
Dev Bootcamp Shutting Down - yaks_hairbrush
https://www.facebook.com/devbootcamp/posts/1453888288004252
======
skylark
I find bootcamps to be an interesting industry.

The general perception is that they're learning institutions, but that
couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, bootcamps are technical
recruitment agencies.

Companies are realizing that smart, motivated people with no CS degree can
still oftentimes excel in the majority of positions (primarily app
development.) The problem is finding those people. Bootcamps have stepped in
to bridge that gap - they essentially screen for people who learn quickly,
teach them the bare essentials, and send them on their way.

This means bootcamps have a symbiotic relationship with the quality of
students they're able to attract. The best bootcamps turn out the highest
quality students, who then get the best jobs, which makes the bootcamp look
better.

Dev Bootcamp was always in that awkward position where it was trying to be one
of the "premiere" bootcamps, but never actually made it to tier 1 status. It's
always lived in the shadow of Hack Reactor, Fullstack Academy, and to a lesser
extent, App Academy. Having personally worked with Dev Bootcamp graduates,
I've felt that on average, they were much weaker than the graduates from the
other bootcamps I mentioned.

Since Hack Reactor in particular has been expanding its reach to additional
locations, Dev Bootcamp was probably getting boxed out of the premium bootcamp
space. The founders were unwilling to be relegated to tier 2 (or the demand
was dropping too fast) so they had to pull out.

It's a shame, but I can't say I'm entirely surprised.

~~~
austenallred
That's really no different than any university. A lot of the value of Harvard
or Stanford is that they only pick the top n% of the country. The signaling
factor is as important as the education, often times.

Bootcamps are this weird space where, because they're so short and so
expensive, even the most legitimate are considered mediocre by most employers
because you can only teach so much in three months.

So you can make it a year long, but then do you charge $40-80k up-front? No
one has that kind of money.

~~~
marcoperaza
Another part of the value of a university is that they factor in SAT scores
heavily into admissions. SAT scores correlate strongly with IQ.

Hiring based on IQ tests is illegal, but hiring mostly from certain
universities is not.

~~~
learc83
It's not illegal, it's just considered defacto discrimination and you have to
prove it's actually beneficial.

There's no reason that you couldn't be sued the same way if you're only hiring
from a certain university and that leads to excluding people from a protected
class.

~~~
marcoperaza
You can use "disparate impact" doctrine to argue that just about anything is
illegal. It's pretty hard to full proof yourself against that.

But there's a big difference between something that existing legal precedent
has ruled as strongly likely to be illegal for hiring (IQ testing), and a
currently widespread hiring practice that may at some future date suffer the
same fate (hiring from particular schools). The legal risk of the former is
extremely high, while you would have to be extraordinarily unlucky to suffer
damages from the latter. Even if the courts do so rule in the future, you'd
have to win (lose?) the lottery and be the one or two companies that get taken
to court in that test case.

------
josephorjoe
So, three years ago, I was attending DBC and getting my first exposure to web
app development. Today, I write code for a living and am enjoying the work I
do much more than what I had been doing before.

Did DBC give me an education equivalent to a computer science degree? No.

Did they teach me everything I need to know about data structures and
algorithms? No.

Did they help me get my first programming job? Sort of, but not really.

But I did learn an enormous amount of practical knowledge in a very short time
(basically: "How to build and deploy a database-backed CRUD app with a
reasonable UI while working as part of a small fast paced team" and "How to
research stuff you don't know the answer to and figure out how to do it on
your own").

They taught me what I needed to know to teach myself the rest of what I needed
to know to get where I wanted to be. And for that, it was worth it for me.

But I do have mixed feelings about the bootcamps in general.

They can be really helpful for people in certain circumstances (in my case:
career changer who needed to jumpstart the learning process and get some
practical guidance), but they sell themselves as something else ("Learn to be
a computer programmer in 6 months!").

Sorry to hear they are shutting down. I suppose it was Kaplan's decision and
the space has become so crowded that there must be pricing pressure on the
programs and a limit to how many graduates the job market can absorb. Will
have to go look into this some more and see what I can find out.

~~~
austenallred
Wait, they didn't teach you data structures and algorithms?

They seriously stop at "hey deploy a CRUD app?"

That's rough. There's no way students are getting jobs with that in this
environment. Maybe when they first started that was enough, but now the market
is flooded with not-quite-competent junior devs.

~~~
shados
They can and they do. Which is somewhat problematics. A lot of companies are
trying to scale, and with the demand for software developers being so high
(plus the push for diversity), bootcamp "grads" are a pretty popular target.

But companies rarely make the difference between a CS major (especially those
with multiple internships or coops often spawning longer than the bootcamp on
their own) and bootcamp graduates.

So they both start as SWE or Junior/Associate SWE. Often there's a drastic
difference in ramp up and output, and people around them won't always know why
(unless people stalk them on linkedin or ask).

That puts a ton of burden on teammates that may not be properly prepared to
coach these people (they go through the same hiring process, same onboarding
process, etc). Don't get me wrong, its a failing on the companies who hire
people they are not prepared to handle, but they're often pressured to.

