
Web-Era Trade Schools, Feeding a Need for Code - constantinum
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/us/web-era-trade-schools-feeding-a-need-for-code.html?_r=0
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llamataboot
I graduated from a bootcamp a year ago after working in the non-profit field
for over a decade as a researcher and a social worker, and doing a few years
of standing up wordpress sites for small non-profits and doing other IT
support for them (setting up better CRMs, networking their office, setting up
online donation systems, etc)

A few things:

1) Bootcamp graduates shouldn't lead to poorly written codebases if they are
being mentored properly. This means good code review at a minimum, as well as
pairing, as well as onboarding and assigning appropriate tasks. If you are a
company bringing on junior developers and just letting them loose in a
codebase you are doing a disservice to those junior developers - they are
going to feel exhausted and overwhelmed and lost most of the time - as well as
to the rest of your team (trying to deal with their code) and your clients.

2) No one should be claiming that you can come out of a bootcamp with the same
experience as someone that's been coding web software for 3+ years, but you
come out with a solid foundation in a framework, with basic coding skills, and
a hunger for learning more.

3) Demand for coders is still outstripping supply. Demand for experienced
coders even more so.

\--

Arguably we are stuck with the 10 week-3 month model though. I think the 6
month model offered by Turing School makes a lot more sense, up to a year.

I have a lot more thoughts about bootcamps but these will do for now.

~~~
existencebox
At the risk of a slight tangent, I would contribute that these are issues for
bootcampers/nonbootcampers/developers of all ages, that I'd really love to see
more people notice.

Even as someone who has been "doing this for a while", the amount of stress
and feeling underwater that comes from a job that doesn't onboard sufficiently
(or at all) compared to one that has good mentoring is astronomical. As a
caveat, this may be an effect of my terrible habit of switching concentrations
every 2-3 years (prototyping->security->ops/sysadminning->research->'industry
programming'), but the amount of extra productivity I could have given my
employers had they better smoothed new team transitions (even in such simple
things as having organized and non-silod documentation) I would hope could
motivate positive change, since it benefits all parties.

------
UK-AL
Reminds of the late 90's, early 2000 era, when every man off the street was
doing mcse, cisco qualifications etc with the promise of highly paying jobs.
Then a few years later there was gut of unemployed techies.

~~~
mgirdley
Disclaimer: I run a bootcamp in San Antonio called Codeup.

While the media paints the camps as "get a great paying job", I see more
people wanting a more meaningful life. They've got an expensive degree in
English or something similarly un-useful and want to work on things that
matter. They see coding as the path to get there.

~~~
michaelvkpdx
If you classify an English degree as "un-useful", you should not be involved
in educating developers.

I studied both CS and English in college, and got my degree in English. The
communication skills and translation techniques I learned as an English major
have been tremendously useful to me in my career as a software engineer. In my
experience hiring developers, I've found that those with liberal arts degrees
do very well, particularly when they leverage their humanities background as
an asset.

Anyone can write code, but it takes a breadth of knowledge and perspective to
effectively maintain and engineer software that has societal value.

~~~
enraged_camel
The way I look at it is that soft skills, such as those taught in an English
(or any other language) program, act as _multipliers_ for non-soft (hard?
solid?) skills. Without them, a STEM major can still be effective. But a pure
soft skills major will not be very effective. Zero times X is zero.

What would it have been like if you had not studied CS, and graduated with
just an English degree? Well, we have a fairly good idea: just look at pure
English degree holders and how they are faring in today's economy. Most of
them are underemployed and overworked as they work multiple jobs in the
service sector to make ends meet.

You, on the other hand, were able to use what you learned in your English
program to boost your effectiveness in software engineering. But make no
mistake: software engineering is the real, solid foundation of your career.
Not English. English was useful, but _only_ in combination with your technical
knowledge.

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netcan
There's a question that interests me.

Employers are vocal about needing good employees. They are willing to spend on
their recruiting. Some are apparently happy with the results of these
bootcamps (for entry level coders, I imagine).

 _The schools’ revenue models differ substantially. App Academy, in San
Francisco and New York, charges no tuition, but takes 18 percent of graduates’
first-year salaries_

Why don't big employers hire & train, evening if they outsource the actual
teaching to bootcamps? That way they will be able to dictate the toolset and
the standards can be whatever they want. The costs are similar to recruiting
costs anyway. Shorter average tenures don't sound like the whole story behind
the lack of employer funded training. How can they be willing to spend $15k on
recruiting but not on training. It doesn't make sense.

Big Banks once had very successful intense training courses lasting 2-6 months
frothier traders. These contributed to their culture, built loyalty, actively
assisted in recruiting, and culled the bottom of each cycle. The training
programs were an asset.

If these schools can get someone to a solid starting point in 3 months, that
sounds like a perfect fit for employer training. It takes a lot of risk off
the table for students. Why not?

Is there some inherent advantage these schools have that facebook don't?

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the_duck
Whenever I read about coding bootcamps I feel a tinge of worry that they might
mean the end of the "good old days" for software developers. Do we expect that
they'll have any tangible impact on the labor market by pumping out so many
graduates with basic coding skills?

~~~
never_snapped
I think they will put some downward pressure on the lowest of entry level jobs
in languages/frameworks that are becoming a commodity (rails in particular),
but wont affect jobs outside of that too much. Many people switch careers
(moving over to software sales, for example, or getting out of IT all
together) after an entry level job, or become more specialized in different a
subset of skills.

~~~
mgirdley
If bootcamp grads are "doing it right", they'll keep developing and evolving
their skills.

~~~
pessimizer
This is probably unfair, but I think that most of them are going to lack the
math background to advance their skills very far from implementing simple CRUD
apps in common frameworks.

I don't know that STEM people are going to code schools; I think they probably
just google the manual, read a few tutorials and have at it.

