
We Pay You to Learn to Code - kevlar1818
https://modernlabor.com/
======
lost_my_pwd
Way down at the end of the page an "oh, by the way..." disclosure:

    
    
      After the program graduates pay 15% of their income for 2 years if they are earning over $40,000, capped at $30,000 total paid back to Modern Labor.
    

There is also the implication that a potential starting salary is $91,476:

    
    
      $91,476 The salary of an entry-level front-end developer (Source: PayScale, 2019)
    

Assuming that was somehow true...

    
    
      %15 * $92K * 2yr - ($2K/mo * 5mo) = $17.6K total cost of tuition
    

Looking around, ~$11.4K is the average tuition for a coding school, so this
proposition works out to be a rather high interest loan (that can't be paid
off early):

    
    
      $17.6K - $11.4K = $6.2K in interest
      $6.2K / $17.6K / 2yr = 17.6% APR

~~~
tasuki
The important difference being that with this program, you don't pay if it
doesn't work out for you. The 17.6% APR is in case of a success - they just
helped start your career. Seems well worth the greatly reduced risk!

~~~
everdev
> The 17.6% APR is in case of a success

If making $40k/year is "success". With your $6k payment on the $40k you made,
your $34k is barely above the poverty line.

> Seems well worth the greatly reduced risk!

No, it doesn't. Just seems like a 300% repayment rate. I bet the number of
software jobs starting under $40k is in the bottom 5%, maybe 1% of job
listings. So, you're basically only mitigating risk if you can't find a job.

~~~
smokeyj
> So, you're basically only mitigating risk if you can't find a job.

Which is.. everyone starting a bootcamp!! Lol.

Who are you looking out for? You seem really concerned about the biblical
application of usury laws. Do you know anyone who has zero technical skill and
would _LOVE_ to make 40k? I have a feeling you live in a very, very small
bubble.

~~~
everdev
Just because you think someone is so poor they should be grateful for a 3x
loan doesn't make it legal or right. That's the definition of loansharking.
It's been a pervasive problem that increases economic inequality because only
the poorest would accept a loan with those steep terms. Just because it's
related to something positive like teaching people to code doesn't make the 3x
payback and less burdensome.

I'm not so worried about this company in particular, but if this business
model works, imagine desparate people signing up for a $100k loan and having
to pay back $300k, or getting $300k for a house and having to pay back $900k.

It's the payback rate that's the problem.

I also don't think it's a bad thing to be concerned about other people in our
community.

~~~
Drdrdrq
(I didn't downvote you FWIW)

The difference here is that the incentives of workers and this company are
aligned. Either workers start making some serious wages and the company gets
their money back (with interest), or both lose - worker their time, company
their investment. Given the risk I don't think this is even close to usury. In
fact, I would assume they are getting paid by the companies too, for privilege
of getting the suitable candidates (which is not a problem in my eyes, if
true).

Edit: and if they ever move their operations to EU I know a few people who
would probably grab such a chance with both hands.

------
lucasmullens
> 100% remote - work from wherever you want

> $91,476 - The salary of an entry-level front-end developer

These two things should not be next to each other. It's exceptionally rare to
get $90k a year remotely with no prior work experience.

~~~
fm95
It's disingenuous to place this figure there without specifying the location.
Even in places with high COL, 91k as an entry-level front end dev is
unrealistic if they have no prior experience. And if this is assuming you'd be
remote, that's even more ridiculous. 91k off the bat with 0 prior experience
in the industry working from wherever you want sounds like a fantasy.

~~~
sokoloff
> Even in places with high COL, 91k as an entry-level front end dev is
> unrealistic if they have no prior experience.

In the metro Boston area, fresh college grads are getting $100K+bonus
typically, with upside from there. I think $91K is not at all unrealistic.

~~~
Latteland
130k plus is the typical salary with a college grad in a top company. We are a
startup in Seattle, not a unicorn, you've probably not heard of us, and we pay
135k + options for new college hires. We are told our comp is too low by
people.

~~~
strikelaserclaw
I mean those are your cream of the crop type candidates i'm assuming not a
person who just got pumped out of a 12 week bootcamp. I would assume < 10% of
people with no experience entering the field get 100k+. Even 10% might be a
large number.

~~~
Latteland
They are very good bachelors. I don't think someone with 12 weeks in bootcamp
can pass the interview bar. We ask about multithreaded programming in C++, a
series of programming challenges, and about theory of computer science,
software engineering principals. Nothing that I wouldn't expect from my
previous experience with fang like companies.

~~~
mattmanser
Why would a frontend dev need to know multithreaded programming in C++,
knowledge which a tiny percentage of startups need?

FAANG are recruiting high-level programmers, not people hooking up forms to
APIs.

~~~
Latteland
I think I missed something - my startup needs backend devs, not frontend.

------
gnicholas
Can you remove people from the program midway through, if it seems like
they're not doing well? If so, what are the rules around this?