It's a really awkward situation.

~~~
doktrin
> So they both start as SWE or Junior/Associate SWE

> That puts a ton of burden on teammates that may not be properly prepared to
> coach these people

You hit the nail on the head. Bootcamp grads will typically require more
coaching than 4-year CS grads. Companies that don't realize this are setting
themselves and their new hire(s) up for a painful experience.

In my opinion, fresh bootcamp grads are ready to be apprentice developers.
Unfortunately, that's not really a role / distinction that any 21st century
companies even recognize, probably because that also means recognizing the
additional costs involved : apprentices require mentoring, and mentoring costs
money. It's simply greedy thinking on the part of a hiring company to believe
they can get a 4-year CS grad on the cheap & easy by going the bootcamp route.
It's bad management not to account for the latter's steeper learning curve &
onboarding requirements.

Ultimately there's no such thing as a free lunch. Even talented people can't
magically leapfrog the learning curve by cramming out webapps for 3 months.
There _will_ be gaps in their skillset - gaps that are best bridged with
hands-on guidance from a senior developer. This applies to all junior devs,
obviously, but doubly so for bootcamp grads.

~~~
shados
> gaps that are best bridged with hands-on guidance from a senior developer

Yup. Also, there are situations where that gap becomes problematic to fill. As
a lot of bootcamp people get hired, you start getting in situations where
everyone in the team is a bootcamp grad. Then they don't have someone with an
actual CS background to compensate.

I only have an IT degree myself (which, while longer to get, for all practical
purpose is just a longer bootcamp). That was fine: I learnt a lot on my own,
and 15-20 years ago, everyone else on my team had a CS background. I got
coached, i learnt, I went from there.

Fastforward today and people without CS backgrounds might not have someone who
does anywhere near. You don't know what you don't know, and have no way to be
guided in the right direction. That's bad news.

------
panorama
It always frustrates me when commenters are overwhelmingly undereducated about
a topic but continue to make broad, sweeping generalizations. There's a ton of
negativity, outright assuming, and misinformation being thrown around here. It
happens in every bootcamp-related thread (and topics in other subjects of
course).

No, not every bootcamp was legit. No, making assumptions about all bootcamps
based on a handful of bad apples is not an honest critique. No, your anecdote
about a bad bootcamp grad does not hold more weight than someone else's
anecdote about a bootcamp completely changing their life.

The fact is DBC, which spawned an entirely new industry, was an overwhelmingly
positive force. DBC has always made inclusivity and community a priority. For
the vast majority of students, DBC has been a much higher ROI investment than
a 4 year college degree and changes the way people think about modern
education systems. There are thousands of capable engineers (including myself)
out there today thanks to DBC, which often operated with high stress and,
apparently, minimal funds.

It's a shame each bootcamp topic has its share of otherwise reasonable people
making unfounded claims. In a community that values programming, startups,
inclusivity, and helping others, you'd think the negativity and baseless
accusations would be a lot more infrequent. It's been 5 years since DBC began
and yet commenter ignorance still requires graduates to come in and defend
their bootcamps.

If you have no idea what you're talking about, it's fine, ask and I'd be happy
to answer. But this community really ought to be celebrating what DBC has
accomplished.

Source: I'm an early 2013 DBC grad who has worked in SF tech since graduating.
I've also helped hundreds of bootcamp grads with their job search post-
graduation (meaning I have my fair share of honest criticisms for DBC). The
vast majority of people I've talked with are now employed at companies most
people on HN would love to work for.

~~~
watwut
Bootcamps are threats to ego. If it turns out that random person can do the
same with three months of study, then one is not such a huge exceptional
genius as one would like to believe.

A lot of the negativity is insecurity.

~~~
chrshawkes
What a lot of people fail to understand is working in React and Angular is no
easier to get into with a CS degree than without one. Both technologies among
the thousands of others change weekly and for that reason Bootcamps are damn
near as effective training tool than anything else. Ego's do get hurt though.

~~~
watwut
I have nothing against bootcamps, but I don't think it is difficult for
someone with CS degree to learn react. There is a lot of practical in CS too
and that experience makes learning react much easier - especially compared to
people with little experience and not much programming background.

Likewise, second bootcamp would be easier and learning new technology for
someone from bootcamp is easier then for someone with neither bootcamp nor CS.

------
BreakoutList
For anyone seeking alternatives, $0 up-front cost software engineering
bootcamps that I'm aware of:

Learner’s Guild [https://www.fastcoexist.com/3068200/when-this-
entrepreneurs-...](https://www.fastcoexist.com/3068200/when-this-
entrepreneurs-thriving-business-lost-its-purpose-he-walked-away)

42 (completely free) [https://www.42.us.org/](https://www.42.us.org/)

Holberton School
[https://www.holbertonschool.com/](https://www.holbertonschool.com/)

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

~~~
austenallred
Hey, I'm the co-founder of Lambda Academy of Computer Science
([https://LambdaSchool.com/computer-
science](https://LambdaSchool.com/computer-science). Also happy to answer any
questions.

We're not a bootcamp, but we are 100% free until you get a job, and have live
instructors from UC Berkeley, NASA, etc. We have a very rigorous curriculum
that is closest to an uber-practical CS degree, but there's not really a close
proxy to it anywhere.

We cover all the CS & programming fundamentals employers want you to
understand, and get much closer to the metal, covering things like
architecture/scaling, functional programming (hence the name), use compiled
languages, etc.

