Coding bootcamps promising $70k and 97% job placement upon graduation?

I've hired boot camp graduates, and it worked out pretty well. Boot camps aren't a magic solution, but for the right sort of students they can quickly launch them into a new career.

I personally have a 4-year CS degree from a "top" university. It was lots of fascinating stuff, but honestly not that much of it was directly relevant to real-world software jobs. There were no classes in building web sites, or databases, or mobile stuff, or code optimization, or specific programming languages. Instead it was mostly stuff like algorithms, finite state machines, discrete math, and object-oriented concepts. A few things like graphics and AI were more directly useful.

After 20 years as a developer I've been in a lot of lead engineer and director-type positions, and hired maybe 100 developers over that time, while interviewing maybe 500. Most came from regular 4-year CS programs. A few came from speciality schools like DigiPen. Maybe 10% had degrees in something other than CS, or didn't have a degree at all, but had managed to teach themselves anyway and had a good track record.

About three years ago, I was staffing up a new dev team for a San Francisco startup company. We had trouble hiring people fast enough to meet our needs, so we looked at boot camps as a way to help bring in more people quickly. I was initially skeptical, but we already had a few great senior developers who could help mentor some entry-level people.

I went to the final project / graduation day of a SF bootcamp, and did a 5 minute speed interview with every student. Maybe half seemed pretty unclear about what they'd just built, but the other half at least had some potential. I selected the best two people for follow-up interviews, and ended up making a job offer to one, which he accepted. It was a regular full-time developer position paying $60K or $70K if I remember correctly. This was in 2013 - salaries in S.F. are higher now.

The new hire worked out OK. I think he had some kind of finance/business background previously, and he definitely had the right sort of mentality to be a software developer, and had already dabbled in programming a little bit on his own. The software that he wrote worked, though the approach was sometimes naive and the code inefficient. Eventually he improved. After a year or two he left for a big raise at another software company.

Hahaha. I feel bad for the kid making 60-70K in SF.

jamin wrote:

My younger brother took a 4-week truck driving course with close to 100% job placement. It cost $4,000. He's making over $70k after less than 1 year of experience. He easily got a job despite having a felony, misdemeanour and no college degree.

That's great. What is his earning potential as a truck driver 10-years after starting versus the earning potential of someone who can code 10-years after starting?

The differences are heavily in favor of those who can code. The investment is worth it.

I'm sure you have excellent cut and paste skillz.

If you think of programming as a trade, then what you get from a bootcamp graduate is someone maybe prepared to become an apprentice.

I'm skeptical wrote:

Came across this article a few min. ago:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/27/technology/learn-to-code-coding-dojo/

Long story short, they mention a couple coding academies that typically last a few months in duration, and cost upwards of $15k. Seems a little too good to be true, yes?

I can't imagine any respectable employer would be jumping at the opportunity to hire one of these bootcamp grads over a CS degree from even a halfway competent university. Am I wrong in that assumption?

Why on God's green earth would you want to sit in a chair and stare at a screen for the rest of your life??? Not to mention techies have fewer social skills than any other segment of the American population.

Computer Science is NOT a programming degree so don't expect all graduates to be good in programming. In fact the higher the degree in Computer Science, the less about programming it becomes. In fact, you are better off learning how to program BEFORE enrolling into a Computer Science degree program. Middle school is a good place to start.

Why would you want a Dilbert job in the first place? You'll be miserable the rest of your life no matter what you're paid.

lime in my drink wrote:

I'm skeptical wrote:

Came across this article a few min. ago:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/27/technology/learn-to-code-coding-dojo/

Long story short, they mention a couple coding academies that typically last a few months in duration, and cost upwards of $15k. Seems a little too good to be true, yes?

I can't imagine any respectable employer would be jumping at the opportunity to hire one of these bootcamp grads over a CS degree from even a halfway competent university. Am I wrong in that assumption?

Why on God's green earth would you want to sit in a chair and stare at a screen for the rest of your life??? Not to mention techies have fewer social skills than any other segment of the American population.

Because the future is all about AI, automation, robots. Those who control the robots, will control everything....politics, money, even minds. Controlling the robots means analytical thinking, coding, algorithms, and drive.

Be skeptical.

Between kids coming out of Uni with CS degrees unable to get work and H1B's, and plain old telecommuting, there is no way it can happen to just anyone.

Now, pick up a couple of languages and work on a niche and a GPL project or three and you'll eventually land a good gig. Eventually. Lots of "no" before you get a yes. Most devs have to go through at least one " death march" shop.

