
Coding Boot Camps Get the Boot: Why the Industry Is Shutting Down - justinucd
https://thetechladder.com/story/coding-boot-camps-get-boot-industry-shutting/
======
aecorredor
"While coding boot camps had many course listings on JavaScript, Ruby, and web
development, they had none that covered product management, wireframing, cloud
computing, DevOps, or Agile methodologies"

I have a 4 year computer science degree and I didn't learn any of the listed
topics either, so I'm not sure if the article is implying that other
institutions do prepare new grads for these topics. The main advantage I see
from bootcamps is that you basically code intensely for 4 months, learn the
most important stuff to be productive (at least in small scale) right away,
and then you're able to tackle more in depth topics by yourself.

~~~
nonconvergent
Ditto on the CS Degree. Closest thing I learned to the above skills that was
part of the curriculum was Waterfall, UML, and making ERDs. Had to teach
myself git.

~~~
leo79
You joking right? I got my cs degree 15 years ago and back then i learned
Waterfall, UML, and making ERDs...

~~~
ericmcer
It is still the same people teaching the courses probably.

------
Sivart13
I think it's a big leap from "two large bootcamps have closed" to "the
bootcamp industry is shutting down".

Like anything else, there was a big race to capture the market once Dev
Bootcamp proved it could work, and now the market is correcting itself. No
reason to think bootcamps are going to stop existing altogether.

~~~
Jemmeh
Exactly. There's good bootcamps and bad bootcamps, of course some will shut
down. What other industry would cause this headline?

A grocery store down the street from me closed, I guess supermarkets are all
dying!

~~~
stanleydrew
If there were zero supermarkets ten years ago then this analogy might make
sense.

------
geebee
I think that bootcamps actually can work well for people who already have
highly honed analytical and logical reasoning skills, but for whatever reason
haven't gotten involved in programming. For instance, a linguistics or
philosophy major, or maybe a pure math major, who hasn't done any programming.
For example, in a math class on graph theory, we essentially did DFS and BFS,
but through proof, not through code.

I think one of the reasons bootcamps may be closing is there just aren't
enough people like this to train. 6 weeks can do amazing things for people who
come in with years of intense analytical training, but it's not a curriculum
that can create that core skill in 6 weeks - that takes years - actually,
decades.

~~~
AquinasCoder
I completely agree. I did my undergrad and grad studies in philosophy,
specifically focusing on contemporary and symbolic logic, before joining a six
month bootcamp. Before the bootcamp, I had at least six months of development
experience. Would I do it again? Absolutely, the bootcamp gave me discipline,
a network, and a schedule to fill the gaps in my development experience. Did
it teach me computer science? No way. We spent a week on it and hardly covered
bubble sort, quick sort, and binary search. Although I have only touched the
surface of computer science, I view it as an extension of my training in
logic, and philosophy as an abstraction of pure mathematics. I know that if I
want better jobs I will have to continue to learn algorithms, data structures,
architecture, etc.

Bootcamps can direct an analytical inclination, but rarely, if ever, create
it. I am not at all sure that the conclusion is that bootcamps are
ineffective. The issue is not with bootcamps as such, but with those who
believe that the hard work is done by just showing up for lecture or doing the
minimum in homework. I like to think that bootcamps are just an extension or
tool to employ as an autodidact.

There has always been a divide between those jobs which require a more
rigorous foundation and jobs which need someone to bang out some semi-workable
code for a website. Bootcamp grads are often under the wrong impression that
they are qualified for the first type without some experience doing menial
tasks.

~~~
scriptkiddy
Just like most things in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

> I like to think that bootcamps are just an extension or tool to employ as an
> autodidact.

If you are an autodidact, a bootcamp isn't even required. The Internet is
chock full of resources for learning programming that makes it extremely
simple to learn on your own. I look at a bootcamp as paying for connections. A
Bootcamp should help get you in touch with prospective employers or connect
you with other developers with similar goals. Learning how to program is the
easy part when compared to learning the soft skills required to be part of or
build a successful company.

~~~
AquinasCoder
That's true. I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's easy. One of the biggest
difficulties when learning programming is just knowing where to start. Looking
for mentors or resources isn't difficult. On the contrary, you are inundated
with varying opinions. Making decisions about which technology to employ is an
exercise in futility. A bootcamp helped me to not only learn technologies, but
also how to make what at first seems like arbitrary choices. I credit this to
my world-class instructor. It doesn't sound like everyone was so lucky.