We're also online, so you don't have to move anywhere, but we're live and on a
strict schedule, so it's not something you can do asynchronously.

~~~
e12e
> We're also online, so you don't have to move anywhere, but we're live and on
> a strict schedule, so it's not something you can do asynchronously.

Has that been a benefit in terms of graduates getting easier access to remote
positions? (The fact that they've demonstrated the ability to work remotely
through your course)?

Do you work directly with potential employers, helping students get a foot in
the door, or is that up to students themselves? If you _do_ help out, do you
"sell" the remote idea?

Finally, are you open to non-US students?

~~~
austenallred
> Has that been a benefit in terms of graduates getting easier access to
> remote positions?

I don't know that it's really come up much; generally we don't recommend a
remote position for your first job, as you'll need a lot of hands-on training.
It makes more sense as you become more senior.

> Do you work directly with potential employers, helping students get a foot
> in the door, or is that up to students themselves? If you do help out, do
> you "sell" the remote idea?

Yes, we work directly with potential employers, but again "remote" isn't the
emphasis.

> Finally, are you open to non-US students?

We are, but unfortunately the "free-up-front" option is only available based
on our income share agreement, which is only available to those authorized to
work in the US.

------
jbenn
Attending Dev Bootcamp in March 2013 is the best decision I've ever made, it
totally altered the trajectory of my career and I'm happier and more fulfilled
as a result. I'm not sure I would have been able to make the switch from
consulting to software engineering without DBC.

That being said, I'm extremely lucky to have enrolled during the narrow window
I did. The entire bootcamp industry is suffering, not just DBC. They've now
totally saturated the market with juniors and refused to adapt to that reality
by extending and improving their product: they should be offering longer
courses, covering more material, interspersing their offerings with
internships, and providing intermediate-level bootcamps for engineers looking
to graduate to the next level. Today's bootcamp graduates have to compensate
for this themselves by continuing to teach themselves new content as they
fight for jobs after graduation. This is difficult - don't get me wrong, it's
still doable and still very much worth the effort - but it's hard, and this
explains the current embarrassingly low rate of bootcamp graduates winning
jobs as developers. If this describes you: keep your chin up, find a friend to
practice interviewing with, and know that you're going to need to work through
this material eventually:
[https://teachyourselfcs.com](https://teachyourselfcs.com). And feel free to
reach out to me.

I don't think anyone close to the bootcamp industry would see this as a
surprise, and I think we'll see many more bootcamp closures/M&As in the near
future. Hopefully the industry will evolve and adapt, not die - everyone
deserves the opportunity, not just the lucky few who had it easy before the
market got saturated.

~~~
magic_beans
I'm already web developer, but I want to move into Software Engineering. I
wish there was a bootcamp out there that would train people who _already_ work
with JS and coding, but are not as strong in CS. Bootcamp L2, for example.

~~~
Taylor_OD
Check out the guys at outco!

[https://outco.io/](https://outco.io/)

------
geekjock
I worked at Dev Bootcamp for four years. A big part of why the company is
going out of business is that it put students ahead of profits.

I wrote a post about this here: [https://medium.com/@abinoda/dev-bootcamp-is-
dead-but-it-didn...](https://medium.com/@abinoda/dev-bootcamp-is-dead-but-it-
didnt-fail-3a4e456899be)

~~~
jnmandal
Thanks for writing this Abi

------
ravenstine
DBC 2013 alumnus here.

I'm super disappointed to hear this news. Although I could see it coming,
because how often does this kind of thing NOT happen when a small company gets
purchased by a larger corporation?

DBC was quite an institution. As I've stated before, it's not about what they
can teach you – it was simply an invaluable resource to allow those with
ambition to figure out aspects of app development on their own and with other
people. If you're expecting a series of lectures, exams, and knowledge to be
bestowed upon you at DBC, you're looking at it wrong and you will fail. To
have a place to go where you can spend months hacking on things with other
people while going through a learning process, right in the center of the
action in technology, was so unique and valuable. I met so many cool people
and had far greater experiences than my time in college. It changed my life
tremendously. I have Shereef and everyone whom I shared my experience with to
thank! I really could be living in a van down by the river right now if I
didn't discover DBC.

The greatest thing I got out of DBC was not coding ability, which I mostly
picked up on my own, but a mindset/philosophy about learning and problem-
solving. I know that many of these things come naturally to people software
engineering, especially those far more brilliant than I, but not everyone
figures these things out. They summed it up as the "growth" mindset vs. the
"fixed mindset", which seems fairly accurate to me.

I really hope someone can continue(or at least hold a candle to) DBC's legacy.
A lot of bootcamps seem like junk, but I'm sure that's not all of them.

~~~
swyx
which aren't junk in your opinion?

------
pensierinmusica
Kudos to the school who started it all, and the vision behind it. Thinking
about the future, and the million of people who could benefit from learning
coding, is DBC going to open source their curriculum?

I think they should consider it, and I think that they could reach out to Free
Code Camp to see if they can do something together. Hope to see this
happening! What do you think?

