
Ask HN: Any “bootcamps” or courses for intermediate/advanced people? - peruvian
Yesterday, I saw a HN job ad for One Month - a company that offers a 30-day &quot;bootcamp&quot;. I looked at their courses[1] and noticed they&#x27;re all aimed at beginners.<p>I&#x27;m past the stage where I need a course on Python syntax or HTML. Like many of you, I could teach myself these things. However, I would definitely pay $300 (the cost of the courses mentioned) for good hands-on intermediate or advanced coursework in both software engineering and computer science. Unfortunately I can&#x27;t come up with any ideas at the moment, sorry :-)<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;onemonth.com&#x2F;#premium-course-schedule
======
ozanonay
Hi! I'm one of the instructors at Bradfield:
[https://bradfieldcs.com](https://bradfieldcs.com) . We teach computer science
to strong programmers, typically those who were self taught, attended
bootcamps or weren't quite satisfied with their conventional CS experience.

We teach in small classes, strictly in person in SF. I know this sucks for
folk (like OP) who are outside SF, but honestly you can't teach this stuff to
a high enough standard remotely. We do get plenty of interstate and
international students who visit for a course or two.

We also maintain a self-teaching guide
[https://teachyourselfcs.com](https://teachyourselfcs.com) for those who don't
need the full classroom experience.

Happy to answer any questions in person: oz@bradfieldcs.com

~~~
cusack
I did [https://bradfieldcs.com](https://bradfieldcs.com) after working as a IC
for awhile and found it hugely valuable. I didn't have a CS undergrad and
worked in Node, so skipped the majority the deeper fundamental studies around
databases, networking, and computer architecture since I was abstracted from
them in day-to-day work (or at least thought I was...:)).

I took a 10wk leave from work to go full-time through Bradfield and would
recommend it to anyone that's spent time working as an engineer and is
interested in leveling up generally or refining a specific skill set.

The stuff I learned there has ended up showing up almost daily for me at work
and I've since been promoted to technical lead.

~~~
bogomipz
>"I took a 10wk leave from work to go full-time through Bradfield and would
recommend it to anyone that's spent time working as an engineer and is
interested in leveling up generally or refining a specific skill set."

Can you elaborate on the "full-time" part. In looking at the site it looks
like the independent course modules are each 4 weeks with two 3 hour sessions
a week for $1800 each. Were you somehow able to take multiple modules per week
for each of the 10 weeks? If so how many did you do? Thanks,

~~~
cusack
Yeah i did it last November when the courses were structured to be done as a
full-time program. They've restructured to make it compatible with having a
full-time job simultaneously. I think they've still had students take all
courses concurrently though, even with the new model. Worth sending @oz a
note!

~~~
bogomipz
Was there any type of discount for taking multiple classes? I looked on the
site and didn't see any mention but at $1800 each module it sounds very pricey
to take them simultaneously.

~~~
cusack
The price structure was slightly different then since he was all bought as one
package, but still about the same cost overall. It is pricey, but a great ROI
from both a base salary standpoint (you can pretty reasonably ask for a raise
once you're back) and a deep gratification of being more skilled in your craft
than you were 3months ago :)

------
modalduality
Recurse Center: [https://www.recurse.com/](https://www.recurse.com/).
Anecdotally, not so easy to get in.

