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Comment by lemmon7 | Hacker News Reader

"coder boot camps" are for suckers.

Suckers like the 3 excellent, well paid, junior engineers that I work with every day, who are doing a bang up job.

From my experiences interviewing candidates from Hack Reactor, GA, Code School/Academy, et al, i'd say, results not typical.

To be fair, you don't really know what his beginners are "banging up". It simply doesn't take much skill to use a web framework to generate database-backed webpages (witness the rise of the "javascript programmer").

The bootcamps are cranking out a commodity product for a commodity world.

That is interesting, because I am a CS student and that's exactly want I want to start my career with (web development). I do a lot of React on my own and have some Rails background.

It seems like entry-level jobs in that area, between other CS majors, bootcamp grads, and self-taught developers, are going to get tough to get.

Actually, IMHO, it's easier than ever. Supply can't keep up with demand, and anyone who can show demonstrable skills via a portfolio of relevant personal projects and the demonstrable practical knowledge is on the fast track.

That's good to know. Thanks!

It's not like it is the first time this has happened. EDS (remember them?) had so much demand for programmers back in the mainframe days that they resorted to hiring people with no knowledge of computers, pushing them through a three/four-month course in programming, and them putting them to work as junior coders.

I guess it may also depend on the individual. Some people will do better and learn better from those camps. Majority probably get suckered into it as some holy grail of career change, not knowing what they're getting themselves into.

Ideally, you will learn from a bootcamp how to self-teach yourself, so you would not need to spend more money on a second bootcamp.

Web developers?

Out of curiosity, why do you ask if they are web developers?

Because that's largely what boot camps focus on. They are there to teach you what's popular right now, which is web dev. They aren't going to teach you kernel development, or backend application development, or graphics skills, because that's not what 'omgstartups' are hiring for.

Exactly. Not to mention "not hip" things like security, performance sensitive code, distributed systems, HCI, solid understanding of computing theory, and so on.

Web devs tend to be easily replaceable, so why not hire a bunch of juniors (at a cheap cost) to get the job done? This is what it seems these types of "academies" are targeting anyway. Like "timr" said in this thread: "... a commodity product for a commodity world."

Fair enough, but I don't see how any of this has to do with the topic at hand, which was boot camps are for suckers. I wouldn't consider the junior developers who are working out well in the parents reply suckers - sounds like they're employed and working out well.

They bought a product (bootcamp) in the pursuit of a career in software engineering. Odds are they aren't equipped for more than a series of jobs doing webdev scut work.

"Suckers" might be a bit strong, but their expectations may suffer a certain misalignment with reality.

That's a bit presumption of you, perhaps all they wanted to be was someone who does 'webdev scut work'.

It's possible! But I've also talked to a number of bootcamp grads and students. Most of them have dreams of doing more than basic webdev.

Of course, it's possible that those were outliers. The population is clearly non-zero, though.

I know web devs who have taught themselves CS fundamentals and the stuff you mentioned, but they started with boot camp doing Rails. And why not? They were able to teach themselves this stuff while working for a good salary and getting experience for their resume.

Damn, guess I'm a sucker for trying to better myself by attending 9 weeks of fun/education leading to an awesome job that I love.

How could I have been so foolish!

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