From the European side - [https://codeworks.me/](https://codeworks.me/)

------
micahlucretius
Burst of bootcamp bubble? Dev Bootcamp seems to have been the first ever
coding bootcamp. Think Hack Reactor (another popular bootcamp) was founded by
Dev Bootcamp grads. Or maybe the herd would just distribute to other
bootcamps? Even if the failure of Dev Bootcamp doesn't directly hurt the
business of other bootcamps, it has a psychological effect on the bootcamp
industry: suddenly the bootcamp experience doesn't seem so attractive anymore.
If the school failed to survive, does it affect the survival of its graduates?
Is this going to have a psychological effect on how industry views bootcamp
grads, and consequently affect the job prospects of bootcamp grads?

~~~
xiaoma
The bubble is credentialed post-secondary schools and the 1.3 _trillion_
dollar student debt crisis.

Just like the credentialed schools, there's a wide variety in quality and
outcomes, but I think it's pretty clear they're doing better on ROI (and at
least people aren't going into decades of debt for them en masse).

> _" If the school failed to survive, does it affect the survival of its
> graduates? Is this going to have a psychological effect on how industry
> views bootcamp grads, and consequently affect the job prospects of bootcamp
> grads?"_

If someone learns nothing after finishing their courses and has nothing
positive on their resume for several years, they'd probably be in a tough
spot. That's not really very different from the case for other types of
schooling, though. If someone is learning and growing though, why would it?
Only an extremely strange employer would ignore a candidate's performance in
their last job and reject them based on schooling they did before it.

~~~
learc83
Federal loans (90% of all loans) come with income based repayment plans that
charge 10% of your disposable income and are cancelled after 20 years if you
don't pay it off.

The income based repayment plans are also retroactively available to all
Federal borrowers.

It's not actually as big of a problem as it sounds.

~~~
hkmurakami
The loan forgiveness entices people who wouldn't otherwise buy the education
product and further inflates the sticker price of education.

~~~
learc83
Sure, but it essentially shifts the debt burden from the individual to the
government.

$1.3 trillion in extra government debt isn't a large enough to really cause
problems.

------
kabuks
Here's the thread that started it all:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3267133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3267133)

~~~
hello_newman
Thank you for this. I remember reading this 5+ years ago. It was the catalyst
for me dropping out of college, and eventually made my way up to SF to go to
DBC. A hell of a journey, and it all started with a post on some forum.

Edit: I also didn't realize you're the DBC founder? I owe you so much and i
owe my entire career (thus far) to DBC and the entire industry you started
with some crazy idea of teaching people to code in a couple months. Thank you
for everything you have done.

~~~
kabuks
You are very welcome. Thank you for the kind words.

------
nathan-wailes
I don't know if I _should_ feel sad about this, but I do feel sad about this.
As others have mentioned, DBC was the first company in this industry, and
their excellent execution seems to have been what led to so many other
entrepreneurs becoming convinced that this concept could work; they really did
a great service for people in this country who didn't graduate college with a
hard-science / engineering degree. I considered going to a bootcamp back in
February of 2013 (one year after DBC launched), met Shereef and his cofounder
Jesse Farmer at their SF location, and left very impressed with what they had
created and with them personally.

~~~
kabuks
Thanks for the kind words.

~~~
midairmatthew
Some more kind words:

I'm currently working through week six of Phase 0, and I'm so, so sad that DBC
isn't going to last. I did tons of research about different bootcamps, but
ultimately I chose DBC because I wanted to be a part of a program that has
such a commitment to being a corrective force in the embarrassingly un-diverse
tech world.

It really is incredible that the thing you created has empowered so many
students to both maximize their ability to learn and gain more agency in such
an inequitable society.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. I'm glad I decided to dive into this
while DBC was still around. (And now I should probably get back to work with
attributes and modules...)

------
Tommyixi
So I graduated from DBC 3 years ago and I agree with most of the sentiments
already stated in this thread. However, I think the red flag for me was seeing
some of my cohort graduate and then immediately after become instructors at
DBC. I don't care what you say, you cannot teach programming after being
exposed to programming for 12 weeks. For one thing, a "good" teacher isn't
just someone who has been coding for a while (which obviously you lack if you
have just graduated from the program); you actually have to understand
pedagogy and take an actual interest in being a mentor or guide. If DBC had
hired instructors with industry experience, I often found that they lacked the
proper skills to make them effective educators.

~~~
travisl12
I hear that, I remember being asked if I was planning on sticking around to
teach at DBC and feeling inadequate at the thought of it. Mentoring perhaps
made sense...

BTW I finished in 2013 as well (Pocket Gophers SF!).

~~~
Tommyixi
Nice! I was in the Red Admirals.

------
bcherny
DBC was acquired by Kaplan back in 2014 [1]. Was this Kaplan's decision or
DBC's?

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/kaplan-to-buy-software-
developm...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/kaplan-to-buy-software-development-
school-dev-bootcamp-1403660869)

~~~
micahlucretius
I would guess it was Kaplan's decision. If the cause is unprofitability, then
there are no moves left for DBC. DBC sold to Kaplan for the money, and Kaplan
sees no money to be made in DBC, thus shuts it down.

------
learc83
Top tier boot camps are essentially 12 week long interviews that the
interviewee pays for.

It's a great business model for those top tier boot camps, but there's a
limited number of students who can make it through, pay for it, and take time
off to do it. It's just not that scaleable.

~~~
avremel
True. Schedule for most bootcamps are too rigid, especially for a married
person. And living costs during and after bootcamp (until that perfect job
magically appears) can far outway the actual tuition costs.