Without initial guidance and a firm commitment, we end up with questions like,
"Should I learn Java or Javascript?" or "Can I learn Go in a week?" Is it
possible to self teach completely? Yes. But you would need both discipline and
analytical rigor as well as the humility to find help when you run into
issues. I went into the bootcamp looking for both a mentor, which I found, and
connections, which I also found.

~~~
scriptkiddy
> That's true. I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's easy.

I assume you mean the self teaching part? Agreed. That's why I said simple. I
should have been more clear.

> Without initial guidance and a firm commitment, we end up with questions
> like, "Should I learn Java or Javascript?" or "Can I learn Go in a week?" Is
> it possible to self teach completely? Yes. But you would need both
> discipline and analytical rigor as well as the humility to find help when
> you run into issues. I went into the bootcamp looking for both a mentor,
> which I found, and connections, which I also found.

I think this is a good way to look at it. I'm personally 100% self taught. I
actually dropped out of college(financial issues), but I'm glad I did. I was
able to learn so much more on my own. I can understand how a lot of people
wouldn't be able to do what I did because they just don't see things the way I
do I guess. For the type of people who require guidance from the more
experienced, I think what you said above makes a lot of sense.

I would, however, caution anyone who is an autodidact from going to a bootcamp
simply on the premise of it being extremely expensive. If you have the ability
to teach yourself these skills, there's really no good reason to spend tens of
thousands of dollars on a bootcamp to learn at a pace dictated by your peers.

------
randomdrake
I'm glad they're going away.

> While coding boot camps had many course listings on JavaScript, Ruby, and
> web development, they had none that covered product management, wireframing,
> cloud computing, DevOps, or Agile methodologies. In other words, they don’t
> teach students the other important entrepreneurial tech skills. This makes
> sense seeing how their focus is coding. But as I stated in my last article,
> many recruiters are not just looking for engineers, but DevOps engineers –
> those who have strong leadership, communication, and team-building skills.
> Being a coding god is one skill set, but knowing how to work collaboratively
> on a technical team and manage a product is another skill set in itself.

This type of belief in what "coding" is, is hugely responsible for both the
rise and fall of these horribly designed, while possibly well-intended,
"bootcamps."

Being a good software developer has absolutely _nothing_ to do with "important
entrepreneurial tech skills." Knowing how to tackle problems, envision loops
and algorithms, write pseudocode, understand the basics of how requests on the
Internet work, or how your computer accesses databases or files; these are
skills of a good software developer.

The end goal of being a software developer is not CEO.

"many recruiters are not just looking for engineers, but DevOps engineers"

No, recruiters all over the world are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars
a year because they can't find any competent programmers anymore. There are
hundreds of people who were taught how to write a conditional in Ruby on Rails
available, but ask them to tackle a problem like: "how would you store 1
million strings, search through them while caching results, and make sure only
certain individuals can access certain strings," and you get a deer in the
headlights look. So recruiters don't ask questions like that anymore. They ask
questions that can be simply memorized and regurgitated.

When there's no difference between cramming for your History 101 mid-term and
a technical interview for a software developer, we're not in a good spot.

The sooner we can dispel the myth that programming and software is just
"coding," "hustling," and "entrepreneurial skills" the sooner companies won't
have to pony up over $150k/yr to find a competent software developer.

~~~
stale2002
LOL!

So your argument that what makes a person a good software engineer is the
whiteboard coding algorithms?

That stuff is EASIER to learn than actual software engineering skills. All you
got to do is spend a couple months cramming from the book cracking the code
interview.

You learn that stuff in a singular CS class, that's called data structures and
algorithms.

You are right about one thing though, if we are in a state where you can cram
for your interview, that is a bad spot. And that is precisely the problem with
the CS algorithms type questions!

The "hard" stuff in software engineering is about how you design maintainable
code, how you design high level architecture, and generally all the skills
that go into coding in a TEAM as opposed to be a programming superstar
individual.

~~~
thehardsphere
> So your argument that what makes a person a good software engineer is the
> whiteboard coding algorithms?

No, his argument is that what makes a person a good software engineer is the
ability to think about an abstract problem and come up with a solution to it.

~~~
sidlls
That may be his argument, but his example is exactly the kind of "whiteboard
coding algorithms" trivia that people mistake for engineering in this
industry.

