His profile indicates that he graduated from UC Berkeley and previously pursued I-banking, so I wouldn't exactly call that "no degree, no experience." Also, a good coding bootcamp, properly applied, can easily be worth more than a typical random "side project", IMO.
That's a huge point. "Code bootcamp" can mean a huge variety of things.
At its best, it often means "technical, business experienced, just transitioned into intensive software study", which is an enticing candidate. At its worst, it means something like "paid $50k to learn basic Javascript". Lumping those two together makes it really hard to draw any conclusions about experience.
The average age in my class was 28. People weren't ex-baristas. They were people from various backgrounds, often technical-related. I was a Math and Econ double major with a minor in applied statistics, then spent 6 years in finance doing equities trading. I was drastically more qualified than the average 22 year old with a CS degree.
Which is part of my point. You're talking experience and capability vs. "CS". The person I responded to contrasts two styles of bootcamps, but you could replace "bootcamp" with "CS" plus some minor editing and make the statement equally valid. "CS" doesn't really mean much, just as my math degree doesn't mean much. I used it to point out that the two rubber stamps aren't very different. The only real difference is that new grads are a crapshoot on both the technical side and the employability side. You just said "many", but how do I really know if one of those people is the one I'm hiring? How do I pick out the mature 22 year old that isn't a cowboy coding know-it-all, and who will actually be able to be fill the basic employment criteria? Technical minded-ness is pretty easy to spot, and I can verify recent work experience and success much more easily than I can validate what someone learned a decade ago. I'd happily hire a technically minded person with a demonstrated work history over a new graduate for the same price. Many people that take bootcamps already have technical knowledge, but not necessarily the specific domain knowledge. I'm using my experience to demonstrate that "bootcamp" doesn't mean the person magically sprung into existence the day before their coursework, just as your example points to the same thing. We hire people, not degrees or coursework.
I'm a very competitive person, which is how I ended up in that career. Towards the end of my time trading I realized I was competing with my health. I have epilepsy and hadn't had a seizure in a decade at age 26. I then had a few over my last 2 years of work, which was pretty easily attributed to lack of sleep. I haven't had one since I switched. I gained more than 20 hours in my weekday, some of which is dedicated to a better sleep schedule.
I think this is one of the largest problems facing the bootcamp industry in general:
* Other players in the space will likely make the industry look bad
* If you graduate the wrong people they can paint your company in a negative light
By and large, companies that get a bad university applicant who can't build a web app don't let it paint their experience of universities as a whole. But if the same applicant was from a bootcamp suddenly all bootcamps are terrible sources of any serious talent and they'll never be considered if they're in the applicant pool.
> By and large, companies that get a bad university applicant who can't build a web app don't let it paint their experience of universities as a whole. But if the same applicant was from a bootcamp suddenly all bootcamps are terrible sources of any serious talent and they'll never be considered if they're in the applicant pool.
This exact thing happened in the late 1990s with Visual Basic/HTML schools. A bunch of unaccredited for-profit courses issuing certificates and promising jobs sprang up during the dot-com boom and were fairly popular. Everyone I had heard about that attended these things left the industry during the crash. I do not see any difference in the way the "bootcamps" are run or what they promise (the word "bootcamp" is new, though), and I think the outcome will be the same.
Lots of people hold the same view about people who've come straight out of university; they simply can't code at all. I think it's less common nowadays, but it was whined about a lot in a IRC channel I frequented that people who came from university usually had to be taught even the most basic things about actually doing.
I certainly thought this was the general consensus. People seem to strongly prefer a substantial team project, reputable internship, or prior job when hiring new grads.
Without that, there's too much fear that you'll get someone who doesn't understand code reviews, writes unmaintainable horrors, or is generally inculcated into the write-once, read-never pattern of class assignments.