------
arikr
"Hi Andrew, we had actually been working too find a sustainable business model
since the very beginning. Ultimately we couldn't find one that didn't
sacrifice on our commitment to provide the highest quality program possible
while keeping our program open to the most diverse students possible."

What does that mean? It seems like this should've been a profitable business -
3000 graduates @ $10k/piece = $30mm revenue.

~~~
foota
I believe that three thousand was over the last five years. So 6mm. I don't
know much about it, but you could eat that up pretty easily it seems. Figure
300 students at a time, ten students an instructor, 100k per instructor, gives
3 million. Then there's rent and support staff.

~~~
jnmandal
The support/general overhead wasn't cheap either. When I was there we had a
free therapist, mandatory morning yoga, teambuiliding exercises, and stuff
like weekly free food, etc.

~~~
seaknoll
> mandatory morning yoga

This would enrage me.

~~~
JMCQ87
Bootcamps are not for everyone.

~~~
toomanyrichies
> Bootcamps aren't for everyone.

DBC grad here (Chicago 2013). Mandatory morning yoga is not an inherent part
of a generic coding bootcamp experience. DBC chose to make yoga classes part
of its unique culture, but I doubt all other bootcamps follow suit.

Personally, I wasn't "enraged" by the yoga and I even appreciated the emphasis
on mental health, but I don't think yoga was the only way to achieve this and
I would have appreciated the chance to opt out.

------
paloaltokid
That's too bad.

I've worked with many DBC grads and some nice people came through there. I
interviewed many DBC grads and they were definitely all over the place in
terms of ability and understanding, but some had everything it took to grow
into solid software engineers.

I've worked with some of the instructors as well and they're great folks.

------
trich7
DevBootcamps work over the last 5 years have been super impactful and paved
the way for many bootcamps. Like many in the industry, and as a founder of
DevMountain bootcamps, we all knew DBC as the golden standard. DBC changed
tech education and positively affected many! Much respect and best wishes to
everyone involved.

------
johnhenry
Is this announcement official? I don't see anything on their website
[https://devbootcamp.com/](https://devbootcamp.com/). Also, the timing is off
-- it seems announcing this at this time is going to put a damper on the
entire next semester.

------
zbarnes
I was a graduate of one of the 2015 cohorts. It was a good school that really
prepared me for a solid career. However, I remember running the numbers on the
camp when I was there and was having trouble coming up with how they could
still be profitable given their location, staff, and cohort sizes.

------
dkarapetyan
Good. The idea and intention behind bootcamps is a good one but the current
implementation is suspiciously like university of phoenix.

~~~
justin
My youngest brother went through Dev Bootcamp in 2012. He had graduated from a
top 30 university but wasn't able to find a great job and had been doing some
part time, low skill work.

DBC literally changed his life. Post graduation he immediately got a job at a
dev shop as a programmer, and now 5 years later is a great developer gainfully
employed in Silicon Valley.

Not sure why you would shit on the grave of a program that has done a lot of
good for its graduates.

~~~
dkarapetyan
Trouble with anecdotes is that it is not data. I'm happy for your brother but
that still doesn't change the fact that most bootcamps are overpromising and
underdelivering on their promises of gainful employment. It's simply not
possible to learn to program in bootcamp time frames.

I'm certain if we saw actual numbers it would not be a pretty picture.

For the truly motivated it is much better to go to recurse.com or join a
learning Meetup. Get a day job to pay the bills and learn at your own pace.
Programming is not going anywhere even with all the fancy AI startups. In fact
if I was just starting out I'd just learn Python and R.

~~~
Techonomicon
I fully support this comment, and have been doubling-down for a while on the
notion that people who come out of hacker schools and "do well" just had a
knack for it in the first place.

We have been looking for a very entry-level dev to be in a pretty entry level
role that would be perfect for someone to get their feet wet in the industry.

Every single person we've interviewed from a "hacker school" has been from
Hack Reactor. I'd say something like 40% of them would actually be able to be
some sort of "developer" given that they keep up the practice. About 20% (at
best) are what I would consider an actual "entry level dev intern"

Entry level in this context is basically just the ability to code some basic
html, css, javascript, with a computer given to you, and a task to work on
over the course of a day. Many of the previous Hack Reactor students we had
interview (at least 60%) (some even being "assistants"), in my opinion, have
no business in software development. They were technical enough to understand
"web dev" in conversation, but just couldn't manifest that into anything
useful without huge amounts of guidance for menial tasks.

~~~
temp20160423
Are you paying below market? The good ones probably are shooting for better
paying companies. I know some Hack Reactor alumni have made their way to
Google.

------
factorialboy
Who needs bootcamps? All you need is a decent machine and an internet
connection to learn. That's how we learnt "web" back in the day. Cynical me
hopes all commercial (and often spammy) bootcamps and conferences and meetups
die a quick death. Also death to the hipster culture in tech. /rant over

~~~
ravenstine
Why stop at bootcamps? There are so many resources on the internet, most of
which are free, that can replace all of the knowledge universities have to
offer and then some. Someone could learn astrophysics through Google searches.