I'd agree with his argument if that's what it is, just not his example.

~~~
randomdrake
> I'd agree with his argument if that's what it is, just not his example.

I guess I wasn't very clear, then. The parent is correct, my argument did
include: "ability to think about an abstract problem and come up with a
solution to it."

I was trying to use a bit of brevity in my example but these responses make me
believe I oversimplified an actual recent problem I had in mind (which is what
I believe make the best interview questions). I do try to attach more business
needs to the questions I've asked during interviews. Instead of:

"how would you store 1 million strings, search through them while caching
results, and make sure only certain individuals can access certain strings"

What I really had in my head was: "We have tens of thousands of PDFs that we
need to extract text from to make available. That text needs to be normalized.
Only certain members of certain teams should have access to different types of
text. Additionally, this is going to produce millions of strings. How would
you get the PDFs to a place you could use them, extract the necessary text,
normalize it, store it, utilize caching to make retrieving it snappy, and
ensure correct access?"

Technical interviews should be more full of questions that spark conversations
where additional inquiries come naturally. What kind of software? What
version? What framework? Could you do that faster? And so on. Rattling off
whiteboard questions is definitely what I was trying to make an example of
avoiding.

------
sdenton4
So I think this is completely wrong. Bootcamps are providing a route to jobs
that doesn't involve taking another for years it for a university degree; it's
a massive gain in efficiency.

By being smaller, bootcamps should have more ability to pivot content to match
market demands, and give students advice on directions to persue. Front end
development needs for entry level people are getting satisfied, so it's time
to how some new teachers and refocus curriculum. Camps need to market as great
learning spaces, rather than throwing their whole rep behind a single
specially.

The notion that the space is overcrowded is bullshit; it just depends where
you set your sights. I don't think we would call university education an
overcrowded space, in spite of serving many orders of magnitude more students
than the bootcamps currently are... One can argue that there are too many law
schools, charging to much to create too many entry level lawyers. Hand
wringing about these two camps closing is like worrying that there are too
many law schools specializing in bankruptcy law.

Ultimately I think the closures are more about these two companies failing to
adapt than any kind of general lesson about bootcamp education.

~~~
jgmmo
University education is absolutely an overcrowded space. Most colleges do not
live up to their cost. Students are starting to notice and choose other
options.

It's also well known theres too many law schools and too many lawyers. It's a
bad market to enter into now.

~~~
gaius
How many STEM PhDs/year vs tenure track positions?

As as a civilisation we massively over-educate, but under-train...

------
thegayngler
These bootcamps are too basic for starters. They never take you beyond the
basics. Secondly, the industry has changed. You need to know more things than
you did previously. Even computer science grads aren't necessarily "ready" for
the workforce. Education is behind in general instead of ingrained into the
community with which it wishes to operate. They are always lagging behind or
even way behind.

On some level I feel as though businesses need to get real and just pick
someone for the job even entry level. There is nothing wrong with a business
investing in its talent rather than expecting everyone to come in with
prepackaged with everything you want them to know. Most of the people hiring
these days didn't know how to do any of the stuff people are doing when they
come out of bootcamp when they started their careers.

~~~
badloginagain
I feel the idea of coding "bootcamps" is incomplete. Military training doesn't
stop at bootcamp- it's just the beginning. Everyone in the military starts in
bootcamp, but move on to more specialized skills and a different level of
training.

Coding bootcamps are an incomplete idea. You need a program that takes you
from Bootcamp to the coding equivalent of Navy Seals, and everything in
between. And just as in the metaphor, for the 100 in bootcamp, maybe 1 makes
it to the Seals- through years of training and real world experience.

~~~
sdenton4
The bootcamp is followed by years of hands on experience at an actual job.
Which, hopefully, has good opportunities learning and mentorship within it's
own ecosystem.

(Meanwhile, there are a handful of Stanfords cranking out what are supposed to
be the Navy seals, and not meeting demand...)

------
eric_b
Why do people think a 12 week course will make a non-technical person ready
for a junior developer role? Most developers I know have years of deep
experience with computers before becoming professional programmers. (Things
like fixing driver issues, installing linux, patching games etc).

I have several friends who went to bootcamps had no deep technical interest
beforehand. They just heard that computer programming was good money, and they
enrolled. To me, the ideal bootcamp student would be the person who dabbles
with programming or programming-tangential technologies on the side, but just
needs that little extra boost. That is a very small number of people if
experience is any guide.

I just don't think it's reasonable to go from 0 to junior developer in 12
weeks if you don't have that technical history. It's why you can't become a
doctor in 12 weeks, generally. The four year degree programs force exposure to
programming and programming-thinking for 4 dedicated years. This is enough to
close the gap for non-technical people, but 12 weeks is surely not.

~~~
kemiller2002
>>They just heard that computer programming was good money, and they enrolled.

