As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by greenyoda » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 4:48 AM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #26

dreaminvm wrote: post #14

While the demand is real, I am just not sure it will last with the level of skills being pumped out of these bootcamps. I recently interviewed a few candidates from a coding bootcamp mentioned in the article and while they can write basic rails code, they all lacked problem solving skills. Most candidates were hung up on basic performance related questions.

Even "experienced" developers who haven't had formal computer science training can run into performance problems. At my last job, our application was running slower and slower as we added clients. None of the Ruby devs could figure it out, the code was "fine", all of the tests passed and ran quickly (with a stubbed 10 item customer table), and everything ran great until we grew beyond a hundred or so customers so it…

Long ago, I was asked to fix a bug about a user interface hanging when too many items were added. After poking around, I discovered that there was an algorithm, whose run time was an exponential function of the number of items, that was taking several minutes to run (after which the UI would be responsive again). The punch line was that this algorithm was actually computing a value that was never used by the rest of the code, so I just deleted it. That was in C++ code written by an experienced developer.

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

#132

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 5:08 AM UTC

mycelium wrote: post #127

ryandrake wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, midwest changes the equation for sure. Maybe try disclosing a salary _range_ in the description? Without knowing the details of the job, it's hard to tell if there's something in the description driving interest away. If it's exactly like cairo140's job, it may be simply too much for a single person. Here's what he/she was asking for, and I'll take a stab at breaking it down into the fewest mere-mortal-sized job…

> Even if there was one person capable of and willing to do this all, their current job title is likely "founder of their own startup". I'm doing a decent chunk of that, aware of the parts I'm doing shitty, and that is my job title. :) I was talking recruiting with a mentor. He said some of his best hires were founders he met at startup events looking to regroup and earn a paycheck after the failure of their own star…

Probably solid advice. Best of luck to you :)

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

#133

Post by JustSomeNobody » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 12:55 PM UTC

chadgeidel wrote: post #71

a3voices wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In my opinion "programming" should be generalized to "instructing the computer to do a series of tasks", or "applying the output of one system into the next system". I don't think that's overgeneralizing.

Let's not redefine words. What you're suggesting "programming" be generalized to already has a definition, "Computer Literacy".

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

#134

Post by hifier » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 1:17 PM UTC

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #114

hifier wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think the demand for software engineers will go down in the next 10-20 years?

Do you honestly think the demand for "software engineers" with little to no practical experience and modest training at $90,000 to $115,000/year, seen almost exclusively in a few overheated markets, will be sustained? Companies like Google and Facebook, large, profitable enterprises that can cherry-pick the best college graduates from the best schools and invest in long-term development, are one thing. But unprofitab…

While this particular solution may be a failure, it is a reflection of the demand, which I don't see changing direction anytime soon. This is an attempt to cache in on the fact that competent engineers cannot be found at this price, which only drives the point home. If these experiments fail, it will only drive he price higher.

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

#135

Post by geebee » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

mycelium wrote: post #119

ryandrake wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep going up until the candidate pool improves? Just a personal anecdote: Even though I loved writing software, I moved up and away from development (after 12+ years) mostly because of the salary ceiling we all inevitably eventually hit. But I keep my skills sharp and would always go back for the right price. $150K would definitely not be the right price, at least not in the Bay Area. My guess is there are tons of g…

Thanks for the willingness to discuss actual numbers. Using the BLS stats tool that falsestprophet linked below [1] I dug up some numbers. This is for the the "Software Developers, Applications" occupation: Area median 75%ile 90%ile Chicago, IL Metropolitan $88,630 $109,640 $126,370 Los Angeles, CA Metropolitan $102,310 $126,340 $150,320 San Francisco, CA Metropolitan $112,570 $143,390 $174,120 San Jose-Sunnyvale-San…

I've seen those numbers as well, as part of a regional roundup on US News Best Jobs.

One very interesting realization I had looking through the data is that software development, at the median, isn't an especially well paid field. Dental Hygenists in SF earn almost as much at the median, and registered nurses earn much more.

Overall, I think a big part of why this "shortage" exists is that the work is very difficult for the pay, and that career stability and age related employment issues may actually be considerably worse.

I know this is hard for employers to accept, but salaries may have to rise dramatically before people with citizenship or residency status that allows for career choice are willing to commit to software development. For now, I really do think one reason we are able to staff these positions at "market rate" is that we have created a visa program that essentially prevents a large number of tech workers from changing fields (i.e.., there are serious obstacles to coming to the US on an H1B as a software developer and deciding to retrain as a dental hygienist, this kind of personal and professional freedom is not permitted under this visa).

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

#136

Post by NumberSix » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

There are a number of studies that about half of all software developers do not have a CS degree. From what I have seen, many of these have degrees in other so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields such as mathematics.

Paul Minton's LinkedIn profile lists a 4 year B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Chicago (2009-2011). He apparently was a transfer from University of Vermont. GPA is listed as 3.31. His LinkedIn profile also lists courses in probability, statistics, and linear algebra.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulminton

Data scientists in particular tend to be people with degrees (often Ph.D.s) in other STEM fields involving heavy statistics and data analysis. Most do extensive software development for these data analyses.

It is not clear how much programming experience he had prior to the coding boot camp either from the New York Times article or his LinkedIn profile. These days, most people taking probability and statistics probably do some programming in class.

It is also worth noting that San Francisco is quite expensive with apartment rents running over $4,000/month in the city. Software jobs are concentrated in high cost of living areas.

http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2015/06/02/san-franciscos-...

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

#137

Post by loco5niner » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #54

The lede anecdote talks about a 26-year-old math major who went from $20,000/yr as a writer to $100,000/yr as a data scientist, after a bootcamp. Ignoring the "but what is data science" debate for now...this to me seems totally reasonable. He's a math major . Programming is founded upon math...and at the very least, requires the same kind of mathematical deduction and ability to not be freaked out by symbolic represe…

waiter... not writer

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

#138

Post by stillsut » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

I got a degree in Finance alongside lots of Accounting majors. Turns out that's not who gets hired in most of the top business jobs, e.g i-banking.

I think there's a growing amount of positions that take some coding, but where the soft skills are equally as important and let's be honest: the average CS major is not known for strength in that area. (Just as accounting majors aren't known for having "dynamic" and risk-taking personalities which are sought in high-finance.)

That being said, I think these code bootcamps are providing an important injection into tech diversity (the real kind of diversity).

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

#139

Post by robalfonso » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 5:55 PM UTC

ellio wrote: post #126

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'd like to hear your thoughts on how to be a good developer. I fall into this group and I'm entirely self-taught. I've been following the Free Code Camp curriculum while also working through some Linux books and Shaw's "Learn C the Hard Way." It's difficult for me to know what things I might be missing--the classic "unknown unknowns"--and I'd like to close whayever gaps there might be.

I'll throw my .02 in. For me a good developer is someone who has a natural aptitude, great problem solving skills, persistence, and willingness to learn new things. Every one I've ever managed who was great had those traits. That didn't mean everything they did was perfect - we are still dealing with people,but they were more versatile than most and were able to not only get things done, but the quality was there. Formal education is great, but I don't consider it an element. Reason being that technology is changing at such a pace most of what you learned is in school is now out of date, and anything foundational you learned at school (ie algorithms) is something that you can p/u from a book or online course.

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

#140

Post by arcanus » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 10:29 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #117

santaclaus wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stanford isn't an Ivy. ;)

People seem very offended by this fact. Stanford isn't an Ivy League school. Wikipedia: The eight institutions are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University.

they shouldn't care: ivy league is just a sports association