But that's not a reasonable position across the board. Of course universities
offer more than mere information, and I would say that bootcamps(at least DBC)
focus mostly on those other things and far less on the information. By that I
mean learning to code at home online isn't going to give you the same
experience as spending days or weeks hacking on your first mobile app with a
bunch of other people, non stop, while chowing on beer and pizza. Yes, there's
tremendous value in that, especially if you need to learn to work on a team
and self-organize. In theory, you can emulate that environment on your own,
but there's a reason people pay for that kind of experience. A person of
novice experience can't or won't come up with a substitute for that. It's an
introduction to a world, of sorts. At least it was for me.

------
arikr
If Dev Bootcamp was unprofitable, are other bootcamps also unprofitable, or
was Dev Bootcamp an exception?

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
Recently, I had the opportunity to do some number crunching on actual outcomes
data for one of the tier 1 bootcamps. (all its years of operation to date) I
discovered that some major changes needed to be made in their business model
in order for them to be truly profitable. Their big innovative business idea
seemed to be: we are gonna be the best at bootcamping. I don't get how that
even passes as an innovative business idea at the first funding round. Their
delivery on that awesomeness idea didn't show itself in their outcomes. They
still love their model though. This may be because they don't have to be
profitable. I was puzzled.

~~~
arikr
Oh dear.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
Yes. Well said. I truly wish there was a way for the minds who convene here to
get at a disturbing issue with respect to bootcamps: No one with access to
actual data can be honest about what is going on here. they can't really share
this data in any detail that would be valuable to a potential student, and
really to the industry as a whole. These "transparency" reports that have
cropped up recently are not so transparent-- (although they are better than
nothing) they too deceive (why not show an actual budget with actual living
expenses after graduation- including debt to the coding school- a detailed
personal budget, if you will?- and actually show what it costs to live and
study for several months in addition to this- show them how much they will
actually have to lay out for a NYC security deposit (three months' rent if
local, 6 months often if foreign these days- sure, not everywhere, but
anywhere they will feel is a decent, legal place to live) this is just one
aspect of how they are not "full-disclosure" with newbies. Also- the pre-work
thing: take responsibility for teaching these people, please! They are paying
you! Stop acting like their paying you lots of money is a privilege of theirs.
Stop acting like they just got into Yale Law School when they got into your
bootcamp. Get real with them. That gives you credibility right there. The
honesty problem: Students can't be honest about what happens to them, because
if they are, they (in their own minds) will devalue the bootcamp pedigree they
paid good money for. (I have been talking to bootcamp graduates since this
whole thing started and doing research. No, for some of the reasons I state, I
can't produce this evidence, at least not right now) Then there is the whole
having to pretend to be a member of the upper classes in NYC in order to get a
job. This is a real thing in NYC, so tell them about it, and teach them how to
act like rich people when you send them out. Teach them to act entitled- even
arrogant. People who found and work for these bootcamps can't be honest (even
if they believe they want to be) for obvious reasons. I mean, this is why we
value double-blind testing in medical research. I just don't see another way
than the companies themselves taking the responsibility to educate employees.
I don't think they have to become Stanford. I do think Google has already
started with this effort in bringing Howard University onto their Mountain
View campus... I'm paying attention. The burden on the employee just becomes
greater and greater until people are funding whole mini-careers in order to
clear the first barrier to entry. It is ridiculous. We should not stand for
it. But labor is dead. The bootcamp thing was a fantastic model five years
ago, and Dev Bootcamp was truly a pioneer. That should be recognized for sure,
and applauded. But what is being ignored is that this barrier to entry is now
the highest it has ever been as a direct result of these bootcamps. I can
believe that and also think Dev Bootcamp and others have done wonderful work
for people. It is just that the big heavy castle door is closing fast and a
few are scrambling to run under before the spikes hit their backs. Most will
be left drowning in the castle moat. The answer is clear here: the model needs
to change dramatically and it needs to always be changing dramatically. Agile
anyone? (sorry- had to, I really had to) So maybe take stock and make real
change that responds to the market in a sustainable way. Sustainable would be
wonderful.

------
trevmckendrick
Hard to compete against things like Lambda Academy where there's no up front
cost and you only pay if you get a job: [https://lambdaschool.com/computer-
science](https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science)

~~~
chrshawkes
Lambda does not look like a legit company, there is no terms of service,
privacy policy or even a legit contact which is typically required for most
reputable businesses. I don't trust them without basic legal information
available on their website. For all we know, they are run by the Russian mob.

~~~
austenallred
There's not really a need for a terms of service on a static page. We should
probably get a privacy policy up. And there is a contact... both email
addresses and forms. Do you need a physical address? We don't have someone
sitting around waiting to answer the phone all day.

We're Lambda Inc. Incorporated in Delaware. Haven't announced our fundraising
yet but that will be public soon. Clearly need to work on making the site look
more legit.

~~~
chrshawkes
Sorry, maybe legit is too harsh a word, but in many cases I've seen privacy
policies and terms of service to be a requirement to do business with the
likes of Amazon and Google etc...

~~~
austenallred
terms of service is something you have if you're an app. Our students sign
legal contracts. Our site is just a landing page.

But ya we'll work on it. Thanks for the feedback. Something something cobblers
kids worst shoes.

------
xiaoma
Relevant thread with comments from competitors and people who were there at
the beginning:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758364)

------
nether
Can't bode well for Kaplan's other bootcamp, Metis for data science.

~~~
JMCQ87
That space might still have less competition and therefore lower marketing
costs.

