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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

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were your lawyer I would advise you to delete this comment as it would likely be used against you in court as proof of your pattern of misrepresentations. But you do you, I guess. At any rate enough people have been made aware of your lies that the harm you can continue doing is limited.

I will happily defend everything I’ve said in a courtroom if necessary.

No post body was provided.

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

#102

If I may comment on the abstract: I don’t get these bootcamps. I’ve been programming for 30 years and I still feel like there’s another 60% of the craft to learn. More data structures, algorithms, functional strategies, large system architecture, read/write fanning, I’m just getting into websockets now. The list goes on. These people are getting hired as programmers? To do what?

Several of my relatives are Mechanical Engineers.

In that field, it seems typical to have both engineers and technicians working on projects. Engineers are responsible for design, and have degrees; Technicians do assembly and maintenance, and only need on-the-job training.

I’ve often wondered what our industry would look like if we adopted a similar distinction. In which case, bootcamp graduates would be a natural fit for a technician role.

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

#103

If I may comment on the abstract: I don’t get these bootcamps. I’ve been programming for 30 years and I still feel like there’s another 60% of the craft to learn. More data structures, algorithms, functional strategies, large system architecture, read/write fanning, I’m just getting into websockets now. The list goes on. These people are getting hired as programmers? To do what?

People hire junior devs everyday. These people are at least a prepared as most of the folks coming out of CS programs. And are definitely more prepared than I was.

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

#104

If I may comment on the abstract: I don’t get these bootcamps. I’ve been programming for 30 years and I still feel like there’s another 60% of the craft to learn. More data structures, algorithms, functional strategies, large system architecture, read/write fanning, I’m just getting into websockets now. The list goes on. These people are getting hired as programmers? To do what?

Graduated from a boot camp in 2014 and I can confidently say I did not learn a ton(3 months 5 days a week) but it did reinforce my desire that I wanted to be in the field and that I wanted to learn more. In some ways the whole thing is a money grab, but when I went in to my first job interview after the bootcamp(which wasn't even a junior dev role, it was a bit lower on the rung), they gave 0 craps about my 4 year undergrad degree and we instead had a lengthy conversation about my bootcamp experience(I did end up getting that job).

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

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I still lose about 35% of them. A combo of firing for lack of ability and the devs getting upset and leaving when promotions and raises come slow. I've had similar problems. We've had some bootcamp grads who were good to work with and acknowledged that they were still very junior. We've also had some bootcamp grads who felt entitled to mid-range to senior compensation after their first year, while still getting the…

Their bootcamp should have added the caveat: at a FAANG

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

#106

I graduated Lambda School and currently have been hired and work in a software position. I don't encourage people to go to... Bloomtech they're calling it now. AMA. I was earlier in the life of Lambda. I got what I needed out of it but I watched a lot who didn't.

Why weren't lambda grads able to get good jobs? I think that was the main controversy. Was it the instruction or what went wrong there?

Most of the people I saw get successful were people were people doing like... extra stuff outside of the classes. They were taking what they learned and applying it. Others organized groups of people, and essentially formed a small support network of people in a similar position. I completely understand that not everyone has the time for that.

I think two things happened over Lambda's life span that effected the quality of the teaching. The first was the initial pool they advertised too. I think I saw the post on Hacker News before everywhere else. I'd wonder if you're more selective from already technical people at the beginning and then sorta widening the net as time goes on to include more people if you could get initial big numbers push followed by more ok numbers.

The instructors I met were all great. I think a lot of that flack went more towards later cohorts or alternative program from the main full webstack track.

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

#107
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…

The range of quality is extremely high in bootcamps. I've interviewed many bootcamp grads the median quality is pretty low. However, I went through a bootcamp (Code Fellows in Seattle) and almost my entire cohort went on to eventually join a FAANG, technical co-founder, or something fairly prestigious. The curriculum, the teaching style, and the aptitude/ drive of the cohort matters a lot.

Fellow bootcamp grad here.

This is what drives me nuts. My bootcamp has a legitimately high placement rate (90% hired as SWE or dev within 90 days), that is audited externally, but somehow it is in the same category as something that takes 1/4 the time with a legitimately terrible curriculum.

There needs to be some better differentiator for vocational training.

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

#108

I graduated Lambda School and currently have been hired and work in a software position. I don't encourage people to go to... Bloomtech they're calling it now. AMA. I was earlier in the life of Lambda. I got what I needed out of it but I watched a lot who didn't.

> AMA. Were you aware of YC before attending Lambda (ie, did the association lend credibility to Lambda) or did you find YC after attending?

I was doing help desk, but I was pretty plugged into tech news. I was on hacker news and saw the initial post here by Austin himself. It seemed like a good idea and much better then what I was doing in the time. I was frugal and had expenses saved up to go a year at it. At the time I knew YC was involved and I think it did lend an air of legitimacy to a super new concept.

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

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve never met a single boot camp person, and absolutely zero staff engineers are boot camp grads that I know of, unless they scrubbed it from their LinkedIn and never talk about it. This comment has the same energy as the person I once worked with who told me (a lesbian) with total confidence that they'd never met a gay person before. Just because you aren't aware doesn't mean it's not happening all around you. It…

Can also confirm worked at multiple faang never seen anyone with a bootcamp. Sorry to break it to you but It's pretty rare.

I personally know people from my one bootcamp that have worked at Google and Apple. That’s without having looked to see if there are others I don’t know.

People tend to play down their bootcamp experiences because of stigma associated with it. It’s possible that there are bootcamp grads that don’t mention it because a lot of people think lesser of them.

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

#110
post #10
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…

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