
The Joys and Challenges of Hiring Developer Bootcamp Grads - brit200313
http://sfviapgh.com/blog/2016/1/9/the-joys-and-challenges-of-hiring-developer-bootcamp-grads
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c0achmcguirk
I've worked with two bootstrap grads, the ones that come from the 8-week
program. One of them I hired directly onto my team.

It's been a great experience! The developer I hired is moving on because he
found a better paying position (as a coder). I view this as a success and I'm
happy for him. It took him 8 months to get to this point and I'm sad to see
him go.

Things I learned:

\- They come in excited but they have so much self-doubt that needs to be
tamped down.

\- Pair programming with everyone on the team is a must. Even the neckbeard in
the corner that hates chit-chat needs to help out. Why? The BG needs to learn
it's okay to talk to anyone about problems.

\- I had to be on the prowl for condescending talk when the BG asked
questions. It needs to feel like a safe environment to ask questions without
being ridiculed.

\- I noticed a huge jump in productivity when I had the BG design an
onboarding presentation for new employees. Basically a "this is how our
applications work here" Powerpoint. He loved working on it and it forced him
to learn more about all the moving parts.

TL;DR In my experience BGs are great. They need plenty of room to fail and
grow, but it's equally important that the whole team plays a role in their
growth.

~~~
MollyR
I just want to say you also need to consider business fit. If your business
can't afford to train a bootstrap grad properly(whether is time deadlines or
money), don't hire them. I've seen two great guys just completely burnout
because not only was our app complex, they just weren't familiar enough with
some of fundamentals you get in a cs undergrad for our timelines. They tried
their hardest though.

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kwang88
FWIW we've had great experiences hiring bootcamp grads. A few aspects of our
software engineering process have helped smooth this transition: * We're
disciplined about code reviewing everything that goes to production. * We're
very careful about having a smooth ramp-up period - managers are expected to
carefully curate the first few weeks / months of a new hire's projects to make
sure that it follows a smooth learning curve, and we adjust the params as
necessary. * We're gun-shy about hiring. * Our tech stack happens to share
many frameworks / languages with the technologies that are in vogue among
bootcamps today (due to random chance).

My experience has actually differed slightly from this post, in that many of
the bootcamp grads whom we've hired have actually had excellent project
management skills, especially coming from IT or PM roles in tech or tech-
related industries. The main challenges that I see are around depth of
experience - most bootcamps optimize _very_ heavily for building CRUD apps
with a bit of frontend sugar on top, so you need to select really carefully
along whatever metrics for potential you find valuable. YMWV though.

Specific plug: despite interviewing candidates from many different bootcamps,
one bootcamp in particular, App Academy, has consistently stood out. As of
when I last checked, App Academy was the only bootcamp to use a conditional
payment system, where tuition is contingent upon finding a fulltime software
development job. This aligns incentives well - App Academy is encouraged to
maximize training and applicant quality - and we've found their alumni to be
very solid. I don't have a horse in this race but they turn out very
professional and talented graduates.

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abang
Excellent post!

I am a bootcamp student and from my perspective, you really nailed the points
on the Challenges of Hiring Bootcamp Graduates. I worry, however, that many
companies will not have the resources or the patience to provide the kind of
fostering environment described here. There is perception that the junior
developer talent pool is being watered down by sheer number of bootcamp grads
and many of them just do not measure up to classically trained CS students
often competing for the same jobs. I recently attended a career track hosted
by my own bootcamp and the coaches specifically instructed the students to
omit the word "bootcamp" from their resume.

I personally believe that bootcamps can be a tremendous opportunity for
motivated (and disciplined) students seeking a condensed and immersive
learning environment; it's possibly one of the fastest way to learn a new
trade. My experience so far is that meeting the boot camp requirements alone
is probably not enough to make me competitive and I need to supplement the
learning with additional readings, meet-ups (as suggested by my mentor), and
further coding practices. Bootcamp curriculum should be the bare minimum.

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seibelj
Tried the boot camp route, went to demo day and chose our 6 favorite, out of
those 6 interviews we hired 3, one turned out to be pretty good but honestly
needed so much hand holding it wasn't worth it in the long run. Plus all of
the boot camps have been putting 6 figure dreams in their head which is truly
unjustifiable for their experience. If I want entry level, I'll go with
college grads, just way less headache.

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abustamam
There are zillions of factors that could make hiring a bootcamp grad a good or
bad idea, from the type of bootcamp, to the type of individual, to the type of
company, to even the interview process.

I did several online "bootcamps" (free code camp, Udacity, and some
Udemy/Coursera courses), since I felt like no single curriculum really
satisfied what I felt to be necessary.

I just like learning, so I made sure that I practiced every day.

And now I have a job working at a small start-up (4 employees including me).
The last dev they hired was from Free Code Camp as well, and he's doing very
well. The CEO of the company mentored him, and now the dev is mentoring me.

The interview process is something I think a lot of other companies could
learn from--no brainteasers, no tricks, just coding. They asked me to open up
a project I worked on during the bootcamp, describe it, then add a new
feature. They stepped out while I was working so that I wouldn't be nervous
about making a mistake. The CEO himself applauded my use of Google when I ran
into road blocks.

It took about an hour total, and during that time, they were able to determine
if I was fit for the position.

So I think the viability of hiring bootcamp grads stems from how good the
interview process is--if it's terrible, you may be disappointed in your new
hire.

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mberning
On one hand I am glad that graduates are getting education and opportunities
without subjecting themselves to mainstream educational institutions.

On the other hand, it does concern me that this is one step closer in the race
to the bottom for developers.

It won't be long before being a developer is just another poorly paying job.