And the industry is heavily age-biased. You should be in your mid 20's at your first shop. 30's a lead of some kind. If not, there is "something wrong with you." Which is why it is very good to work niches. Lots of them out there including ancient languages. Do not stop looking or learning and you'll do okay.

Triple bonus points for living in a flyover State.

In my Grandpa's generation you went to trade school to obtain a welding, carpentry, or auto mechanics career. Now you go to trade school to learn Java 2 EE or Linux Sys Admin career.

There is computer science, computer engineering, and information technology, in descending level of difficulty.

Computer Science is NOT a programming degree so don't expect all graduates to be good in programming. In fact the higher the degree in Computer Science, the less about programming it becomes. In fact, you are better off learning how to program BEFORE enrolling into a Computer Science degree program. Middle school is a good place to start.

Most coding jobs are low skilled and can be done by persons with little or no education. The reason why these boot camps work is that companies do not want older workers and most jobs are low skilled. If you are over 40 and spent your entire professional life coding no company will hire you. There are persons with Phds in engineering from Stanford who can not get a job in Silicon Valley.

Blah Blah. wrote:

Most coding jobs are low skilled and can be done by persons with little or no education. The reason why these boot camps work is that companies do not want older workers and most jobs are low skilled. If you are over 40 and spent your entire professional life coding no company will hire you. There are persons with Phds in engineering from Stanford who can not get a job in Silicon Valley.

b.s. coding is not easy and requires a certain mind. i would not call it "low-skilled". 80% of the paper pusher drones in my office couldn't write a line of code if their lives depended on it. you know they type....spends half a day to do something in excel (and fail) that i could do in 1 min.

yes, there is age-ism in tech. this is largely based on the (true) reality that older workers do not stay current and are not as facile with computes as the younger folk. that said, if you are a skilled coder, 40, native english speaker, basic social skills, and have some common sense and business acumen, you can easily get a job.

Blah Blah. wrote:

Most coding jobs are low skilled and can be done by persons with little or no education. The reason why these boot camps work is that companies do not want older workers and most jobs are low skilled. If you are over 40 and spent your entire professional life coding no company will hire you. There are persons with Phds in engineering from Stanford who can not get a job in Silicon Valley.

"Senior engineers" are over-priced when you can get the young'uns to do the work...

H1Bs are generally useless. for the most part: no english skills, no common sense, no ability to challenge the status quo and innovate. companies that have traditionally hired lots of them are starting to realize are starting to realize this fact. there are some indian dudes at my company....some are very smart and have done some great stuff with machine learning. but the second they get up front and try to explain and elucidate on the results of their work, they freeze up, smell like BO, lose the audience attention, give straight-up cringe-worthy presentations. sometimes i even feel sorry for them....they grind hard but can't pick up on small nuances that would make them doubly successful.

i generally agree with this post. those who have drive, some sales acumen, and technical skills can do VERY well in this world. stay hungry and you will succeed. a coding bootcamp is not a guarantee, but can be a step in the process.

Programming is low skilled because it is the ONLY field where a person with a few weeks training can get a job. Can you become a nurse after a few weeks? An accountant? An auto mechanic? A lawyer? A carpenter?

People who work in this field justify the lack of skill required is because there is an inherent genetic predisposition required. No other field declares there is a genetic predisposition to their jobs. This justification can also take the form of racism, sexism, or ageism. You will find that all persons coding in a company will look identical. If you are black you will not get a job in Silicon Valley.

Why pay $70K/yr when you can get poor nation programmers on the web for $5/hour. The best and cheapest are in totally bombed out fascist Iran, India, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, China, Phillipines, etc. Try it.

Blah Blah. wrote:

People who work in this field justify the lack of skill required is because there is an inherent genetic predisposition required.

Bullshit you just have to be like one of the miserable geeks in Dilbert. The only way to be happy at a job like that is to be Wally and game the system.

Invest wrote:

jamin wrote:

My younger brother took a 4-week truck driving course with close to 100% job placement. It cost $4,000. He's making over $70k after less than 1 year of experience. He easily got a job despite having a felony, misdemeanour and no college degree.

That's great. What is his earning potential as a truck driver 10-years after starting versus the earning potential of someone who can code 10-years after starting?

The differences are heavily in favor of those who can code. The investment is worth it.

That's not what this thread is about.

But, since you asked, few software engineers are ever going to make more than $150k/yr. The amount of combined talent, work ethic and luck it takes to get there is probably more than blue collar jobs that pay around the same amount (crane operator, longshoreman, etc.). And those blue collar jobs are often unionized, 9:00-5:00 and don't require living in high-COL areas.