I think this is the biggest possible problem with them. I've known a few
people who've gone through it and done well. The different between them and
others is that they want to be programmers. The 12 week course didn't teach
them everything, but it taught them enough to go and figure out what questions
to ask and search for. Those people who are in it for the money are going to
burn out, because it takes a lot more dedication than a 12 week course.

When I interview interns for the upcoming summer, I always ask the same
question, "Why do you want to do this?" They always get this puzzled look on
their face, and then I explain to them that dollar per hour, this is one of
the lowest paid fields if they want to be successful. You'll end up working
nights and weekends, not because of the company you work for (although maybe),
but because a lot of developers want to know more. They go home and think
about what they did and how to make it better. People who are strictly in it
for the money won't do this, and so many of them won't succeed.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
Many students don't understand why they go into their chosen fields at first.
They say it is "passion for---" when really, it just seems like a stable,
responsible profession that their parents approve of. Along the way,
hopefully, with the help of fantastic teachers, a true love of the subject
emerges, deeper interests within it are explored and uncovered, and a great
doctor or lawyer is made. (My own PCP and another surgeon of mine and my
dentist are some of these amazing people) There are other versions of this.
Artists and musicians who realize they won't make it go into medicine to make
money, at their last available second before their ship goes down. The thing
is, they learned something from their previous profession... they learned how
to really get into a lifelong pursuit with rigor and intensity and invention
and purpose. One never loses the need for that once it is activated. These
bootcamps are flooded with folks like this- those who crave actual content to
sink their mental teeth into, with Actual Masters in the field to help guide
them in a more financially (but no less interesting and intellectually worthy)
rewarding/viable direction than the direction they had been going in as a
performance artist or Morris dancer (the profession they chose as pre-teens).
I kid, but seriously. And what do they find at these bootcamps? Decidedly Not
That. —No real masters in the field, no deeply engaging content on par with
Morris dancing (or Russian Literature, or Political Science, or The Classics,
History, or Art), and no hope for anything but the same disrespect upon
leaving these "camps" from future employers than they got as Classics MAs or
PHDs. They get spat upon like they presented themselves as puppeteers or
mimes. This is why the money just isn't coming into these bootcamps anymore.
Smart folks hide the bootcamp from their resume, which means they need to hide
the associating GitHub repositories (lots of work here, folks). These
graduates talk to one another. A lot. They talk about how they are treated at
interviews, or even before interviews. They just don't have the money and time
to fart around in their new garrett deleting work they have done that might
associate them with a bootcamp, making huge portfolios of visually pleasing
apps and deeply meaningful contributions to opensource software projects(not
that they would not love to do just that, mind you). They need jobs. And they
see other barely competent folks working jobs in tech companies who had
nothing resembling their education and even coding ability getting paychecks
because they got there sooner. That is why they aren't buying the snake oil
anymore. It just isn't the "on ramp" these camps make it out to be anymore,
even though it seems to have been for a short time.

After this thread ages for a day or so, head over to the Twitter feeds of
bootcamp CEOs and directors to hear how they describe this thread as being
"all anecdotal evidence of a few who "Don't Really Know What IS Going On""
instead of taking this information in... in a meaningful way and making actual
change for the students they already have and the ones they hope to get in the
future. That costs too much money and time. Money and time they would prefer
the students spend. So these students are squeezed on both sides- by the camps
who false promise and the employers who want them to arrive job-ready out of
the gate. Jumping up and down and saying it ain't so isn't going to make this
un-so.