~~~
sotojuan
OP here. I'm an alum! Fall 1 2016. It's not quite the same thing - RC is self-
directed. You do what you want instead of following a course or teacher.

~~~
giggles_giggles
Summer '13 saying hi from across the batches. Self-directed, but plenty of
experienced folks to rub off on you, in my experience. The diversity of
experience at RC was incredible when I was there. Definitely fantasize about
going back for another batch sometimes -- I know so much more now and I'd get
so much out of doing it a second time.

------
soham
[Disclaimer: Shameless self-promotion]

We run something called Interview Kickstart:
[http://Interviewkickstart.com](http://Interviewkickstart.com) .

It's a part-time bootcamp focused on preparing for technical interviews at
(so-called) top-tier places i.e. places which interview heavily in DS/Algos
and Large Scale Design for their core engineering roles, and also make
staggeringly high offers. Think G/F/A/Netflix/Amazon/MS etc.

It is intense and also taught by Sr. Engineers working in core systems at
these places. There is a rigorous academic take to it, with homework, tests,
mock interviews etc.

A little known fact, is that many people come to the program with no intent to
look for a job. They are already at good places, paid well, and just want to
get better as an engineer, which I think is what you're looking for.

Many have figured out, that the structure and the forcing function challenges
them to be better. Most of your peers will have backgrounds in CS/CS, and
you'll also see people coming FROM some of the same companies others are
aspiring to go to (e.g. Amazon, Microsoft etC).

We start an online cohort every month, where people join from all over US and
Canada (and sometimes even other countries).

Feel free to check it out.

~~~
Retric
Just a suggestion for possible improvements... Looking at the sight I really
just wanted two questions answered. How much time? How much money?

The first took a while to find: _Two 4 to 6-hour sessions per week, for 8
weeks. 200+ hours of work._

The second looks sketchy: _Tuition: Not cheap_

~~~
soham
Thanks! Will consider. With that comment on pricing, we just want to deter
people who think this can be done cheaply.

~~~
OJFord
Isn't it possible that someone considers whatever your price is to be 'cheap'?
Why not just list the price, and deter whoever's deterred?

------
crispyambulance
Advanced folks will have very specific needs that are hard to meet for any
course with a pre-determined curriculum.

Perhaps a better approach would be to hire an expert from a consultancy,
negotiate a detailed custom curriculum together and go from there? It would
certainly be expensive but perhaps within reach for a small group or for
heavily motivated individuals?

~~~
xxSparkleSxx
I have had the same thought about college-courses. Why have 100+ people paying
2k+ for a course being taught by a grad student.

If you could cut out the middlemen (schools), we could probably get better
"professors" (i.e. one of the best people in the field - im sure people in
industry would love to pick up an extra 10-20k to teach 1 class a year) for
cheaper and in smaller class room settings.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........Just gotta figure out how to do the signaling
properly so businesses will look at the classes you took and think 'I want to
hire that person.'

~~~
sbov
That's what you get for going to a research school: grad students teaching
classes. I went to a non research school (a CSU) back in the early 2000s, and
all classes were taught by real professors, but it isn't as prestigious as a
Stanford or Berkeley. Beyond that, the teachers for night classes were all
from industry. I took a graphics class taught by someone who previously worked
on OpenGL at SGI, a database class taught by someone who was at the time
working on DB2 at IBM, and a j2ee class taught by someone who at the time was
working at Sun Microsystems.

------
zumu
How about moocs? Am algorithms class will level you up for sure.

[https://www.coursera.org/specializations/algorithms](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/algorithms)
comes to mind.

------
austenallred
Lambda Academy of Computer Science - a six month, full-time deep dive into
software engineering and computer science. Closer to a CS degree than a one-
month bootcamp. You need to know basic programming before enrolling.

It's free up-front and takes a percentage of income after you get a job, or
you can pay up-front.

[https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science](https://lambdaschool.com/computer-
science)

(I'm a co-founder, happy to answer any questions)

~~~
sosodaft
I'm a currently-employed web developer (bootcamp grad) and I'd love to see a
part-time (nights and/or weekends), cash up front offering to deepen my CS
knowledge. Just throwing that out there in case part-time something you guys
have thought about. I'm sure I'm not the only bootcamp grad that could use an
in-depth CS program.

~~~
austenallred
Yeah, we think about it a lot. We want to be very careful about scaling into
something like that because the part-time dynamic is very different than full-
time, and the most important thing to us is our student experience.

