From non-technical to hired developer in 5 months | Hacker News Reader

From non-technical to hired developer in 5 months

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46 pointsmrborgen29 comments

"Coding had actually been my hobby the last couple of years..."

And that's almost certainly why it's worked out well. Someone who is interested in coding enough to actually learn it in their spare time, even if it's only enough to understand the concepts, is immediately ahead of someone who joins a bootcamp because there are "$$$ Companies looking for developers now! $$$" adverts around. To be a developer you have to have a desire to write software; otherwise you're very likely to get bored and give up because, frankly, quite a lot of software development is dull. That's why developers like to automate as many things as possible - to get move the boring stuff out of the way so we can do more of the fun things.

I'd rather hire someone fresh out of a course who writes code in their spare time before I'd hire someone experienced who was only interested in the pay check at the end of the month. Being interested in making things counts for so much in development.

Thanks, I think so as well. Being truly interested in the field makes all the difference. At least is has for me.

Isn't that a little bit disingenuous to claim "non technical" to "technical" if you already knew how to code?

That's not what the statistics say.

The top coding bootcamps like Hack Reactor have 99% placement rates for their graduates within 6 months with average salary of 100k.

And if you don't get a job, hack reactor charges you NOTHING. That is how confident they are in their students.

Hahaha - average salary of 100k? Um, evidence please?

Actually, 105k but it's not that hard to believe in the bay area.

http://www.hackreactor.com/

Even if Hack Reactor is an exception to the rule paying 105k for someone with 3 months experience is genuine insanity.

Looks as though they keep a pretty high bar for their students and that will lead to an overall more talented grad than your everyday bootcamp but its still crazy.

For that price you could hire 3 excellent remote workers.

I've looked at the alumni they have on their site - most seem to be hired by startups (ie. companies that likely have more money than sense). Coupled with the knowledge that its BA then maybe we're a little closer to an explanation.

Still utter insanity.

I have ~4 years of experience and I make 60k, and feel like I'm worth closer to 35-40.

Wonder where this industry will be when the bubble pops.

For their graduates. What's the attrition rate from people initially in the program to people graduating? I've heard of other local programs that kick people out of the program and refund the prorated difference if you can't keep up or fail tests. For reference, the program I'm talking about boasts of a 100% placement rate for graduates.

For an investigative piece on why Hack Reactor is an anomaly you should read this:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3023456/become-an-ios-developer-i...

> The schools that tout six-figure salaries, such as Hack Reactor, tend to set a higher bar for admission, seeking candidates that already have some experience with code.

Another quote to take note of:

> "There's no world in which somebody who's been programming for a few months will be competitive with someone coding for 10 to 15 years."

Coding bootcamps screen for prior experience and/or aptitude

The bootcamps that do this (or are free until you get a job like App Acadrmy) are very hard to get into and usually screen for programming experience or skill. The ones that accept anyone are the ones we should study.

Yeah this is a huge differentiation. Knowing how programming even works -- e.g. the editing of text files, running an interpreter, etc -- is a huge step beyond what the average non-technical person knows.

Having taught grad students who are otherwise smart but have had no programming experience whatsoever...I'm constantly astounded at what I have to explain. Such as the concept of a prompt from an interactive shell, and how nothing "happens" until you hit Enter. This is pre-basic and yet I can understand why the confusion happens...there is virtually no other modern software in which the paradigm is that nothing happens until you hit Enter...even a web browser, you're already sending off data to have your query be predicted as soon as you type in a couple of letters.

It can take some time to learn the basic mechanics of programming. If you've toyed with it for a couple of years, you're probably well past that stage.

Sure, as talent and willingness to learn is enough to hire someone. It will take about a year until you write "ok" code though.

You are very optimistic or very fast-learner. I remember classmates during my master's writing shitty code even after 5 years of CS studies (and I'm not the best ninja-coder there is).

I'm not talking about myself, those are my experiences with hiring developers.

During CS you don't learn how to write code, you're just learning about architecture and algorithms ;) There is just not enough real-world practice involved.

I've noticed better learning in industry vs class. My guess is because of a smaller set of things to learn (best practices of employer) and 8-10 hours a day of repetition

Yeah, I'm learning just as much as a hired front end developer as I did at my bootcamp. More narrow focus, which gets you deeper into the subjects.

I've always thought a good comparison is to view computer languages as natural spoken languages. Some people are very quick to become fluent, while others, it can take years.

Computer science isn't about programming, so one wouldn't expect that it teach people who to program well.

That's because graduate students at universities are shitty coders.

CS degrees teach you how to do math, not how to be a software engineer.

I wonder, looking at the sibling comments, under what rock were you hiding to even expect "5 years of CS studies" to teach people to code? ;)

Well I feel sad for people like my classmates (and you?) who lost 5 years to learn to do "simple math" and learn "about algorithms"... Because under my rock, 5 years is enough to learn to code (good not VERY good), and of course learn about advanced algorithms, data structures, language design, J2EE and all the shitty stuff we use in entreprise, etc.

I'm reminded of when I passed my driving test. I didn't really learn to become a driver for a good few years after that (arguably I'm not a good driver even now).

Congrats on your accomplishments; ignore the haters on here.

Thanks!

The wonderful world of IT.

Gratulerer, dude.

Takk!

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