In some ways this seems like a very selective program, since you pay people to
do something whereas your competitors charge people. But selective programs
would want to get the very best students — and here there's actually an
adverse selection problem. That is, people who think they will be rock stars
and get high-paying jobs will not want to enroll with you since they would
expect the longer payback period (at their presumed high salary) would be less
favorable than doing a typical program with a payback period that is half as
long.

------
pier25
They really expect to have someone from zero coding to full stack in only 12
weeks? 3 months is barely enough to get started on modern front end, assuming
you already have programming experience.

Either they have found some revolutionary new way of injecting data into the
brain Matrix style, or the people coming out of that program won't be even
close to ready and will probably have a mess in their heads.

Also 90K for an entry level remote position? I have 20 years of experience,
where do I have to sign for that? I'd gladly take an entry level position with
zero responsibilities for that kind of money.

------
augustl
This is a really great idea.

I could easily see variants of this happening. For example, companies could
fund the students and get to pick first.

I can think of at least 5 people I know that has the potential to become
competent developers, but their problem is exactly what this solves: they
already have jobs and mortgages.

------
peterwwillis
Who is the target audience specifically? There are lots of organizations who
work with state unemployment agencies around the country to try to place
people with training, and then help find them jobs. This seems perfectly
placed for that.

Assuming I could find 10 formerly convicted felons who live on
unemployment/welfare and dropped out of high school and got them to apply to
this program, would they get accepted? If _" The most important thing we care
about is evidence of grit"_ is true, I think these individuals should qualify.

------
SiliconAlley
I am surprised that nobody has raised the question of whether this is 15% of
gross pay, pre-tax or 15% of net pay, post-witholding (well assuming W2
positions)? Those are very different things, especially in states like CA/NY
where I imagine many candidates might end up being placed. In those contexts
15% of gross might be more like a 25-30% effective share of the developer's
net income (?)

------
ebiester
I'll be the competitor.

We will pay you to learn to code, then place you on projects for real clients.
They will then have the option to hire you within 6 months. It's outsourcing
cross training. (We'll have a few senior devs to mentor the teams, and we'll
hire an exec or three involved in government contracting to give ourselves
multiple options.)

Who wants to fund? _laughs_

------
bitwize
This smells too much of Unbounded Solutions/BrighterBrain style scumbaggery --
a wooden nickel I would advise anyone not to take. Want to learn programming
on the cheap? Take or audit courses at your local community college or state
university, or learn on your own.

------
dakkenet
What alarms me is that students are tying up a large portion of their future
income to self-teach from MOOCs and other freely available online sources. If
I have the gumption to learn on my own, is a little bit of cash really what's
holding me back?

------
HNLurker2
Off topic am I the only one fascinated that Eliezer commented in the other
discussion? I am just excited that this guy is still using hacker news for 10
years now (he mentioned in 2009 q&a that).

27 days ago (my favorite non fiction writer of all time):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Eliezer](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Eliezer)

His comment is this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19231120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19231120)

------
everdev
> After the program graduates pay 15% of their income for 2 years if they are
> earning over $40,000, capped at $30,000 total paid back to Modern Labor.

Something about taking a cut of someone's salary doesn't feel right to me.

If you were to borrow the $10k that they give you, over a 2 year period at a
10% rate (maximum allowed by law in CA), you'd pay a little over $11k. Modern
Labor will charge you up to $30k over that same 2 year period, for an interest
rate north of 100%.

How is this initial $10k different from a loan? Just because it's coming out
of your salary doesn't mean it's not usurious.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Because, what if they don't earn over $40,000?

It's a numbers game. Out of N graduates, some will pay back $30K, some will
pay back $0, some will pay back something in between. For those who pay back
$30K, it may be a bad deal... except they're the ones who made the most in
salary, too.

I'm not sure whether that's a fair deal or not.

It seems to me, though, that the hotter I thought I was, the less I should be
willing to take this deal, because the more I thought it would cost me...

~~~
everdev
Yeah, I get from the company perspective how the risk is spread across
multiple candidates.

But from the individual perspective, it seems to be way higher than the max
interest rates allow.

Now imagine colleges saying you can pay your $300k 4-year tuition up front or
pay us 15% of your salary until you pay us $900k. Already wealthy kids will
have an even bigger leg up in life because they'll pay their tuition up front.
While those who had to choose between an aggressive loan or no education will
have to pay an extra $600k.

Right now, with student loans capped at 5-7% it's still a huge disadvantage to
those that need to borrow. I can't imagine if this lending model is extended
to classical universities how much a 300% repayment rate will drag down those
who are already struggling with 5-7%.

------
zuck9
How's this different from Lambda School?

~~~
gingerbread-man
This is for people who would prefer to teach themselves.

~~~
ryanallr
Does anybody really prefer that?

