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As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

nytimes.com

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Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#91

Post by omouse »

seibelj wrote: post #22

We made a conscious decision to try and hire someone from these camps as an experiment. I went to their demo day and winnowed the graduating class of 40 down to 6. Of the 6 we interviewed we decided to give 6 month internships to 3 of them, 2 developer and 1 qa. Despite being hourly with minimal benefits, they were making the yearly equivalent of 50k a year which I found more than reasonable given the fact they had n…

How much additional training and mentoring did your organization provide to these juniors? It seems a lot of companies are expecting that fresh grads will be able to be independent or get the job done from the get-go; that's not what universities or bootcamps are there for, they're just a solid foundation to build upon.

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#92

Post by ritchiea »

seibelj wrote: post #22

We made a conscious decision to try and hire someone from these camps as an experiment. I went to their demo day and winnowed the graduating class of 40 down to 6. Of the 6 we interviewed we decided to give 6 month internships to 3 of them, 2 developer and 1 qa. Despite being hourly with minimal benefits, they were making the yearly equivalent of 50k a year which I found more than reasonable given the fact they had n…

It definitely matters what bootcamp and what the devs backgrounds were before the bootcamp. But I'm also curious what kind of work they struggled with.

For instance so much work is getting data from a form or API, doing something with it and rendering HTML (styled by CSS and maybe adding some jQuery to polish the UI) that I wonder how much advantage a CS major has over someone who is not a CS major but is a good analytical thinker (like an English major who plays chess or an analytical philosopher). Good analytical thinking is not exclusive to CS or to STEM. I don't think CS majors have a big advantage over your typical good analytical thinker until you get to large scale applications where N is huge.

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#93

Post by Nicholas_C »

paulpauper wrote: post #84

Companies cannot hire fast enough. Glassdoor, an employment site, lists more than 7,300 openings for software engineers, ahead of job openings for nurses, This agree with the post-2008 hollowing out of the middle theme - lots of of opportunities for high-IQ employment (coders) and the polar opposite: low-paid service workers and bedpan changers. It's like if you're IQ is not in the top quartile, go directly to the lo…

Is this post satire?

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#94

Post by cairo140 »

bcassedy wrote: post #56
cairo140 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just sharing my experience here: I've been hiring in SF and found some boot camp grads, usually stronger but still far from mid-career, with expectations around 90-115k. Most of these folks got hired (some of them to us/away from us with offers all in that range). These were folks who were months to years away from hitting the ground running, and the value of the offer was entirely on their future potential. I found…

Just curious, how do you define "hitting the ground running"

Roughly, someone who at the start can work independently on an existing business-critical[1], medium-sized[2] app to first fix bugs without adding major tech debt[3] and then take features from planning to deployment/maintenance, and then ultimately (6-12 months, since we were a very small shop), independently steer architecture and be solo on call.

[1] hundreds of thousands in sales a day [2] around 10-50k LOC, but a far cry from the greenfield toy apps that bootcamp devs spend 90% of their time with [3] position: relative and z-index: 100 fixes many UI bugs, but if a dev has that as a main piece of their toolkit, you take on UI code debt or drag down the team to steer solutions in the right direction.

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#95

Post by mooreds »

robalfonso wrote: post #74
mooreds wrote: post #48

I for one think this trend is great. We need more developers. But... I lived through the last boom when it seemed anyone who could spell 'java' was hired as a developer. (OK, it wasn't that bad, but there was definitely a giant sucking sound as folks were pulled into technology for the money.) I hope this time is different.

I think we need more good developers. 100% you can get a great developer from this education channel, but that person would be good whether they came to you via a code school or a more traditional route. I also think people should be encouraged to better themselves and work towards higher paying careers. That said, as someone who hires engineers the signal to noise ratio continues to go up. It makes it that much hard…

Hard to argue that we need more good developers. In my experience, some component of 'good' is experience, some is aptitude, some is knowledge, and some is willingness to grind. The code schools can take care of the latter two (depending on the quality of the school).

Sorry to hear that the signal to noise ratio is going up. That is probably due to more people being pulled into the profession (just as it was 15 years ago).

> Flooding the market with folks though just makes it more challenging for those hiring.

