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Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

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Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#31

Post by jamestimmins »

wccrawford wrote: post #27

My advice for them? Don't tell people you paid for a coding bootcamp. Without fail, every single "code bootcamp" that has applied for a job here has had a horrible resume. They didn't have anything on their resume that wasn't from the bootcamp, and even that was horrible. And they generally failed our "use Flickr's API to get some images" test that we give out. Miserably. I think we ended up interviewing 1 of them, o…

Can you expand on what you mean by "They didn't have anything on their resume that wasn't from the bootcamp, and even that was horrible."? Do you mean the projects they built, or the list of courses they've taken?

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#32

Post by whichdan »

wccrawford wrote: post #27

My advice for them? Don't tell people you paid for a coding bootcamp. Without fail, every single "code bootcamp" that has applied for a job here has had a horrible resume. They didn't have anything on their resume that wasn't from the bootcamp, and even that was horrible. And they generally failed our "use Flickr's API to get some images" test that we give out. Miserably. I think we ended up interviewing 1 of them, o…

- Why would you expect them to have more than the bootcamp on their resume? Most people don't have prior programming experience, and most bootcamps are demanding, such that they wouldn't have time for side projects.

- Is the test using a language they're familiar with? An editor they're familiar with? Is it pair programming, or are they just given a computer and a desk? Are they allowed to use Google/SO/etc?

- Why do you expect them to have a curated and up-to-date GitHub? Most of the code on there will only be stuff related to their bootcamp program.

Without knowing the specifics of your interview or the particular bootcamps you're hiring from, it sounds like your expectations are mismatched with what the bootcamps are teaching.

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#33

Post by acr13 »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #30
swimorsinka wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here: I don't believe anyone is inherently inferior. Given the same amount of time invested, I think everyone has a shot at performing well. But a computer science graduate typically has 4 years under his or her belt in an engineering heavy curriculum, and because of that time invested, they seem to be stronger in problem solving. We use Big-O as a signal for problem solving ability. Whether or not that signal…

But why don't you hire them, make that little investment yourself, and have them fix things they're capable of fixing while they catch up? This just seems like such a small obstacle that the technical parts would end up taking a back seat to other hiring criteria.

Seems like the answer is within your question.

> why don't you hire them, make that little investment yourself, and have them fix things they're capable of fixing while they catch up?

Because they can hire someone that has the skills they desire, and not have to worry about the investment time to get them up to speed.

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#34

Post by patientplatypus »

Sooo obnoxious.

Bootcamp grads are fine. You know what isn't fine? Apocryphal programmers that can navel gaze about theory but can't code their way out of a paper bag. If some company wants to take junior engineers and throw them at mission critical back end architecture that has stupid run time requirements, that's like, their problem man. CS degree or no that's a stupid decision.

What engineers are scared of is that since they make more money than average camps are flooding the job market and bringing down salaries. So they take stupid things like memorizing algorithms and big O notation and earnestly defend them to the death. If you don't know these things you are not a "real" programmer, regardless of if you can program or not. The real tragedy is that you have armies of young people memorizing stupid problems that are easily looked up online to get jobs rather than building cool things. Hackerrank and the like especially are absolute poison.

I saw the same thing in big finance, where if you can't memorize logic problems about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, you must not be smart enough.

Welp. I guess these moronic strategies will work long enough before people start voting to regulate high earning industries because the barriers to entry prevent the non-hip people gaining entry. Oh you don't have 200k to drop on the big CS colleges, guess you can't get a job! Oh you don't have 6 months to just blow on memorizing bullshit algos and runtimes? Guess you can't get a job!

I really fucking hate people sometimes.

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#35

Post by swimorsinka »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #30
swimorsinka wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here: I don't believe anyone is inherently inferior. Given the same amount of time invested, I think everyone has a shot at performing well. But a computer science graduate typically has 4 years under his or her belt in an engineering heavy curriculum, and because of that time invested, they seem to be stronger in problem solving. We use Big-O as a signal for problem solving ability. Whether or not that signal…

But why don't you hire them, make that little investment yourself, and have them fix things they're capable of fixing while they catch up? This just seems like such a small obstacle that the technical parts would end up taking a back seat to other hiring criteria.

Hiring someone who doesn't work out is unbelievably expensive. It can be a disaster for your team.

When we hire someone, we have no way of knowing if they'll be the life-long learner type who will aggressively consume new knowledge and learn as much as they possibly can. In other words, we have no way of knowing if we can effectively train them, and it's crazy expensive if we can't.

We've tried to hire 1 or 2 of them as interns, but usually they're not interested in being interns.

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#36

Post by songzme »

I started this non-profit to address the bootcamp problem: https://garagescript.org/

After trying out different methods of teaching, here's what works for us: 1. We do peer to peer teaching. If a student learns arrays, he/she is in charge of teaching it to new students. This builds the ability to communicate technically.

2. Students are code reviewed from the first line of code they write. As challenges get harder, inefficiencies are caught through code reviews and explained to them by their mentors.