It would also be long, if we used the current curriculum. Like... a year long.
We're not sure if that's too much of a commitment for most folks, so we're
asking.

~~~
hello_newman
I'm in a similar boat to the person above (bootcamp grad working as software
developer). I have been trying to do a comp-sci degree but that cost, degree
requirements (classes unrelated to my major) and actually going to school
after work is a major pain. I would definitely pay for a year long (or more)
part time CS course if it was intense and online. I'm doing that already, but
it would save me a lot of time/money of not having to actually commute to
school.

~~~
austenallred
Cool. Mind if I email you to ask a few questions?

~~~
hello_newman
that sounds great!

------
otterpro
Big Nerd's Ranch
([https://www.bignerdranch.com/](https://www.bignerdranch.com/)) especialy for
mobile app development. Their bootcamp is called "retreat", and they also work
as developers and publish books.

~~~
randomstep
disclaimer: I am an instructor for Big Nerd Ranch, teaching our various iOS
courses. That said, I came to BNR after being blown away by the quality of
their Mac programming book, years ago. I believe deeply in what we do.

tl;dr: Big Nerd Ranch offers short retreats for intermediate and advanced
instructors. They are not cheap but they are thorough and powerful, as long as
you're willing to put in the work.

Details: We have short (typically 5 day), intensive courses. The instructor
leads the class through a series of lectures and intense labs, building out
real applications throughout the week. The instructor works with each student
to help them maximize what they can learn and achieve during the week.

There is no magic for scaling across different ability levels, but there are
ways to do this better or worse. Our courses target intermediate to advanced
level learners. We intentionally build our chapters, demonstrations, and
lectures to be very dense with material. For the advanced students, they're
able to glean API gotchas and sharp corners, as well as real world tips
(pretty much all our instructors are also active consulting developers), and
lots of looks at different working practices. Seeing another developer work is
a great way to learn new techniques.

For intermediate or closer to beginner students, they won't that level of
detail as much, as they're still absorbing all the new APIs, design patterns,
and details necessary to just get apps building and shipping.

Our courses allow you to get out what you put in. In other words, there's not
any particular magic to leveling up. You have to put in the hard work
yourself. But I believe our retreat-style approach - where we remove or take
care of all possible distractions, and provide expert aid at your call - gives
you the best chance to maximize how much you can learn in a week. Food and
lodging is included. You'll spend the week learning, programming, and going
for hikes every day. It's sort of my ideal world. :D

We don't call them bootcamps half-heartedly. You'll be exhausted by Friday.
But if we've done our job right, you'll feel like you've just shortcut several
months of work in leveling up as a developer.

~~~
bogomipz
>"That said, I came to BNR after being blown away by the quality of their Mac
programming book, years ago. I believe deeply in what we do"

So can the same level proficiency be gained by either the book or the retreat?
Is there parity there then?

------
zengr
I have done CodePath twice and highly recommend for iOS and android bootcamps.
[https://codepath.com/](https://codepath.com/)

~~~
bogomipz
The site states:

>"Students must pass a rigorous selection process to be admitted to any of our
programs."

Would you be able to share what that selection process entails exactly?

~~~
calren24
From my experience, selection process was submitting your resume, going
through a short phone screen (15-20 minutes, mostly just chatting about why
you're interested and your background) and completing a intro project (it took
me around 8-10 hours)

------
gaius
At this level you should probably just take a Masters. I did mine part time
over 2 years while working full time. Many if not most good colleges will
offer some sort of programme.

------
baron816
I highly recommend Frontend Masters:
[https://frontendmasters.com/courses/](https://frontendmasters.com/courses/).

Lots of different courses taught by the likes of Douglas Crockford, Kyle
Simpson, Ryan Chenkie, and Kent C Dodds. It's not just front end stuff--they
cover data structures and algorithms, building REST apis, Electron and React
Native, testing and debugging, functional programming, prototyping, and even
SEO.

------
jbot29
I have been working on this idea for a little bit. Started putting together a
list of intermediate projects for people that finished a bootcamp. It is still
in its infancy. I ran a programming bootcamp for a year and a half and think
there is a need for this, but still figuring out the right way.

[https://github.com/Jbot29/intermediate-programming-
projects](https://github.com/Jbot29/intermediate-programming-projects)

------
eorge_g
This is heavy ruby/rails focused but has other content as well. Tagline is
"Get the junior out of your title"

[https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/](https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/)