I think we need to stop degrading people for wanting a job and calling that
"just in it for the money". Everyone does a job "for the money". Why should a
worker not want compensation for hard work? Come on! We call those people
"artists" don't we? And we know how much they get paid. This isn't heading in
a good direction. Let's show some vision.

~~~
realitygrill
I tend to hold the opposing view, but appreciate that you made this point.
It's definitely my experience that people who worked mastering at the
performing arts, classics/literature, or even professional gaming have
something that helps them persevere and navigate through a new field.

However the idea that "a true love of the subject emerges", "the help of
fantastic teachers".. I don't think I've ever met anyone who had that path to
excellence AFTER entering a field, find it difficult to imagine, and I've
always disliked the uncritical use of "passion for x stable, responsible
profession that their parents approve of". But I might be weird and blinded
and I'm going to try to notice if such people exist. It probably doesn't help
that most of these professions are made of people that have never done
anything else.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
One "enters the field" of the arts, classics, history, law, medicine, and
computer science often as children. The difference in paths taken is this:
when one enters the arts or literature or history, there is a good chance one
will have to leave it at some point. Many lawyers are former "writers" who
while in law school get inspired by a great constitutional law professor or
who while in the early days of their profession get inspired by a colleague
who becomes a mentor and helps them form a new identity as writer who is also
really really into law...and as I said, many doctors I know were former
artists and musicians who bring that same drive toward innovation they learned
in the arts to medicine. Most of those people encounter a great mentor while
in their residency who helps them find a new inspiration. But a great teacher
can be the content itself, or an innovator one learns about. Then, they are on
that path to excellence, and even more so than someone who just did medicine
the whole time. They have a depth and breadth that other doctors lack, which
is why med schools have started to include literature courses these days.
(i'll look for a good link on this) My point is, no one is studying actual
Dijkstra in a bootcamp and he doesn't work in one either. There may be
possible future Dijkstras or the like attending the bootcamp, but they often
feel like they jumped into the intellectual equivalent of a quick Happy Meal
when they really wanted a quick plate of gorgeous figs. Still quick, but
somehow more inspiring...more nutritious.

Computer scientists often begin as children (like the others) but never have
to leave their field because after all the gaming and taking stuff apart and
building, they go on to be computer scientists who have excellent money making
prospects when compared to literature majors.

~~~
realitygrill
Fair enough. I myself tried to transition to software, but went through Hacker
School, now known as the Recurse Center. They're rather closer to a good meal,
and are tuition-free.

I do know that medical schools have been trying to attract individuals with
other backgrounds -- was recruited myself, and admissions committee members
told me one reason is that doctors have the impression they may have screwed
themselves by being monoculturally ignorant of economic forces, technology,
etc. So they're encouraging people who aren't from the traditional biological
sciences backgrounds.

I'd expect the med school literature courses to have about as much effect as
med school statistics courses, though -- little to none. Plus, there's been
interest in shortening med school.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
>I'd expect the med school literature courses to have about as much effect as
med school statistics courses, though -- little to none. Plus, there's been
interest in shortening med school.

I agree with you there about the lit courses. And shortening med school is a
great idea, as is allowing residents to sleep full nights on a regular basis.

The Recurse Center: It seems like a great place! I would not include it in any
bootcamp discussion because it is more of a retreat than anything else-- an
artist colony for programmers or something more akin to Yaddo or McDowell for
coders without the snobbery. I think they might be the only ones who have
gotten it right. And I agree that they are closer to a good meal. I think a
transitioning person would have a good chance of finding inspiration there
among its participants due to the flexibility and internal/self motivation
that is emphasized and selected for.

And...no one would ever need to hide the Recurse Center (or any related GitHub
repositories) from their résumé—they would highlight it.

------
mtmail
I noticed a couple (4) "No agencies, recent bootcamp grads, or visa
candidates." on this month's "who is hiring?"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15148885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15148885)

~~~
busterarm
I count 5, and at least two of those are quite clear about looking to fill a
senior position.

The other 3 are companies that have a bit of a reputation and I wouldn't even
consider working at anyway.

~~~
Kiro
> The other 3 are companies that have a bit of a reputation and I wouldn't
> even consider working at anyway.

How is that relevant in this context? Regardless of company it's obviously a
trend to refuse bootcamp graduates.

~~~
busterarm
3 out of 923 comments is a trend now?

I think you need to reevaluate what you consider obvious/significant.

~~~
mythrwy
4 explicitly say it which is in a way kind of them.

Many others probably just drop the resume right in the trash.

~~~
busterarm
You're just assuming that though. You don't have producible evidence of this.
It's the conclusion that you want to draw, so anything that might provide your
conclusion evidence, you take as evidence.

What I can tell you is that I know many, many bootcamp grads and virtually all
of them got good jobs, at good companies and not always junior. I still don't
take that as proof of anything and am willing to take evidence to the contrary
where it exists though.

~~~
mythrwy
So you think it's likely the number of "will not hire fresh from bootcamps" is
limited to the 5 which explicitly state?

No, of course it isn't. The only question is how much larger the number is.
That is not assuming but extrapolating and is how statistics works.

You know some bootcamp grads that got jobs. Great. That isn't in dispute
though. Perhaps some bootcamp grads getting jobs is what led to the "will not
hire from bootcamp" policies. Now _that_ is an assumption. Or rather
speculation.

~~~
busterarm
And some companies hire bootcamp grads and only want to hire more.

There's no evidence for an industry trend here, just people letting their
personal biases get the better of them (all around).

~~~
mythrwy
Agreed there isn't evidence of a trend.

I'm just saying the number who will not is likely larger than the number who
state they will not.