~~~
gingerbread-man
Speaking for myself, I generally prefer to learn at my own pace studying from
books than from lectures and a standardized curriculum. But the issue here is
value vs. risk: Lambda provides greater value (instructors, curriculum,
etc...), but their income share amount is similar because it needn't account
for the (presumably) higher risk of failure with self-study.

------
cjg
I know another company that has been doing something similar in the UK for a
few years. In their model they pay for you to train and guarantee you a job at
the end of it. The catch is that you have to repay your tuition if you leave
that job within 1 or 2 years. They send you on crappy consultancy projects and
pay you a relatively low wage while they rake in high consultancy fees.

The people I know who had trained through that could not wait to leave and
didn't feel that it had been overall positive.

On the upside you get some work experience too.

------
CobrastanJorji
This page may be advertising an entirely legitimate program, but it's going
out of its way to set off as many "shady business" alarms as possible. The
cynic in me says this may even be intentional, for the same reason that
Nigerian scammers keep saying they're from Nigeria: to filter out the
suspicious.

------
crypt1d
> Currently, you must have the right to work in the US in order to apply.

I wonder why, though? Is there a legal barrier that prevents them from
introducing this to foreign students as well? Or is it just because US-based
salaries are much higher than in many other parts of the world?

------
mstade
Is it 15% of everything _above_ $40k or does it include the $40k as well?

~~~
alehul
You would think so, given the sibling comment about how people would be
incentivized to make under $40k, but according to their Launch HN [1]:

"The $40,000 threshold is inclusive. So if their income is equal to our
greater than $40,000, they owe 15%. If they ever dip below $40,000 payments
stop until it goes back up to $40,000."

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227441)

~~~
mstade
Hey, thanks for the link! It seems odd to structure things this way but
looking through that thread you linked to it seems they opted for simplicity.
Not sure why this is simpler than 15% on the margin though.

------
pixelbath
I feel like this might be solving the wrong problem. Are we at the point where
we don't have enough experienced coders looking for work? Why not create a
better way to find jobs for them first?

~~~
0xffff2
We definitely don't have enough _competent_ (which is most definitely distinct
from "experienced") coders looking for work.

------
rsweeney21
This is very similar to Lambda School, another YC backed startup that is doing
very well. Lambda School went through the YC program just 1.5 years before YC
decided to back a competitor. Not cool. Good VCs will bow out if they have a
conflicting investment. YC sets a great example for many policies, but I think
they got this one very wrong.

Now, if I am applying to YC I'm going to have to consider that they will have
access to sensitive plans, strategies, strengths, and weaknesses of my
startup, and that they might inadvertently share that with a competitor in a
later batch.

I'm sure they'll say they have a Chinese wall and don't share information, but
YC as a company now has a conflict of interest.

Really makes you think twice.

~~~
blairanderson
where does YC state they will only fund a single company per vertical?

~~~
rsweeney21
They don't. That's my point. Most VCs won't invest in a competitor, but YC
does. I think that's bad for founders.

------
snazz
Their Launch HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227441)

------
randall
Dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19227441)
?

------
totololo
Is there anything for similar for Europeans? 42 is tuition free and now age
agnostic but that’s it as far as I know...

------
blairanderson
This is exactly the LAMBDASCHOOL model.

I fully support more attempts to spread this out! Competition is good!

------
aqibgatoo
What about outside US?

------
Shaddox
Wow, this is significantly more than what I make in Eastern Europe. Sign me
up!

~~~
iagovar
Yeah, except about this:

> (you must have the right to work in the US)

So you and I, both out.

------
halfeatenpie
I don't seem to be understanding the finances behind it.

The agreement is by completing the program, you pay 15% of your salary for 2
years as long as you're receiving more than $40,000. However, it also says
it's capped at $30,000 total over that period.

If you pay someone a $2,000 a month salary for 21 weeks, that's already
$42,000. Where's the extra $12,000 coming from?

I'm just trying to understand since if I agree to quit my "current job" and
rely on another company to help pay for me, I'm relying on that company to not
pull the rug out from under me when I'm half-way through the program. How do I
know this is a reliable and sustainable program?

Interesting concept! That's just the first question that comes to mind for me.

~~~
alehul
> If you pay someone a $2,000 a month salary for 21 weeks, that's already
> $42,000

It's $2,000 a month for 5 months, so $10,000 total.

~~~
halfeatenpie
That's true but they wrote a maximum of $30,000 total.

Is that total the monthly max cap or total net "payment" back to the
organization? If it's 2000 a month salary for 21 weeks then yeah that's fine,
but I guess it's the semantics that I failed to understand.

~~~
crazynick4
$30,000 is the max that you will pay back, calculated as a percentage of your
salary once you are hired. $10,000 is what you will receive over the course of
5 months of training.

~~~
halfeatenpie
I just realized I totally misread it. Now it makes sense.

I just can't do math apparently.