------
buildmystartup
I think Dev Bootcamps are awesome but would probably be better served as an
online service without the live classroom setting. I would rather do
acloud.guru and udemy.

------
scott_booth
.

~~~
komali2
I think a scathing review like this deserves a bit of explanation, regardless
of topic. It's so easy to say "this thing BAD!" Why should we believe you?

------
booleandilemma
Does this mean coding is starting to lose its sexiness?

Is the fad over?

~~~
smt88
Possibly, but there certainly is an over-abundance of bootcamp grads, and it's
hard to choose among them.

~~~
panorama
I'm not a fan of this line of thinking. Not every bootcamp graduate is the
same. There may be less variance between them from a purely technical
standpoint but their backgrounds are far more diverse than what you'd get out
college.

In other words, I don't think it's fair to say "there's an over-abundance of
graduates from XYZ university. It's hard to choose among them." Regardless,
stereotyping job candidates based on where they learned to code is poor
practice. A good hiring manager ought to take the time to treat a candidate
respectfully, but I know this behavior is rare. If your organization simply
doesn't want to take on junior/entry-level programmers, it should be clear in
the job post _and_ IMO, you shouldn't be open to receiving college-grad
applications, either.

~~~
smt88
I actually don't hire junior/entry-level devs, but I do get flooded with their
resumes even though I'm very explicit that I'm looking for experienced devs.

If I were considering entry-level hires, I wouldn't hire bootcamp grads if
their only experience were at the bootcamp. If someone has been coding for
less than 4 months, I'm going to spend most of my time teaching them how to
code. That kind of employment provides more value to the employee than the
employer. That might work for some big companies, but I can't do it in a small
company.

> _There may be less variance between them from a purely technical standpoint
> but their backgrounds are far more diverse than what you 'd get out
> college._

I agree with you, but it doesn't make it any easier to hire them. I have no
idea if I'd rather have an ex-ballerina or an ex-salesman as my employee.
Neither of those careers give you training as a developer.

So if I'm just trying to decide if someone can do the job, seeing 20 people
with 12-16 weeks of experience isn't helpful. And, as someone who has been
writing code for 20 years and still has a lot to learn, it's insulting to
suggest someone can become competent in that short a time. I know for a fact
that they can't. It sometimes takes that long for an experienced dev to learn
a new stack, and bootcamps are claiming to teach people a huge array of
technologies.

> _A good hiring manager ought to take the time to treat a candidate
> respectfully, but I know this behavior is rare._

I treat candidates with respect. I think (most) bootcamps should treat their
customers with more respect and stop promising to teach them to code.
Bootcamps are mostly "teaching to the test" in my experience -- they teach you
how to get hired. That's valuable, but it's a totally different thing.

~~~
tannhauser23
How about a math major from a top ivy? Physics grad student? Consultant?
Chem-E engineer? Founder of a successful startup? Product managers? We had all
those and more at my bootcamp cohort.

Look, you do what you want with your hiring. But don't just make the blanket
claim that bootcamp grads aren't competent. People in my cohort were
contributing right away. Looking at people few years above me, they're
launching successful open source projects, becoming team leaders, giving talks
at conferences, etc. If you're insulted by their success, maybe that's on you.

~~~
smt88
> _Physics grad student? Consultant? Chem-E engineer? Founder of a successful
> startup? Product managers?_

Those would be the same in that they don't have coding experience. Those
people might be great hires, but they're not going to be great coders after a
few short months trying to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and possibly a backend
language.

I didn't say that they're stupid or anything. I mentioned that even a highly
experienced coder wouldn't be competent with a new stack in that amount of
time.

> _People in my cohort were contributing right away._

Contributions aren't the same as _good_ contributions. Bad contributions are
much worse and more expensive than no contribution at all.

> _launching successful open source projects, becoming team leaders, giving
> talks at conferences, etc._

Again, none of these things indicate competence necessarily, and they
certainly don't indicate that someone is a great hire. Coding is not just
knowing facts and writing code. It's having the experience to know how to
structure things, what tradeoffs to make, etc.

> _If you 're insulted by their success, maybe that's on you._

I'm not insulted by their success, but I am concerned that bootcamps are
taking lots of money from people and not delivering what they say they're
delivering.

Edit: If you look at other comments in this thread, I think many bootcamp
grads agree.

There's also going to be some survivorship bias here: you succeeded due to
your bootcamp, but does that mean it works for everyone? Would you have been
able to do it on your own? Are you smarter than the average person who would
be interested in a bootcamp?

~~~
tannhauser23
What basis do you have for asserting that their contributions are bad? That
their open source projects and promotions to team leadership aren't signs of
competence? Look, you can go on believing whatever you want to believe about
bootcamp grads - no one's forcing you to hire them. But it is interesting to
me that my cohort mates keep getting hired by everyone from small startups to
Google, and they keep progressing in their careers. That tells me the
bootcamps have done a good job of prepping them to begin their coding careers.

And wait, who said bootcamps is for everyone? My bootcamp never made that
claim - they specifically said that it's hard, they're selective about who
they let in, and that they kick out people who aren't cutting it. And who
cares whether I (or anyone else) could have done it on my own? Could you have
learned to code without taking comp sci classes? Probably, right? Does that
mean your college was pointless/useless/fraudulent? Of course not.

Bootcamps showed that entry level developer jobs at most web startups don't
require four years of studying computer science. It's a craft that many people
can pick up without formal education in the subject matter. And if you ever
want or need to learn about 'deeper' subjects? We can just pick up a book and
learn it. This isn't rocket science.