------
nxsynonym
I'm not all that surprised. The biggest advantage to a Coding Boot Camp is the
intense, focused study for the duration of the program - and possibly any
industry experience any of the teachers bring (although I'm sure the quality
of that experience varies greatly from camp to camp).

The biggest downfall I see in the idea behind the Boot Camps is that they are
great at pumping out entry level coders, but don't seem to offer much in terms
of career growth or learn trajectory outside of the basics. I'd be much more
inclined to pay for one of these programs (which is another issue when you add
the cost of tuition on top of regular living expenses + time away from work)
if they offered some sort of career mentor-ship for a designated time period
after landing that first role. They could offer counseling for career growth,
additional classes, etc. I think that would create more return on invested
from a student prospective.

Overall I think the boot camp space got way too crowed too quickly, which is
understandable considering the amount of people trying to land that entry
level paycheck.

~~~
andrewjl
Check out [https://outco.io](https://outco.io) which sounds like to covers the
parts you find lacking.

~~~
jefflombardjr
This looks like every other boot camp out there. Uses buzzwords like 'pair
programming' and stereotypical whiteboard background video. How do you think
this differentiates itself from other boot camps? Online/Onsite is not unique.

~~~
andrewjl
My understanding is their curriculum covers soft skills in addition to
algorithms and data structures. For example students are trained on how to
communicate well, verbally and non-verbally, while white boarding, as well as
how to present their experiences in best possible light in relation to the job
description and what the interviewer is looking for.

I'd say that overall they focus more on the interview phase, though I see a
potential to extend the curriculum to get engineers ready for promotion or a
management role.

------
pascalxus
I'm not surprised that Google would turn down applicants from boot-camps with
less than 3 years of experience. they turn down qualified engineers with over
15+ years of relevant experience.

~~~
outside1234
I suspect turning down engineers with 15+ years of experience is explainable
via Google's age-ism, not the actual underlying experience.

------
corbett3000
We've found that coding boot camps do not produce highly skilled devs. They
output over priced junior talent who believe they're all of a suddenly highly
sought after "full stack engineers" worthy of $70k+ salaries because the boot
camps tell them that's what their worth - and then they take a 20% recuiting
fee. If we see a candidate apply that has a coding camp on their resume it's
almost always a pass.

------
eighthnate
The reason why boot camps are shutting down is because money is drying up.
They are either predicting we are about to head into recession and/or that the
hiring of entry level developers is going to dry up in the coming
months/years.

Go back to 2004-2007. There were tons of "training schools" for developers.
They all cashed out right around the time of the financial crisis.

Then around 2012, they all resurfaced as "boot camps".

Rising interest rates, saturated employment environment and 10 years of insane
growth probably means that they don't see much room for growth in the near
term so they are closing shop.

They'll be back in a few years under different branding once the environment
changes.

------
sotojuan
Bootcamps are just too short.

I think the sweet spot for a coursework in programming is a year to two years.
That's essentially how long my university degree was if you remove the non-CS
required classes.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
More like 5 if people want to use the term "engineer" on their CV.

~~~
bigspider421
Disagree. Engineer here - I did a 6 week bootcamp and immediately got hired at
Amazon. $150k+, the most I've ever been paid. Still learning tons but my
experience was quite positive.

~~~
ex_amazon_sde
I've been interviewing a lot of people when I was in Amazon and the company
had a much, much higher bar.

~~~
jefflombardjr
It was also likely a much, much smaller company.

------
brookside
Bootcamps rode a wave of phenomenal publicity at their inception. Articles in
the NYTimes and the like made me aware of Flatiron / General Assembly as
alternatives to grad school, which I had just enrolled in at the time.

These "Bootcamps Are Dead" stories will to some degree be self-fulfilling.
Regardless of any realities in the junior dev job market, exposure to this
wave of (sinking?) submarining would give me great pause were I making the
same school decision today.

------
dmitri1981
The article fails to mention that both dev boot camp and iron yard were
acquired by some large for profit cos. The discussion on HN regarding their
closure seemed to highlight that both companies had their quality of teaching
severely cut post acquisition which no doubt aided their demise. Also, many of
their boot camps were in secondary locations that could not support on-going
employment for all their grads

------
zebraflask
I think this is for the best. These have typically struck me as analogous to
people taking an overpriced amateur cooking class and then hoping that
qualifies them for work in a gourmet restaurant.

And it's hardly a new idea, but why pay when a quick Google search provides a
mountain of free training material? Self-taught coders are a bit more
impressive.

------
postit
I believe boot camps got a bit of traction because of the price point compared
to a college degree. Once people realized they didn't learn enough and didn't
get that sweet three figure silicon valley job, the hype started to fade.

We don't see the same trends in Europe, where university degrees are mostly
cheap or free.