All other things being equal, wouldn't you want a larger candidate pool? I have done some hiring and while it was a grind to screen applicants, that beat the pants off of not having any applicants.

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#96

Post by joedavison »

a3voices wrote: post #46
chadgeidel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once everyone can read and write, then what? We live in a computer age. Knowing how to program is no longer a "specialized skill", it's mandatory (on some level) to effectively interact with ever more complex systems that run our lives.

Mandatory in what sense? Most people get by without having to code anything more complex than an Excel formula.

"Most people" cannot code an Excel formula.

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#97

Post by robalfonso »

mooreds wrote: post #95
robalfonso wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need more good developers. 100% you can get a great developer from this education channel, but that person would be good whether they came to you via a code school or a more traditional route. I also think people should be encouraged to better themselves and work towards higher paying careers. That said, as someone who hires engineers the signal to noise ratio continues to go up. It makes it that much hard…

Hard to argue that we need more good developers. In my experience, some component of 'good' is experience, some is aptitude, some is knowledge, and some is willingness to grind. The code schools can take care of the latter two (depending on the quality of the school). Sorry to hear that the signal to noise ratio is going up. That is probably due to more people being pulled into the profession (just as it was 15 years…

Well if you're letting me order it the way I want it, I wan the candidate pool to be infinite and to all be extremely qualified :)

What I'm actually finding is the candidate pool is getting larger but the quality hires are about the same. Ostensibly this is a function of the pay rate pressuring people to join the hiring pool.

>All other things being equal, wouldn't you want a larger candidate pool? I >have done some hiring and while it was a grind to screen applicants, that >beat the pants off of not having any applicants.

No argument, I have played that game and its not fun.

For the sake of argument though if we look at the total number of candidates you want to hire (1) then any pool size over one does create more work as it grows (I'd like to avoid that if at all possible :) ). Assuming the individual that matches your criteria is in your pool at all (again an oversimplification).

I also can't stress enough aptitude as a component of a good dev, which you alluded to. I've never seen a dev who was great (whether self taught/code school/cs degree who had no aptitude for the work.

I've also seen people with tons of aptitude and no credentials absolutely own people with phd's and masters degrees in a tough problem.

Before we had colleges/code schools there were always engineers, how do you think we got the wheel?

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#98

Post by vonmoltke »

hiharryhere wrote: post #79

There are Plumbers, Plasterers and Bricklayers... and there are structural engineers. There's a need for both kinds of coders. I'm all for it. Not all places need a CS genius, most just need someone with the skills to use established frameworks and tools. Doesn't make you a bad programmer.

> Not all places need a CS genius, most just need someone with the skills to use established frameworks and tools.

Unfortunately, many of them think they need a CS genius, or only want to hire them for the prestige of having an elite workforce.

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#99

Post by bcassedy »

cairo140 wrote: post #94
bcassedy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, how do you define "hitting the ground running"

Roughly, someone who at the start can work independently on an existing business-critical[1], medium-sized[2] app to first fix bugs without adding major tech debt[3] and then take features from planning to deployment/maintenance, and then ultimately (6-12 months, since we were a very small shop), independently steer architecture and be solo on call. [1] hundreds of thousands in sales a day [2] around 10-50k LOC, but…

That certainly sounds like a more senior role.

My take on bootcamp grads (I am one), is that the purpose is to make them a competitive or superior option to a fresh CS grad. How does that expectation compare to your experience?

Re: As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change

#100

Post by mycelium »

ryandrake wrote: post #83
duderific wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is really hard to find talented developers. I am a developer who interviews developer candidates at my company, and we only end up giving an offer to maybe one in five candidates. Our standards are fairly high but not ridiculously so. We are desperate for developers, but not to the point where we want to hire someone who we feel like would be dragging us down.

Instead of hiring a developer that would drag you down, did you consider offering more money? When people say there's a shortage of developers, or that they find it really hard to find developers, my guess is that they have to add "at the salary I'm offering" to the end of the statement. I was car shopping a few months ago, and I found there's a dire shortage of brand new $10K BMWs.

Is $150k for a strong full-stack midcareer developer really like trying to get a $10k BMW? What compensation range would you shoot for?

We're shopping in that compensation range and my experience has been exactly like cairo140's above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9964934

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