~~~
smt88
> _What basis do you have for asserting that their contributions are bad? That
> their open source projects and promotions to team leadership aren 't signs
> of competence?_

I didn't assert that. I asserted only that "contributions" are not evidence of
competence. Competence isn't even always sufficient to make someone a good
hire.

> _That tells me the bootcamps have done a good job of prepping them to begin
> their coding careers._

I agree and said this in my original comment. I said that bootcamps are
"teaching to the test" and prepping people to get past the hiring process.

> _And who cares whether I (or anyone else) could have done it on my own?_

The people who pay for a bootcamp and don't get their money's worth. It's not
easy to part with $10k+ for most people. The top comment on this post is
someone who felt that way.

> _Could you have learned to code without taking comp sci classes? Probably,
> right?_

Yes, and I did. I'm self-taught. But it didn't take me 16 weeks. I still look
back on my skills a year ago and think, "Wow, I sucked a year ago." And I've
been programming for 20 years.

> _Bootcamps showed that entry level developer jobs at most web startups don
> 't require four years of studying computer science._

They certainly don't necessarily show that. If you hire someone who needs
months of training to be a productive, independent employee, that's not a
success. That's evidence of a shortage of entry-level coders. I think that
shortage is starting to wane.

> _This isn 't rocket science._

It's not rocket science, but besides being something that requires
understanding the way computers work, it also requires learning and understand
a staggering number of technologies. I regularly use CSS, and I can't even
keep up with just CSS. There's too much to know.

There are also many layers to being a great programmer that people rarely get
early on. Many people don't realize that readability/maintainability are the
most important qualities of (most) code. Even if they do, they don't
necessarily know how to achieve those things.

You seem to be suggesting that web programming is unique among professions in
that experience is mostly unimportant and someone can figure it all out in a
few months. Would you argue the same about plumbing, repairing air
conditioners, accounting, or sales?

None of these things are rocket science, but they are things you can't just
think your way through and understand how to be good at. It takes time and
practice, like everything.

~~~
tannhauser23
It's interesting that people who come on these threads to argue that bootcamps
aren't effective, scams, etc. say, 16 weeks aren't enough to teach you
everything about programming and that programming correctly requires constant
practice and learn new things. Well, duh. That's true even if you spend four
years majoring in CS, self-studied for a year, or got an associate degree in
programming.

And yeah, that's because there's too much to know, especially in web dev where
the frameworks and standards are changing all the time. And yeah, I think that
a 12-16 intensive program backed by 3-6 months of pre-study (which was what my
bootcamp was) is definitely sufficient to produce competent junior web devs.
How do I know that? Because, again, I see people from my cohort and prior
cohorts succeeding at their jobs.

You can keep saying, but! but! they need tons of support and hand-holding!
They can't possibly know how to write clean code! (Because of course, new
college grads are writing Code Clean-approved code from day one) They need
months of training before they can fix a CSS issue!

C'mon. Yeah, if you hire a recent bootcamp grad and tell him to rewrite the
whole backend, you're setting him up to fail. But if you hire him as a junior
software engineer and give him tasks that are appropriate for that role? And
what new hire doesn't require training? You think brand-new plumbers, air
conditioning repairmen, accountants, salesmen etc. don't require training and
mentorship?

Yeah, bootcamp isn't a magical potion that turns everyday joes into Linus
Torvalds. But so what? It's an innovative program that's produced thousands of
successful engineers in the Bay Area and beyond. The sauce isn't for everyone,
but it's been a great way for many people to prep for a new career.

Edit: And what's even more amazing to me about the anti-bootcamp screeds is
that this is an industry that celebrates self-learned programmers! Very often
I see posts that say, bootcamps are scams, don't do it, you can't be competent
coming out of it, just go study on your own for a while. Okay. So studying and
making stuff on your own can make you a competent programmer, but intensively
programming for 12-16 weeks with other people who share your passion while
under expert guidance, is somehow not good enough? Never understood that one.

------
phrowaway21231
Shereef Bishay sold out his staff and sold out his mission and he's going to
the do the same to his staff at Learner's Guild in Oakland! He sold it off to
Kaplan for 80M and his staff (with equity) got nothing!!!

I interviewed for a role at Dev bootcamp in 2016 and got an odd feeling from
the place and the woman who interviewed me. She took several months to get
back to me after I followed up multiple times and wow am I soooo glad I didn't
get that.

~~~
kabuks
Hey, what you're saying about me is not true. Please don't do that. Seriously,
it hurts.

~~~
stowaway90210
I was at DBC around the time of the sale and you're full of shit. You checked
out, drove tons of taleneted people away (Michael, Lachy, Tony, Jesse, Keith,
Zee, Myles, to name a few), and then decided you were bored with bootcamps.

You were in it for yourself and it would have been better for everyone if you
could have admitted it. Sounds like you're still believing your own stories.

Kudos to you for hiring and inspiring an amazing team. Too bad you didn't know
what to do with it.

~~~
JustAnotherPat
It's true. Those instructors were all amazing, but Kaplan started asking them
for their college transcripts to determine their pay scale (lol), and they
realized the fight has already been lost.

