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Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

blog.theironyard.com

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Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#91

Post by aryehof »

nashashmi wrote: post #87
aryehof wrote: post #78

What is the root cause for the decision to end this business? Insufficient income? Costs too high? Cash flow issues - unsustainable inflows vs outflows? Mismanagement or something else?

So according to the numerous comments below asking the relatively similar question, it was difficult to run the business, partially because good teachers are hard to find and partly because the program is intense on the student and lastly because the money to run such operations is unsustainable in the long run. There is a business model that works but the industry is still in an exploratory phase in trying to discov…

> There is a business model that works but the industry is still in an exploratory phase in trying to discover it.

Industry business model? The cynic in me says that there is still interest in how to best extract money from the growing flood of people interested in programming as a job.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#92

Post by eropple »

bschwindHN wrote: post #89
eropple wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #1, an Iron Yard competitor offered a six-month contract for $45,000, 1099, here in Boston (with "an option" to re-up, at the same rate). It would not exactly be difficult to beat that number by doing almost anything else. Another was talking about $80K/year...in freaking Ohio. I would love to teach more than I do, and I'm starting to work on some web courses because I've learned from corporate training tha…

> $80K/year...in freaking Ohio I don't get this sentence, is this good or bad? I grew up in Ohio and for the majority of people I know there, they would be absolutely thrilled at that salary. The cost of living is nowhere near SF levels. The "freaking Ohio" part, yeah I can understand that for a lot of parts of Ohio, but it's highly dependent on where in the state you're talking about.

I don't live in SF, I live in Boston. But I don't know what could make me move to Cleveland, that's all.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#93

Post by MikeTheGreat »

christophilus wrote: post #47
hkmurakami wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: if the pay was such that you weren't taking a pay cut, would that have made you stay longer? What would the conditions have to be like for someone who's a senior engineer to even consider making "a career change" into teaching swe for the next 10 years of their career, rather than a 2 year moonlighting stint? (Wondering what the setup had to be too make this sustainable)

Well, market-rate pay would be a good starter. TIY was really close. It was almost a horizontal move for me. But there are a few other things that these kinds of institutions need to solve: - How to keep your staff from burning out - How to keep your staff up to speed Both are hard problems. TIY (at the time that I taught there, anyway) was staffed by people who had 10-15 years (and more in some cases) of industry ex…

I have a genuine question: What's different about doing consultancy that allows one to keep up to date? (As opposed to teaching)

My confusion comes from thinking of them both as full time jobs (so therefore where would you get the time to do extra study on the side).

Would the consultancy allow you to 'learn by doing' (i.e., you pick a new technology to use and figure it out as you build and deploy it)?

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#94

Post by sdenton4 »

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #93
christophilus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, market-rate pay would be a good starter. TIY was really close. It was almost a horizontal move for me. But there are a few other things that these kinds of institutions need to solve: - How to keep your staff from burning out - How to keep your staff up to speed Both are hard problems. TIY (at the time that I taught there, anyway) was staffed by people who had 10-15 years (and more in some cases) of industry ex…

I have a genuine question: What's different about doing consultancy that allows one to keep up to date? (As opposed to teaching) My confusion comes from thinking of them both as full time jobs (so therefore where would you get the time to do extra study on the side). Would the consultancy allow you to 'learn by doing' (i.e., you pick a new technology to use and figure it out as you build and deploy it)?

Consulting exposes you to problems in the field; teaching is where you tell others about problems you're familiar with. If you don't have an input of new problems, you're eventually just recycling the same material...

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#95

Post by watwut »

taneq wrote: post #74
keyle wrote: post #4

Shouldn't place like these be growing instead of closing down? What did they get wrong? The demand for qualified developers isn't slowing afaik.

> The demand for qualified developers isn't slowing afaik. Does anyone in industry really count a 6-month course, no matter how intensive, as 'qualified'? It's hard enough breaking into your first job after a 3-4 year degree , most places still want more experience for their 'graduate' positions. I can't imagine it'd be easier for someone changing tracks mid-career with only a few months' coding experience.

There are plenty of easy position throug. The other industry problem is that we like to pretend that every position is super difficult and requires genius. And once we attract someone on that proposition, genius developer finds himself doing repetitive work and moving buttons there and back - all the while less experienced junior with three months js learning would be happy, challenged and perfectly suitable.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#96

Post by taneq »

watwut wrote: post #95
taneq wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The demand for qualified developers isn't slowing afaik. Does anyone in industry really count a 6-month course, no matter how intensive, as 'qualified'? It's hard enough breaking into your first job after a 3-4 year degree , most places still want more experience for their 'graduate' positions. I can't imagine it'd be easier for someone changing tracks mid-career with only a few months' coding experience.

There are plenty of easy position throug. The other industry problem is that we like to pretend that every position is super difficult and requires genius. And once we attract someone on that proposition, genius developer finds himself doing repetitive work and moving buttons there and back - all the while less experienced junior with three months js learning would be happy, challenged and perfectly suitable.

I've certainly seen this in past jobs. They advertise for smart, creative people and that's what they get. The job is to maintain some awful 5-year-old web app, changing fonts and twiddling fields around to please an internal customer.

I read a great quote once to the effect that a scalpel isn't better than a bread knife, it's just a different knife, for a different job. Don't hire a scalpel to cut bread.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#97

Post by eropple »

swyx wrote: post #84
eropple wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #1, an Iron Yard competitor offered a six-month contract for $45,000, 1099, here in Boston (with "an option" to re-up, at the same rate). It would not exactly be difficult to beat that number by doing almost anything else. Another was talking about $80K/year...in freaking Ohio. I would love to teach more than I do, and I'm starting to work on some web courses because I've learned from corporate training tha…

would it be more interesting if phrased as a form of sabbatical rather than a full teaching career?

I can make more contracting though, while working about half the hours.

Maybe I'd consider it if I owned the company. Other than that...eh.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#98

Post by microcolonel »

dang wrote: post #67
microcolonel wrote: post #23

There are a great number of excellent reasons not to be in Detroit, as a business or an individual. The taxes are outrageous, the government is corrupt, the people who could afford to leave have all but left, the infrastructure is even worse than you'd expect given the ratio of revenue to services. 90% of murders go completely unresolved. That is, out of every ten people killed, and there are a lot, the perpetrators…

> You truly can not expect any sane person with another option to choose Detroit This is the second time today that we've had to ask you to stop posting uncivil comments to HN. I don't want to ban you, but if you don't fix this we'll have to, so would you please fix this? (Re-)reading the following might help: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached t…

I guess I didn't see it that way, I hope my change is adequate.

That said, I think that what I said was about as tame as newsguidelines.html itself: "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a common semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.", which resorts to some light chiding which I personally do not mind being subjected to.

Note: I think you'll find Detroit1234's and Detroit12345's genuine account by looking at the list of people who have downvoted all of my comments in this thread. This is, assuming you folks aren't already doing work like this.

And again, sorry to waste your time. The expected colour of discourse here is a bit different from what I'm used to in person.

Re: Iron Yard code school to close all campuses

#99

Post by walshemj »

mattnewton wrote: post #28
saimiam wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the US is not the world but since we are discussing Iron Yard, it's worth pointing out that the private sector in the US is almost exclusively at-will employment.

Wrongful termination suits are something that all large companies have lots of scar tissue around though

Well that's because they have poor hr its not hard to fire a genuine NCI (non culpable incompetence) employee.
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