I'm also interested in this question, not because of the issue of saturation, but more because I am skeptical that a bootcamp that lasts ~12 weeks could teach someone enough to be a professional software developer.
Everything I learned in class, I could have taught myself. However, working with others and having built-in schedules and accountability helped me learn what I may never have followed through on alone. Also, being guided toward achievable milestones is immensely valuable. In those ways and others, the course helped maintain my motivation. And, as inevitably happens when learning something completely new, I encountered some hurdles. Usually, it was worth working through those problems myself. But there were one or two that I encountered that stymied me, and might've killed my momentum. Having access to fellow students as well as the instructors was invaluable in those times, and allowed me to continue learning.
Most importantly for me, the course gave me some level of credibility. I had an atypical background and, while development was something that interested me, I didn't see my resume getting any traction. Code Fellows gave me an in, and allowed me to show what I was capable of - that is ultimately what got me hired and has brought me success since. Since being hired, my salary has almost doubled and I have risen from an entry-level position to an architecting role in one of our top teams. If that sounds unlikely, I've had trouble accepting it myself. All it has shown me is that there are ample opportunities for capable people who are willing to put in hard work.
Finally, hiring. It is difficult to find good developers for entry positions. It isn't that hard to find experienced developers, if you're willing and able to pay. But new devs are difficult to sift through. Many look good on paper - maybe they left a good impression at a meetup, or their GitHub profile looks solid, etc. However, it is amazing how many of those people really are... not a good fit. Bootcamps have helped us to weed out those we aren't interested in, and given us a slate of candidates that have a much better chance of working out.
Edit: So, you can't say that a candidate is a good or bad hire based on which bootcamp they attended.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose it would teach them the bare minimum to where they'd be at a teachable state on the job and potentially contributing soon thereafter, but yeah, it has to be pretty rough for both parties.
I think it probably depends massively on the skills and experience of the person attending the bootcamp. If the extent of their technical skills is being able to make a good-looking Powerpoint, then I'd be astonished if 12 weeks were enough to make them even minimally employable (unless they really are some kind of eidetic wunderkind); if, however, they had a hobbyist's knowledge of - let's say - a few web technologi…
But if the company decided that they needed a new component that would be a standalone Java service (or whatever), I a) wouldn't feel confident that the person would be able to pick up Java in a reasonable amount of time, and b) wouldn't trust them to structure the application in a good way, as they just don't have the experience building real things.
I'm also interested in this question, not because of the issue of saturation, but more because I am skeptical that a bootcamp that lasts ~12 weeks could teach someone enough to be a professional software developer.
I felt that in my CS degree program I didn't really learn a lot that set me up to be a professional software developer either. It made me do some coding and learn some algorithms, and gave very basic familiarity with how computers work, but that's about it. The coding projects were, in hindsight, pretty pathetic compared to what I can do now. I wish the program had forced us (or tricked us) into becoming more mature…
I'm a graduate from a bootcamp, and I can quite confidently say my company would hire again. I've been there almost a year and feel as if I contribute a significant amount to the team. Feel free to ama
What was your programming experience like before the bootcamp, and then after it? What sort of depth did you learn to? Would you feel confident in starting a job at a company that used a language you don't already know?
I'm a graduate from a bootcamp, and I can quite confidently say my company would hire again. I've been there almost a year and feel as if I contribute a significant amount to the team. Feel free to ama
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was your programming experience like before the bootcamp, and then after it? What sort of depth did you learn to? Would you feel confident in starting a job at a company that used a language you don't already know?
Before the bootcamp, I new basic HTML and CSS. I'm now working as a rails dev, with lots of work in JavaScript too. That would entirely depend on the company and the language. So I guess that says something. I wouldn't feel confident in a company that mainly uses functional languages, as I'm mainly used to OO principals. In saying that, it's not something I wouldn't want to learn
Why are there so expensive? (10k is more than what I am paying for my BSc degree at McGill)
Absolutely would hire again. Not just because he's damned skilled for a "junior" but the commitment to give up everything and haul ass across the world says something that coding literacy can't.