~~~
woah
That kind of attitude can only mean one thing: you doubt your own skills and
the usefulness of what you do.

~~~
mberning
Far from it. I am a decade in to my career and will likely not be impacted by
these trends. I am more concerned with the next generation of developers
entering the workforce. They could be first generation of developers to be
worse off than we are now (compensation, job stability, etc.)

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jowiar
Pretty much everything listed as "challenges" also applies to "recent grads
from CS programs -- even top tier ones".

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aaronbrager
"Bootcamp Grads" is a pretty broad phrase; we might want to start using more
precise language. An grad from an 8-week bootcamp will have a different skill
set than someone who spent 18, 48, 72 weeks in a bootcamp program.

Also, Thoughtbot has a somewhat good guide to running an apprenticeship:
[https://github.com/thoughtbot/apprenticeship](https://github.com/thoughtbot/apprenticeship)

It could be adapted without much work to hiring bootcamp grads.

~~~
xiaoma
Just counting the number of weeks is pretty misleading too. Some schools are
only 9am to 4pm or even just evenings five days a week. Others, such as Hack
Reactor are 11+ hours per day, six days a week.

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mikeryan
As the guy monitoring the end of a dev hiring email let me broach another
challenge.

I have no way to wade through the high volume of identical resumes coming out
of these programs. Every Hack Reactor grad has the exact same thing as every
other grad. Its very difficult to weed out anyone in this scenario without
setting up a call with every grad that applies which isn't a scalable model
for hiring junior engineers. The single biggest reason I've not given enough
BG's a shot is the level of effort needed of finding a good one or one who's
the right fit.

Note some programs have started setting up mechanisms to interact with a bunch
of grads in a group (we've done this) and this has been a decent way of doing
this.

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taurath
Reading the post and this thread makes me feel very lucky. I didn't attend
either a bootcamp or college, simply got to know people who coded a lot and
did lots and lots of tutorials and made a few demos to get in as an intern (on
the recommendation from one of those people). I'm now a pretty senior
developer at a startup. I'm not sure how to recommend people get into the
industry - nobody seems able to or willing to take the time to hire greenhorns
anymore unless they come with a degree.

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markwaldron
I have a bachelor's in CS and math and I'm currently attending a boot camp. Do
you think having both would be beneficial once I graduate from the boot camp?

~~~
blueatlas
Actually, this seems like an ideal combination. I am mentoring a CS student
(in his senior year) and honestly he won't have the skills when he graduates
that will satisfy anything but an apprenticeship. The bootcamp should provide
you with practical skills. My advice - keep building interesting things on
your own and be prepared to present and talk about them at your interviews.

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ilostmykeys
Let's not paint this subject with a broad brush.

Depends on the choice and depth of curriculum, length of time, the student and
the instructor.

Having said that no bootcamp or hacker school can give you 20 years of
experience writing and maintaining software. That's really the disavdantage.
But natural talent in rare individuals can replace that with intuition,
although I'm not sure how people like that do over the long range. I don't
know ... But it's wise not to judge people in superficial manner without
seeing what they can do.

~~~
onion2k
Comparing a bootcamp graduate to an industry veteran with 20 years dev
experience is ridiculous. No one expects them to have that skillset. They're
junior level developers who compare with university graduates, often very
favorably.

~~~
ilostmykeys
Your mind is playing tricks on you. You are angry and are seeing things in my
comment that don't really exist. I understand you maybe an old developer who
is threatened by young talent but where do I compare someone with 20 years of
experience to a bootcamp grad? I simply said let's not stereotype and judge a
whole segment of people and that talent is not age based. Only experience is.

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deckar01
TLDR; Bootcamp graduates are ineresting and motivated individuals, but don't
know project management basics. They are good for testing your organization's
internal documentation, but require a lot of guidance.

