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Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

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Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#41

Post by 908B64B197 »

busterarm wrote: post #34
908B64B197 wrote: post #24

I have to say this doesn't come as a surprise. Bootcamps have failed one after another. The most well known, Lambda, is even desperate enough they will "loan" you a new "grad" for free to try to get you to hire one [0]. And that's not even scratching the surface of what's wrong with bootcamps in general, like having instructors barely a few months ahead of students giving out lectures and grading assignments [1]. I c…

Lambda isn't even the most well known bootcamp[1], just the most well-known failure. Nearly everyone in my AppAcademy cohort was already a STEM grad and some from top schools. Also that didn't correlate with performance as the person with the most advanced degree was unhirable and the degreeless folks are among the most successful. More than half a decade on, we're still at like 98% of our cohort with long and succes…

> Nearly everyone in my AppAcademy cohort was already a STEM grad and some from top schools.

> Most of us didn't even need the bootcamp, per-se

I think you hit the nail on this one. Today kids take https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ instead of doing a bootcamp. "Intro to CS" classes are also more prevalent (and sometimes mandatory) for everyone in STEM nowadays.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#42

Post by abeppu »

busterarm wrote: post #37
rickosborne wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't say I've seen anyone out of a bootcamp that was a great hire. My own experience has been that there's no correlation between where the dev graduated from and how productive/valuable/etc they've been at work. I've seen just as many rock-star bootcamp grads as I have complete wastes of space from Stanford/CMU/MIT.

I don't know what it is about Waterloo though, but everyone I've worked with who came through there was a significant asset to whatever team they were on. There could be some filtering function here like the pool of grads who made a significant effort to come to the US afterwards, but yeah. 100% rockstars every time. Don't just take my word for it -- from the lips of pg himself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6…

> I don't know what it is about Waterloo though

I have also had extremely positive experiences with Waterloo grads (and student interns), and I kinda wish that I had done a program structured in the same way. In particular, the program requires that students do several "co-op" work terms, so by the time they graduate, they've worked in multiple organizations and have the equivalent of more than a year's work experience. They have a better idea of what kind of work is a good fit for them, they know they can be productive in real projects, and they have some exposure to the organizational/communication/process portion of getting stuff done as well.

We complain sometimes about the disconnect between software engineering and the "computer science" curriculum -- and it turns out that actually having a thoughtfully composed "software engineering" program is a pretty good and natural solution.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#43

Post by 908B64B197 »

busterarm wrote: post #37
rickosborne wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't say I've seen anyone out of a bootcamp that was a great hire. My own experience has been that there's no correlation between where the dev graduated from and how productive/valuable/etc they've been at work. I've seen just as many rock-star bootcamp grads as I have complete wastes of space from Stanford/CMU/MIT.

I don't know what it is about Waterloo though, but everyone I've worked with who came through there was a significant asset to whatever team they were on. There could be some filtering function here like the pool of grads who made a significant effort to come to the US afterwards, but yeah. 100% rockstars every time. Don't just take my word for it -- from the lips of pg himself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6…

I can't explain it.

I think they Astroturf a lot. At least on this site. Any thread about a class at Stanford/MIT/CMU (often because they posted the textbook for free) and someone from Waterloo will post what they teach, no matter if it's relevant.

It's also a giant school (36,000 undergrads and 6,000 postgrads) and from what alumni told me, undergrads are incentivized to apply everywhere and especially during the off-cycles (winter) for internships when they are effectively the only ones looking.

Contrast that with Stanford that's barely 7,000 undergrads and 10,000 grad students).

I think they also have to get internships to even stay in the program (it's coop) so I guess that weeds out the unemployable.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#44

Post by busterarm »

908B64B197 wrote: post #43
busterarm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it is about Waterloo though, but everyone I've worked with who came through there was a significant asset to whatever team they were on. There could be some filtering function here like the pool of grads who made a significant effort to come to the US afterwards, but yeah. 100% rockstars every time. Don't just take my word for it -- from the lips of pg himself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6…

I can't explain it. I think they Astroturf a lot. At least on this site. Any thread about a class at Stanford/MIT/CMU (often because they posted the textbook for free) and someone from Waterloo will post what they teach, no matter if it's relevant. It's also a giant school (36,000 undergrads and 6,000 postgrads) and from what alumni told me, undergrads are incentivized to apply everywhere and especially during the of…

Everything about Waterloo's curriculum weeds out the weak.

