
Ask HN: Which Developer Boot Camps Are Most Respected? - 11thEarlOfMar
I am considering applying to a developer boot camp in the SF Bay Area. They all tout that an impressive percentage of their alumni are hired within a few months. But I want to hear from hiring managers directly: Are there boot camps that you take more seriously than others? Have you hired anyone out of these camps and if so, how did they do?
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throwthisawayt
I attended a bootcamp 1.5 years ago and have been working as a full stack dev
for almost a year. My firm has hired a few bootcamp grads who have all done
well.

However, I would only recommend HackReactor and App Academy in San Francisco
as those are the bootcamps I've seen grads consistently do well in.

I find that the placement stats are a bit bs at bootcamps since they are
unaudited but I have a strong confidence based on my network that both Hack
Reactor and App Academy place 75% of their grads within 6 months into 6 figure
jobs.

Happy to answer any questions.

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jakegarelick
Bootcamp grad here. Honestly, I don't think it really matters what bootcamp
you go to. I think the defining factor for getting a job depends on what you
did before the bootcamp. If you're a college dropout (like me) don't even
think about it. However, if you've had a successful career in your field and
want to make a switch, you should have no issue getting a job.

As far as the most respected bootcamps, based on who I've talked to I would
say App Academy, Hack Reactor.

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cylinder
Do you mean had a successful career in a non-tech field and making the switch?

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jakegarelick
Yes, that's correct. My cohort had a former music teacher go straight to a
front-end role at Apple. We also have graduates working at Salesforce,
Coursera, a16z, and others - to my knowledge none of these people had prior
tech experience.

My running theory is that companies know what they're getting into with a
bootcamp grad, and what is important to them is that the candidate is a quick
learner, hard working, and motivated. Someone unproven like a college dropout,
or someone who has worked retail for the past few years will have a much
harder time proving that.

~~~
cylinder
Interesting. What would you say is the average age of these people? Would you
say a 31 year old would be on the "older" side comparably?

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skylark
Hack Reactor grad here. I was 24 when I went through the program, and was the
second youngest person. You'd feel right at home being 31.

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cylinder
I'm more concerned with job outcomes and long term career prospects than the
course itself though.

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jakegarelick
If you are concerned with outcomes I would strongly recommend not going to HR
or an affiliated school. There has been internal conflict about the declining
quality of cohorts, and I believe the 97% hiring statistic is no longer
accurate. I went to a HR affiliate and have been unemployed for the past five
months since I have graduated.

I can't comment on App Academy because I have not taken their course.

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c0110
I've worked with 2 graduates from Dev Bootcamp who contributed a lot on the
team. (~5-7 developers total) One of them came on as an intern (originally we
weren't going to take him on, but we re-interviewed him. The second time
around, he really prepared for the interview) and we converted him to
fulltime. Another of our team members went to Dev Bootcamp later and recently
landed a position as a backend dev.

Also worked with a HackReactor grad who did some good work on web and embedded
stuff (which he learned on the job). One of the common traits of these
bootcamp grads is that they were willing to build stuff and took time to learn
(ask a lot of questions).

I think DBC also has hiring coaches and a good community for career help.
Also, I think DBC alums often go back and mentor new developers in the
program, which is nice.

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chlee
I would recommend hack reactor as I have consistently heard good things about
the quality of training from their grads.

my ex-company hired 1 junior engineer from hack reactor and she has since then
gone on and accomplished good things at other companies. And 2 of my ex
coworkers transitioned into dev roles after going through hack reactor as
well. They have all had positive experiences.

I have also heard good things about hackbrite if you are eligible. One of my
ex-coworkers is an now instructor there and she cares passionately about cs
education.

Source: I used to work in edtech in the valley so I have relationships or
heard 1st hand accounts about these boot camps.

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liquidcool
It's mixed, see here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844848](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844848)

If you're looking for a job, I'd want to know way more than percentages.
Companies, positions, salaries, etc.

I do recruiting and have seen a number of boot camp grads, and their first job
is usually an (unpaid?) internship. Boot camps are at most 6 months of study
(often compressed to 3). That's not a lot, compared to BS or MS in CS. You may
want to look at remote masters programs, like Georgia Tech's.

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kasey_junk
If you are seeing a lot of unpaid internships from boot camps that is a very
negative sign about said boot camps. In our industry (in the US) it is _very_
hard to find a situation where an unpaid internship is not a labor violation.

A boot camp that makes large use of them would be a gigantic red flag to me,
both as a hirer and as a potential student.

~~~
liquidcool
That's a good point. For those unfamiliar, see:

[https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm](https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm)

Essentially, the intern has to be a burden to your organization. Granted, I've
had coworkers who would qualify for that...

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kelseydh
All boot camps graduate strong students and all boot camps graduate weak
students.

Using the name of a boot camp as the basis for judging the abilities of a
student is a fool's errand.

Recruiters who do this are making a serious mistake. I say this as somebody
who has interacted with hundreds of boot camp graduates across multiple boot
camps. There is such a wide range of abilities that move through every boot
camp that you really cannot generalize about the talents of each student.

~~~
cylinder
would you say there's a consistent theme amongst the strong ones? i.e., they
were previously programmers?

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Drilz
As someone with their BS and working on their MS are boot camps actually worth
it or am I going to spending a lot of time learning basics.

~~~
chlee
Outside of hacker school (now recourse in NYC), I would recommend against
attending a boot camp if you have received a quality CS education from you
undergrad years.

Specifically, going to a boot camp is both a time (3-4 months) and a $$$ (20k
- 30k) commitment. They will teach you the tools of the trade well, e.g tools
and frameworks and will make sure you come out with a certain level of
knowledge that fill most junior level roles.

However, if you have a bs computer science degree, you probably won't get much
value of of these boot camps other than learning the tools of the trade, which
are things that you can pick up on your own since you have a solid cs
foundation.

However, it's not a bad option if you have both the time and the money, and
feel that the commitment of a boot camp will be beneficial to you.

bur the quality of these boot camp varies and I would only recommend going to
the highly recommended one, eg hack reactor, hack brite, app academy, and
recurse.

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tostitos1979
I agree that Recourse has a good reputation. For someone with a graduate CS
degree and in the Bay area, what would be your recommendation?

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chlee
Personally, I wouldn't recommend that you attend a bootcamp if you already
have a graduate CS degree because the cost (time and money) isn't worth the
benefits (an entry level developer job, which you can probably obtain on your
own given your credentials).

For you specifically, the only things that you'll get of a bootcamp are
probably: 1) An expedited and structured learning process 2) Mentorship and
peer support 3) Introduction to startups in the valley looking to hire entry
level, junior developers

However, if you feel compelled and really want to attend a bootcamp in the
valley, I have heard good things about: Hackreactor and Hackbright for web-
development App Academy for mobile development Insight Data Science and
ZipFian for data science

Hope that helps.

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booop
Bootcamps have become more about cash and I know quite a few that are in
trouble financially. Though they've gotten postive reviews lately it seems
they will eventually be viewed in the same vein as Online degrees.