~~~
chriswoodford
I've been advocating Upcase to Junior Rails devs for a couple years now. Has a
lot of great content around improving your testing skills, refactoring, and
best practices for object oriented design.

although most of the content is ruby/rails based, the concepts are widely
applicable to improving your skills as a software engineer.

------
spudsfurious
Profuse apologies in that this is not a so-called boot camp type avenue, but
if you're really interested in some computer science concepts, UMass Dartmouth
offers a computer science certificate.

[http://www.umassd.edu/extension/programs/computerscienceonli...](http://www.umassd.edu/extension/programs/computerscienceonlinecertificate/)

~~~
spudsfurious
And.. what I forgot to add was that you really don't need to take the
certificate. Look at a few of the 'foundation' courses they offer online for
people without a CS undergrad, most notably:

CIS 322 Data Structures and Fundamental Algorithms CIS 323 Fundamentals of
Computer Systems

------
sixhobbits
I'm working with Hyperion Development[0] which has a wide variety of online
bootcamps with 1:1 mentor support. We have courses targeting beginner,
intermediate, and advanced. Currently we are just about to deploy a big update
but have a look and you might find what you are looking for.

[0] [https://hyperiondev.com](https://hyperiondev.com)

~~~
bogomipz
Asking people for all of their contact details in order to simply read course
descriptions seems pretty lame. I also can't imagine that's doing the business
any favors.

~~~
sixhobbits
I'll submit this as feedback to our team :)

------
mcx
If you're in SF: [https://bradfieldcs.com/](https://bradfieldcs.com/)

~~~
jtmcmc
has anyone had experience with this? I'd love to get some actual reviews of
this place?

~~~
ozanonay
Hi! I'm one of the instructors, if you ping me at oz@bradfieldcs.com I can
connect you with past students or answer any questions you have :)

------
valbaca
Udacity Nanodegrees are geared toward "post-beginners looking to specialize"
(my words, not theirs).

[https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree](https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree)

For example, the Android nanodegree assumes you're already familiar with Java
and OOP, but not with Android.

The "Full Stack Web Developer Nanodegree" suggests you have "Beginner-level
experience in Python." (direct quote) [https://www.udacity.com/course/full-
stack-web-developer-nano...](https://www.udacity.com/course/full-stack-web-
developer-nanodegree--nd004)

These courses are not cheap, they take a lot of time, but if you have the time
and money, they are absolutely worth it IMO.

~~~
parthdesai
If you are at intermediate level, you can always just follow video
lectures/assignments for free and try to improve on your own. That's what i
do.

------
vikp
I'm the founder of Dataquest
([https://www.dataquest.io](https://www.dataquest.io)) -- we teach data
science online from the basics, and have a comprehensive curriculum that
includes machine learning, spark, and data visualization. You can skip the
Python basics and start with more intermediate/advanced material (and build
your own projects!).

We also have a data engineering path that teaches more CS fundamentals, and
may be a good fit (this is still being developed, but has a few courses).

------
yamalight
Shameless self-promotion:

If you are interested in front-end and/or node.js courses (javascript, react,
webpack, all that kind of stuff) - I've been doing a free open source course
called "Building products with javascript" [1] that is aimed at
intermediate/advanced developers who want to learn javascript more in-depth.

