Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#111

Post by kschmit90 » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:33 PM UTC

jplahn wrote: post #108

kschmit90 wrote: post #91

I went to a coding boot camp in Omaha, Nebraska of all places. Less than a month out of the school I was offered a job paying $55,000 a year salary at a large insurance company. They primarily use Java and Groovy. The bootcamp taught Ruby on Rails. Maybe I got lucky, but I've found that the ability to code is slightly less important than one's ability to speak about programming/code in general. If you can read and un…

> "If you can read and understand documentation, understand fundamental concepts like OO or functional paradigm, and understand what a stack is, a closure, recursion, the difference between an integer and a float, or a character and a string, methods/functions, etcetera, you are more or less hireable." I'm sure this is true for many positions, but I'd resist the temptation to cast this across the broader job market.…

Just out of curiosity, what do you consider to be significantly deeper? Would you mind offering up an example or two?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#112

Post by wlesieutre » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

rememberlenny wrote: post #9

jaredsohn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Our experience was good. We wouldnt do it again. I assume you mean 'would do it again'?

No.

The confusion here probably comes from the past tense phrasing. "We wouldn't do it again" strongly implies "If we were in the same situation as before we wouldn't do the same thing."

It'd be more clear to say "We probably won't do it again," I think. And if you did end up needing multiple entry-level hires, it sounds like you would be open to a similar approach?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#113

Post by Bahamut » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:42 PM UTC

methodover wrote: post #93

bsimpson wrote: post #57

I was a freelance web developer for a few years (utilizing skills I picked up growing up) when one of my clients hired me to come on-board full-time for my first salaried position. My supervisor wanted me to build a team, so he had me right a job req. I sent it to him, and he sent it back with the addition: "Bachelor's degree in CS". I pointed out that, not only is my degree not-in CS, but I would probably be dissuad…

Wow. I feel like you're more likely to get a poor non-CS candidate this way. i.e., you're more likely to get a non-CS candidate who isn't good at reading instructions, or isn't honest. I myself wouldn't apply for a job that asked a BS in CS, as I don't have one. The best case is still awful: The company is being dishonest about its requirements. Which if they're dishonest about their requirements, who knows what else…

Most companies will add the "Bachelors in Computer Science, or the equivalent" with maybe a caveat of it being a technical equivalent or something similar - this is to home in that it is an engineering job.

In my workgroup, I think only one has a degree in computer science - at least two don't have any degrees, one of them being an excellent senior engineer. I have a masters in math myself, and I usually gloss over the bachelors in CS requirement since my work speaks for itself. I don't think most companies really care about the degree unless they have an obstinate manager.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#114

Post by bduerst » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:42 PM UTC

coolsunglasses wrote: post #78

JimboOmega wrote: post #58

When I was interviewing over the summer, the VAST majority of candidates I got for my mid-level rails position were from one of these bootcamps. I'm willing to give anyone a try, and so I interviewed a lot of them over the phone, and gave nearly all of them the coding exercise. Which they almost universally failed to complete. Still, I wound up hiring one as very junior. And that's exactly what she is. I don't have t…

Would you mind sharing the exercise? I'm writing a book and would like to know the pass-rate of my students.

It probably uses propriety data/code, making it difficult to share.

If not though, I second this request.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#115

Post by jplahn » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:43 PM UTC

kschmit90 wrote: post #111

jplahn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If you can read and understand documentation, understand fundamental concepts like OO or functional paradigm, and understand what a stack is, a closure, recursion, the difference between an integer and a float, or a character and a string, methods/functions, etcetera, you are more or less hireable." I'm sure this is true for many positions, but I'd resist the temptation to cast this across the broader job market.…

Just out of curiosity, what do you consider to be significantly deeper? Would you mind offering up an example or two?

In the most general sense, significant algo/data structure knowledge was necessary to even make it through first round interviews.

Off the top of my head, over the course of interviews with a handful of companies, I had to do several dynamic programming questions, topological sort, a couple of backtracking questions, and a seemingly never-ending number of other tree/graph questions.