~~~
rufford
There isn't the same demand for European software engineers though. Obviously
part of it is the value proposition, but I think a lot of said proposition is
about the time just as much as the cost

I didn't want to waste 2-3 years getting an additional degree, and a bootcamp
filled in nicely (simply a personal anecdote but it worked fine for me)

------
stuartaxelowen
Map draws `closing` on top of `still open`, hiding reality.

~~~
joeylemberg
You are totally correct. The default view makes it looks like Chicago had 1
closing and no openings. Zooming in reveals multiple openings in Chicago.

------
jorblumesea
Learning to code in 3 months != properly trained engineers

------
seangrogg
"While coding boot camps had many course listings on JavaScript, Ruby, and web
development, they had none that covered product management, wireframing, cloud
computing, DevOps, or Agile methodologies"

As a bootcamp grad (Hack Reactor) this is only partially true; while you can
easily skate by without needing to learn any of these things there are many
who elect into them.

Anecdotally, from my cohort:

* Testing and version control were a part of the entire curriculum from the first sprint to our capstone code freeze. Basic git was drilled into us, as well as exploration of more involved git workflows when we began our project phase. We learned about TDD and BDD and had a sprint dedicated to setting up our own tests (with tests against our tests).

* People could elect to take product management/scrum master roles in their project teams (of which there were 3); some people elected to take these positions every project, some avoided them, but most served in a managerial capacity at least once.

* Deployment (admittedly most to Heroku, only one to AWS) was a soft requirement of every project and it was part of one of our sprints.

Outside of my cohort, many people spent extensive time working with things
that weren't a core part of what we did. During my database sprint my partner
and I decided against the offered MySQL sprint and wrote our own Postgres
branch. Many people took deep dives into algorithms and data structures -
bloom filters, red-black/b-trees, various sort implementations, etc. Some
project teams built CI pipelines and deployed on AWS/GCS/Azure. Overall, while
these things aren't a part of the core curriculum you'll find many people
electively choose to take on far more than what's mentioned.

And I learned _none_ of that in my _full year_ of CS.

------
gumby
Wow, they cost $26K!!?? For what they offer that seems like an outrageous
amount -- and largely unaffordable for most of the target customer base.

Since the for-profit education industry had rushed in, I assume they just went
for their typical milk-the-student-loan-system scam

~~~
jefflombardjr
I paid less than a third of that. The good ones are either affordable or they
make you pay % of salary once you are employed.

------
ravenstine
> Bloomberg ran an article stating many students were still not prepared for
> the tech industry even after their extensive training.

If you look at bootcamps as an education/career on a platter, sure. But
they're no different than how a typical school should work; you get as much
out of the experience as you put in. My experience at Dev Bootcamp was that
those who put in the effort and had the right perspective were the ones who
made it into the field after their graduation. Some people, actually many,
simply don't have what it takes to be a programmer, and that shouldn't be seen
as a failure on the part of bootcamps. It'd be one thing if few to none of the
graduates from bootcamps succeeded in their profession, but that's simply not
the case. I and many people I know wouldn't be where we are now if we didn't
have the kind of bootcamp style education where we could dedicate our time to
educating ourselves and hacking on shit. Yes, yes... we might have been able
to do that without paying a bootcamp, for "free", yet we'd be paying the
overhead of organizing people, consistently getting people together to spend
time hacking on projects, etc. I was lucky enough to get one other person to
hack on a project with me after bootcamp – everyone else was either too busy
or out to make money from the free work of others. I'd much rather spend $20k
to go to Dev Bootcamp and be able to hack with people on Node.js & Ruby
projects, be in the bay area, and go to hack-a-thons every other night than
spend far more than that sitting through a bunch of non-tech classes I hate to
come out with some abysmally outdated skills in PHP & Java.

Just because some bootcamps have shut down doesn't mean that the model itself
is a failure. Though I had some minimal experience coding on my own prior to
bootcamp(let's just say I could make Hangman in Python but had no idea what
object-orientation was), I was able to become proficient enough to build a
live YouTube chat(before YouTube had that) with shared video controls... as a
result of the experiences I had through Dev Bootcamp. You CAN learn to code in
a few months, but you have to want it enough. Strange as it may seem, not
everyone wants to succeed as much as others. Even if 80% of bootcamp graduates
didn't become programmers after the course, that's no reason to see the
bootcamp model as a failure. Not everyone is cut out for it, and yet it has
changed the lives of numerous people. Though I'm sad that Dev Bootcamp is no
more(which I'd still argue is a result of terrible management both prior to
and after the Kaplan acquisition), I hope the idea of coding bootcamps can
evolve to be more successful.