The coop program is probably their biggest strength. Working with coop interns is fantastic and almost always leads to a job post graduation.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#45

Post by 908B64B197 »

busterarm wrote: post #44
908B64B197 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't explain it. I think they Astroturf a lot. At least on this site. Any thread about a class at Stanford/MIT/CMU (often because they posted the textbook for free) and someone from Waterloo will post what they teach, no matter if it's relevant. It's also a giant school (36,000 undergrads and 6,000 postgrads) and from what alumni told me, undergrads are incentivized to apply everywhere and especially during the of…

Everything about Waterloo's curriculum weeds out the weak. The coop program is probably their biggest strength. Working with coop interns is fantastic and almost always leads to a job post graduation.

Did you attend?

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#46

Post by zactato »

busterarm wrote: post #37
rickosborne wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't say I've seen anyone out of a bootcamp that was a great hire. My own experience has been that there's no correlation between where the dev graduated from and how productive/valuable/etc they've been at work. I've seen just as many rock-star bootcamp grads as I have complete wastes of space from Stanford/CMU/MIT.

I don't know what it is about Waterloo though, but everyone I've worked with who came through there was a significant asset to whatever team they were on. There could be some filtering function here like the pool of grads who made a significant effort to come to the US afterwards, but yeah. 100% rockstars every time. Don't just take my word for it -- from the lips of pg himself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6…

Shhhh don't let the secret out.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#47

Post by busterarm »

908B64B197 wrote: post #45
busterarm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything about Waterloo's curriculum weeds out the weak. The coop program is probably their biggest strength. Working with coop interns is fantastic and almost always leads to a job post graduation.

Did you attend?

I've had long conversations about the curriculum with a few dozen grads I've worked with or hired over the years because they're obviously a special bunch.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#48

Post by mattknox »

908B64B197 wrote: post #24

I have to say this doesn't come as a surprise. Bootcamps have failed one after another. The most well known, Lambda, is even desperate enough they will "loan" you a new "grad" for free to try to get you to hire one [0]. And that's not even scratching the surface of what's wrong with bootcamps in general, like having instructors barely a few months ahead of students giving out lectures and grading assignments [1]. I c…

I've known at least a half-dozen superb bootcamp grads, but the quality is definitely uneven.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#49

Post by petey283 »

busterarm wrote: post #34
908B64B197 wrote: post #24

I have to say this doesn't come as a surprise. Bootcamps have failed one after another. The most well known, Lambda, is even desperate enough they will "loan" you a new "grad" for free to try to get you to hire one [0]. And that's not even scratching the surface of what's wrong with bootcamps in general, like having instructors barely a few months ahead of students giving out lectures and grading assignments [1]. I c…

Lambda isn't even the most well known bootcamp[1], just the most well-known failure. Nearly everyone in my AppAcademy cohort was already a STEM grad and some from top schools. Also that didn't correlate with performance as the person with the most advanced degree was unhirable and the degreeless folks are among the most successful. More than half a decade on, we're still at like 98% of our cohort with long and succes…

My bootcamp experience built my confidence which helped during interviews.

Re: Online coding school Treehouse lays off most of its staff

#50

Post by system2 »

rob74 wrote: post #30
system2 wrote: post #6

Why would a learning platform need 41 employees? These are all instructor and expert videos. Were these 41 employees instructors? If not, for just the infrastructure is it really necessary to have 41 employees?

For creating high-quality content that people actually want to pay money for, and keeping it up to date? Of course, you can lay off most of these people and try to survive using the existing material (which Treehouse apparently wants to try), but, particularly when coding is involved, content gets obsolete really fast...

I didn't know they fired "instructors". Employee sounds a little different than the content creators.
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