Again, I'm not saying knowing this means you _are_ hireable, but to many of these companies, not knowing them made you _not_ hireable, whether correctly or incorrectly.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#116

Post by stale2002 » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:44 PM UTC

saltmeyer wrote: post #99

stale2002 wrote: post #24

Yes, I work at Refinery29 (obligatory www.corporate.r29.com/careers/), a large women's fashion website in NYC. Of our 30 person tech team, we have had about 5 people coming out of these bootcamps, and they are all awesome. Although I think your idea of who goes to these bootcamps is pretty off. These aren't people who "had never opened a text editor in their lives." Some of them are people who were working in science…

Oh hi, which of my (recently former) coworkers are you?

come bacckkk SMeyer, I have 3 desks to myself now in my row. :P -BCWade

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#117

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #112

rememberlenny wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No.

The confusion here probably comes from the past tense phrasing. "We wouldn't do it again" strongly implies "If we were in the same situation as before we wouldn't do the same thing." It'd be more clear to say "We probably won't do it again," I think. And if you did end up needing multiple entry-level hires, it sounds like you would be open to a similar approach?

> The confusion here probably comes from the past tense phrasing.

Possibly pedantic, but, that's the simple conditional (which, in this particular context without an explicit condition, has the implicit condition of "in similar circumstances"), not the past tense.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#118

Post by subelsky » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:51 PM UTC

I know an awesome Node developer here in Baltimore with no prior experience, who had gone to a bootcamp for six months, and who was offered an intermediate-level position. Talking with her I felt like she was more of a colleague than a brand-new dev.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#119

Post by GolfyMcG » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:53 PM UTC

My team (a small healthcare startup) spent a lot of time looking at this for our first hire so I feel like I could provide some insights.

First off, I think it varies quite widely on the school. We talked to people from General Assembly and the quality varied A LOT. There were some people who I would have said were capable of being a junior developer and some who I would say are hardly employable. None of them were exceptional programmers though. Everyone we talked to had never built anything prior to GA and were very clearly not what I would think of if I had to imagine an (ideal) programmer.

We did end up hiring a programmer from a program called App Academy and this program seemed way more legitimate. Their staff had people contributing to the linux kernel and git, which gave us a lot more confidence. Similarly, with some of the smaller programs that we interviewed with we saw an increase in quality. The largest correlation we saw though, was that programs that were compensated based on your compensation produced much better people. GA is just making money whether you suck or not. AppAcademy gets paid if you get paid. If you make 10% more, so do they. I think that's extremely evident in the students they send out into the world.

The combination of his salary and equity isn't too far below $100,000, but he's also quite exceptional. He had gone to Princeton, did great in school, had a perfect score on the SAT's, knew about Public Health, etc.

TL;DR:

The average starting salary of $100,000 sounds like BS. Hire from smaller programs that get a commission - not tuition. Just like normal universities, students can vary in quality regardless of their "pedigree."

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually hire from 'developer bootcamps'?

#120

Post by lighthousedev » Tue, Jan 06, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

I went through an internally-run 12-week bootcamp at my current company. I was hired by the company fresh out of college after I had graduated with a BBA in IT Management. I had some exposure to .NET technologies and basic database design in a few classes in college, but I did not have any real-world development experience other than an internship on a database team.

The bootcamp was designed by the company to bring software developers from entry-level to the equivalent of 3-5 years of industry experience within 12 weeks with the goal of turning graduates into software development consultants.

I went through the first run of the program in 2013 and have been a consultant since I graduated. When I arrived at my first client, although I was lacking in domain knowledge, I was able to run circles around developers that had less than 3 years of experience. I was basically at the same technical level as the developers that had been at the client for 3-6 years. Within 6 months, I had guided the client's executive team on how to effectively target mobile devices as well as leading them to build their first responsive web application, which was built for one of the nation's largest retailers. I also now have a bill rate of someone with about 5 years of experience.

Bootcamps can be produce incredible results if they are done well, but ultimately it comes down to having the right people go through the camps and having the right people teach them. The participants need to be inquisitive, hard-working, and quick-learners, and the teachers need to be passionate about their craft and domain experts.