------
solidsnack9000
"Shutting down" or "consolidating"?

------
YCode
It's funny, until recently I thought boot camps were for people who already
were working in a field who wanted to sharpen a particular skill in that
field.

At least, the few my work paid for some years back were essentially that.

From the sounds of it though a lot of places are abusing these to create micro
IIT Techs that hand out near worthless certificates.

~~~
chrisseaton
> I thought boot camps were for people who already were working in a field who
> wanted to sharpen a particular skill in that field

The name 'boot camp' doesn't really imply that they would be.

------
jefflombardjr
As someone who went to a boot camp, this doesn't surprise me at all. I don't
think it's worth it for most people. BUT, I don't see them going away
entirely. I'm thrilled with the boot camp I went to, and would do it all over
again. Hear me out...

> Are Coding Boot Camps Worth It?

\- If the first time you're touching code is at a boot camp, it's not worth
it. By the time I had started a boot camp, I had been reading books and doing
tutorials on and off for 2 years. Thinking in terms of product life cycle, and
your programming skills are the product, you want to go to a boot camp at the
beginning of the growth phase.

\- If your instructor or TA is a graduate of the program, it's not worth it.
We had instructors who had worked at F500 tech firms and a small class size.
To me the real value was having 3 months worth of access to someone who in
many cases made hiring decisions at those companies.

\- If the boot camp focuses more on their curriculum more than their people,
it's not worth it. Curriculums are garbage, it doesn't matter what language
you learn, you should be learning how to think like a developer. It's not all
about focusing on the instructors too, if you've been self-studying for 2
years, and your peer doesn't know how to open a text editor, they're going to
hold you back. You want a boot camp that is selective with their applicants.

\- If you're doing it for money, it's not worth it. You're not going to make
an average salary right out of the school. In fact, you probably won't even be
a full-time employee, plan on being a contractor for the first year. If you
don't know how to find work on your own or research how to, knowing how to
program isn't going to change anything.

\- You're starting at the bottom, every opportunity good or bad is an
opportunity to learn. Paid or unpaid take it, eventually, you will have enough
opportunities to start saying no to less valuable opportunities, but until
you're 100% booked, you're a yes man or yes woman. In fact don't wait until
graduation.

\- If you can't afford to take 6 months off and devote them entirely to
programming, it's not worth it. I had saved for 2 years, paid off my debt, and
instead of using the remaining money for a down payment on a house, I paid for
tuition/living expenses to dedicate 3 months of uninterrupted time. I know I
was fortunate enough to have this opportunity, but if you're going to do it,
you need the resources to do it right. Otherwise, continue with self-study and
find a mentor at a meetup.

\- If you're not in a tech hub, it's not worth it. San Francisco, Seattle,
Austin, Portland, Chicago, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Denver, or Montreal
are good. Maybe Boston or Atlanta, don't know enough about the tech scenes
there.

\- If you have medical/family issues, it's not worth it. It is stressful if
you have any other things going on in your life sort them out first.

I've seen a lot of people fail, but it is still very much worth it for some
people. I went to a boot camp to accelerate something I was already doing.
What is said about boot camps applies to education in the broader sense as
well. In many cases college isn't worth it, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't
go.

~~~
swyx
which did you go to?

~~~
jefflombardjr
[https://pdxcodeguild.com/](https://pdxcodeguild.com/) They have a great
community.

I was also seriously considering
[https://www.appacademy.io/](https://www.appacademy.io/), I was impressed by
their interview process and what they expected you to do prior to getting
there, but don't know anything else about the school.

------
nhorob67
Anyone have any boot camps they think are "best-in-class"?

~~~
aaronchall
Recurse Center, née Hacker School, emphasizes that they are not a "boot camp",
but they at least started with the best reputation.

I'm not sure where they are now in terms of reputation, though.

I think it may be that there was an unserved pool of natural talent that the
first boot camps quickly served to train, and now we're down to the trickle of
trainable talent that thinks boot camps are the way to go.

And as schools like NYU (where I'm currently teaching a fairly new Python
certificate program) begin to grab market share as substitutes to boot camps,
with their stellar reputations, the bootcamp niche will become even more
difficult to compete in.

------
autokad
how do people feel about specialized bootcamps like data science? has anyone
done them?