~~~
never_snapped
The math can be learnt, just like coding can be learnt. The only difference
between someone with STEM background who codes and someone without, is the
order they choose to learn it in.

mgridley is right in that the vast majority of business applications require
almost no math, and those that do are usually so specialized that an advisor
figures out those equations first as they require a specialized domain
knowledge.

Want to build tools that developers build upon? You may need the math, but you
can usually already find the algorithms in research papers.

The only exception to this rule (that I can think of) are very specialized
niches of development, which ultimately become commoditized and consumed by
developers without the math anyways.

~~~
pessimizer
The math generally cannot be learnt quickly, or else I'm particularly stupid.
For me it took years and tears and a full time courseload.

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shoover
It sounds expensive, hectic, and really time-consuming, which raises concerns
about the kinds of jobs that one should expect waiting at the end of the
chute. I feel Lou H's comment: "Mostly they prove they can work insane hours
for months on end."

Is that mainly how trade schools work, though? I've heard similar pictures of
automotive and commercial pilot schools.

~~~
VLM
That might tie in with the excellent question of why there's no people with
3-5 years of experience willing to work in those environments. Don't kid me/us
that 3 years ago no one knew how to code, or computers were invented six
months ago so there are no living people today who started out four years ago,
LOL. You can seamstress your whole life, and the seamstress in the article
needs to ask herself why her theoretical future employers can't get anyone to
work for them longer than 36 months in their environment, in their career
field.

Also I remember when I only had 3 years experience programming and that was in
1984 and I was... not quite as wise as I am now. Optimistically I'll still be
alive in 2044 and looking back at code I wrote in 2014 and asking myself WTF I
was thinking, what noob wrote that and signed my name on it, way back in '14\.
A labor market of 40 or 50 years duration where 3 year olds are being marketed
as being senior citizens is another strong indication of "peak of bubble".

I'll make a lot of money cleaning up after the kids, so I am grateful, but
there should be more to life than spending all my time wearing a mental hazmat
suit and wielding a virtual manure shovel.

------
comatose_kid
What do people think about an alternate path - read a few good books, create
something useful on a github page?

My hiring bias skews towards people with a good engineering background or
concrete examples of meaningful contributions to non-trivial coding projects.

Sure, vocational school is fine while demand for programmers is outstripping
supply. But those who lived thru 1999 and the resulting downturn have seen
that these things can turn on a dime and a 6-month certificate may not provide
much job security.

~~~
mgirdley
In my experience, this works for only a very small minority of people. Most
everyone else is lacking self-teaching skills or motivation to teach
themselves enough to be hireable.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I pretty much want to stick to this minority in hiring. I don't know how to
get useful work out of anyone else.

Given a development role, how do you get someone who needs hand holding to be
worth their salary? Just hire a lot of manager/mentors and resign yourself to
being a large team? Or something else?

~~~
mgirdley
I recommend people hiring bootcamp grads to sit them next to a senior dev.
There's 1-2 times a day that 5 minutes of mentoring will save them hours.

------
loudin
My gut reaction is that these boot camps are fueling some employment at early-
stage start-ups because the graduates are far less expensive than more
seasoned developers and the code they write is probably okay enough for a
short while. Why would larger tech companies hire from this pool? I would
imagine that there are enough CS grads in the market for them already.

Does anyone here hire graduates from these schools? If so, what has been your
experience? If not, why not?

~~~
mgirdley
If you look at the open dev job postings, experienced developers are where the
shortage is. Companies hire bootcamp graduates to take workload off of the
experienced (3+ yrs) developers plates.

Interestingly enough, if you look at job postings you'll also see that a
disproportionate number of job listings want 3-5 yrs experience. Companies
want people who someone else has trained for 3 years but don't want to pay the
prices that people with 5 or 10 years experience command.

Disclaimer: I run a bootcamp in San Antonio called Codeup.

~~~
w1ntermute
Yeah, they all want 3-5 years experience, but they're more than willing to
hire someone with less once they realize that someone with 3-5 years
experience is probably not available at the salary they're willing to offer.

~~~
mgirdley
There's an argument to be made that the vast majority of developers are
underpaid in the US.

~~~
w1ntermute
They definitely are. If more developers knew how to negotiate, weren't so
meek, and knew how to persuade/explain to managers that outsourcing is going
to cost them a lot more in the long run, then the average developer would
probably make a lot more money. But bargaining doesn't work so well on an
individual level unless _a lot_ of (good) developers are willing to bargain.

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redmattred
I'm currently conducting a survey with code bootcamp graduates about their
experiences. If you've recently graduated one, take the survey at:
[http://www.codejobs.io/surveys/codebootcamp/student](http://www.codejobs.io/surveys/codebootcamp/student)

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baltcode
Not all engineers live in SF and make more money than they know what to do
with. What are the kind of services that most engineers and coders are paying
through the nose? Attorneys, financial services, therapists, etc.

Why not have more schools training these professions?

~~~
nilkn
There are already too many schools training attorneys -- so many, in fact,
that getting a law degree does not at all guarantee a decent job as a lawyer.

Salaries at top law firms remain very strong, but salaries at most other firms
are much lower than what one would expect due to the vast number of graduates.

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bvm
can anyone vouch for a UK-based equivalent of these?

~~~
acabrahams
I've done a full-time 5 day course at Steer on iOS and a 10-week evening
course at General Assembly on Ruby. Both were useful, but IMO not worth the
cost. I have friends who have completed the GA full-time bootcamp, and some
who have done the Makers Academy one. MA seems to be better for helping you
become a real software developer, rather than someone who knows a bit about
apps.