3. Rather than building their own ideas, students build products that everyone on the team use on a daily basis. We have our own internal hosting, our own email, stackoverflow, and student progress, all built by the team of students. By making students work together on one big project that runs exactly like an engineering team (with sprint planning, code reviews, project discussions), students not only get work experience but also get to learn with others through trial-by-fire. Its incredibly fun for everyone.

4. Since we are so young, we have only graduated 3 students, but each of them love their jobs and were able to jump right in to their issues and get stuff done. They were also able to have in-depth discussions with their teammates.

Having worked with so many engineers, I personally value technical soft skills. When I work with engineers who can communicate / collaborate well, I feel that I can teach them anything.

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#37

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

emsy wrote: post #10
foroak wrote: post #8

After going through a web dev bootcamp myself where we actually devoted a decent amount of time to algorithms and their time/space complexity -- this has been the thing I have used the least in my professional career.

Maybe your not working on professional things? Also what is a decent ammount of time?

Not OP but I did a 3 month boot camp, where the final month was spent on a big group project (which was great) and then algorithm optimization, red-black trees, and a bunch of stuff that I didn't actually think I needed on the job for 2 years.

Sometime in my third year on the job I had to find the duplicates in an array. My beautiful solution "arr.select{|x| arr.count(x) > 1}.uniq" didn't work because I had 100,000 items in the array. My solution was O(n^2), and that finally made sense to me, and it actually mattered.

I would say this was when I didn't feel like a Bootcamp beginner anymore, and thought of myself as an intermediate professional programmer.

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#38

Post by FLUX-YOU »

acr13 wrote: post #33
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why don't you hire them, make that little investment yourself, and have them fix things they're capable of fixing while they catch up? This just seems like such a small obstacle that the technical parts would end up taking a back seat to other hiring criteria.

Seems like the answer is within your question. > why don't you hire them, make that little investment yourself, and have them fix things they're capable of fixing while they catch up? Because they can hire someone that has the skills they desire, and not have to worry about the investment time to get them up to speed.

>Because they can hire someone that has the skills they desire, and not have to worry about the investment time to get them up to speed.

Why are they taking interviews with bootcamp grads then?

None of this is adding up to me:

- The problem-solving gap between boot camp grads and CS grads in this company's opinion can reasonably be crossed via learning complexity analysis, and a couple of college courses in Algs/DS and Statistics

- Despite having the candidate's resume and knowing their own opinions, the company still decides to take interviews from boot camp grads when, presumably, they have a pool of CS grad candidates to compare the boot camp grads to

- The company wants boot camp grads to catch up while recognizing the gap is relatively small, despite having a pool of candidates they'd already prefer to hire from

- They have time to interview boot camp grads and reject them but are otherwise unwilling to spend the same time directing a new boot camp hire towards things that would bridge the gap? There's plenty of cram-tutorials out there that a few weeks would catch someone up with

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#39

Post by edmundhuber »

jamestimmins wrote: post #31
wccrawford wrote: post #27

My advice for them? Don't tell people you paid for a coding bootcamp. Without fail, every single "code bootcamp" that has applied for a job here has had a horrible resume. They didn't have anything on their resume that wasn't from the bootcamp, and even that was horrible. And they generally failed our "use Flickr's API to get some images" test that we give out. Miserably. I think we ended up interviewing 1 of them, o…

Can you expand on what you mean by "They didn't have anything on their resume that wasn't from the bootcamp, and even that was horrible."? Do you mean the projects they built, or the list of courses they've taken?

Like the top comment I have passed on many bootcamp graduates, and many of my colleagues have too. I can only think of one bootcamp graduate that was ever hired at any org I worked at.

When we look at an application/resume from a bootcamp grad, it tends to only contain: "this is what I was doing before", "this is the bootcamp I went to and the projects we did there" (sometimes, these are cleverly formatted to appear as projects done after the bootcamp. We can generally see right through this, and it feels a little dishonest, but it is fine.)

What would make a bootcamp grad resume infinitely more attractive is if they demonstrated their enthusiasm by doing more projects. What it comes down to for me is: this person wants to have a job that many people go to a 4 year program for. Additionally, lots of those people who went to the 4 year programs had an inherent interest in the subject even before starting schooling. Bootcamp grads are heavily outclassed in general by these candidates, and an org is taking a risk (burden) by hiring a bootcamp grad.

So, it goes a long way for a bootcamp grad to 1) demonstrate that they're going to come in fighting and have a raw enthusiasm, 2) possibly tie in their previous employment (biotech? stats? very relevant.) These two things are going to be their strongest assets coming into the job. Not whatever they learned at bootcamp.

Re: Advice for Coding Bootcamp Graduates

#40

Post by jpzisme »

I'm a bootcamp grad and am about to finish my first year as a dev at a well-known, medium size start-up in San Francisco.

The advice the author gives is spot on. Taking the time after finishing the program, working through multiple algo textbooks, and taking an online course on data structures and algorithms definitely helped seal the deal.

To those deriding bootcamps, you are missing out on lots of great developers. The trick is to determine whether the individual worked hard during/after the bootcamp.

Lastly, if you're considering a bootcamp, do your homework, pick a good one, and work relentlessly (I was there generally 8am-11pm every day). It has turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life.

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