[1] [https://github.com/yamalight/building-products-with-
js](https://github.com/yamalight/building-products-with-js)

------
southphillyman
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't most bootcamps geared toward preparing
people for jobs? I feel like in this current market having to attend a
bootcamp as a experienced developer would send off negative signals about
one's ability to stay up on current tech/trends.

------
luckycharms810
Highly recommend 'Design of Computer Programs' on Udacity. Its a 300 level
class taught by Peter Norvig, and while the quizzes and homework's aren't
terribly challenging, its a great way to learn how to break down problems for
an intermediate developer.

------
lukas
I've been teaching classes on machine learning for engineers (shameless self
promotion: [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/technical-introduction-to-ai-
ma...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/technical-introduction-to-ai-machine-
learning-deep-learning-tickets-34671486349))

One of the coolest parts of teaching these classes is how awesome the people
are that show up. The engineers that want to learn new things mid career are
exactly the kind of people I want to work with and hang out with. I think
there's a real opportunity for more classes like this.

------
markfer
I've actually been thinking about starting a Sales bootcamp aimed at teaching
technical founders, or people with no background in sales.

Not sure if there would be any interest though.

~~~
fillskills
That would be VERY USEFUL. Speaking as a tech founder who had to learn and
appreciate sales after launch.

~~~
markfer
Mind if I email you with some more questions?

------
nilkn
This is not exactly what you're looking for, but it's somewhat similar and may
be of interest to some readers of this thread.

The Google Brain team accepts residents:

[https://research.google.com/teams/brain/residency/](https://research.google.com/teams/brain/residency/)

It's similar to a one-year research-focused advanced degree in machine
learning (with the focus being, of course, entirely on deep learning).

------
seanlane
MIT's OpenCourseWare [1] has a lot of great material that's as rigorous and
in-depth as anywhere you'll ever find. I've been using it to supplement and
extend areas where my alma mater's curriculum has fallen a bit short, or where
I just want to focus.

[1] [https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm](https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm)

------
werber
Not a bootcamp, but egghead.io is a fantastic resource, and udemy can be an
awesome resource for specific classes (but there is a lot of junk to wade
through)

------
shadyrudy
Want to learn SQL Server from the best? Check out SQL Skills:
[https://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-training/immersion-
even...](https://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-training/immersion-events-
schedule/) They are the best and most comprehensive. Not associated with them,
but a long time, satisfied customer.

------
prettygenius
Does anyone have experience with [https://www.udemy.com/intermediate-advanced-
java-programming...](https://www.udemy.com/intermediate-advanced-java-
programming/)? I've been eyeballing it for a while, $10 is cheap but I'm
afraid that's also indicative of the quality.

------
zitterbewegung
Although, part of the program is an intro to python development (which you can
easily skip) [https://www.dataquest.io/](https://www.dataquest.io/) is a set
of guided lessons that teach you data analysis/science/engineering .

------
mjhea0
I am building out an advanced-beginner course at
[http://testdriven.io/](http://testdriven.io/). It details how to set up a set
of microservices with Flask and Docker. Let me know your thoughts. Cheers!

------
shalperin
I'm surprised that Coursera and Udacity don't figure higher in the responses.
There are a tonne of advanced algorithms, machine learning, data science, and
domain specific stuff on there like computational biology and computational
neuroscience.

------
tarheeljason
For data science:
[http://insightdatascience.com/](http://insightdatascience.com/) only accepts
those who have completed a PhD

~~~
mindcrime
That has to be one of the weirdest things I've ever heard in my life. You
don't need a PhD to do data science. Hell, most companies would be taking a
huge step forward if they got somebody who knows how to do linear regression.

------
asimpletune
There's a great option here in SF called BradfieldCS.

------
jancsika
> I'm past the stage where I need a course on Python syntax or HTML.

It's hard to guess what stage you are at.

What have you built so far in Python?

------
Maven911
this is more of an AI bent to it but I have heard good things about the
following in NY that comes with a job placement:

[http://ivydatascience.com/](http://ivydatascience.com/)

