If you did a tech bootcamp three years ago and it went fantastically, you're probably reading HN today and will see and reply to this. The more success you had, the more likely you're a developer today!
If it went terribly, you might still be working at Starbucks and don't read HN very often.
I'm much more attuned to these things from the following podcasts and blog:
https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/
http://theknowledgeproject.libsyn.com/
A few of my favourite episodes and articles:
- http://theknowledgeproject.libsyn.com/rory-sutherland-on-the...
- https://youarenotsosmart.com/2017/01/13/yanss-092-avoiding-t...
- https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/06/habits-vs-goals/
Most relevant I guess:
- https://youarenotsosmart.com/2015/08/04/yanss-055-psychology...
Seriously, though, after some early career burnout I did a stint at a restaurant job to pay the bills while I decided what I wanted to do with my life...and that was by far my most productive period of time as far as keeping up on general tech news, personal projects, academic research/reading/conferences, etc...
A non-code day job can be a great way to have the mental energy to spend on non-job code. :)
I'm not questioning the argument about frequency, I'm questioning the underlying assumption that "success" in a bootcamp is only measured by employment as a developer.
If you don't measure the success of a coding boot camp by "employment as a developer", what would you measure it by?
It's been 4 years since my bootcamp experience and I very, very much doubt I'll ever seek "employment as a developer" again except in the case of failure as an entrepreneur.
Now they're talking about starting code camps targeting other vets, help with transitioning to civilian life, build community, mitigate PTSD, work with kids, etc.
I've been mentoring a number of our senior support folks on coding, and they've been doing something along the lines of a boot camp. My management finds that support team are able to better understand how things work, attempt to debug things they'd have been afraid of, and ask better questions of software engineers. Support engineers get to do something different and are building skills. They have seen "coders" move quickly through support to the engineering team. Another group manages our tools, but I hope they'll be able to hack on some tools for our team. Some people will stay in support, but it should be less stressful because they can understand how things work better. From a distance you can see how the online communications have changes between the two organizations.
From my past experience in Pharma I know there was similar interest from scientists to learn to code (if they didn't already). I also know that some of the designers working on electronic detailing apps for sales at the time really wanted to learn to code because they had to transition from Flash to HTML 5 and JS.
For these reasons, I think that the make up of coding boot camps may surprise some. A differentiation may be related to where someone is in their career. Someone laid off, or without a job is probably more like to jump to a boot camp than someone who has a job. Quitting to take part in a boot camp is probably a huge jump for people, if they are in the tech sector because they may have more awareness of what is involved, or other means to make the jump to coding.
The fact that there is not a single negative response is basically proof positive that people who don't succeed at coding boot camps do not read HN. Unless you happen to believe that almost everyone does succeed after coding boot camps. I find that notion incredible, personally.
That's exactly how my career started.
Which still doesn't mean it is not rare but maybe a bit less rare than you thought it was.
If they are different, one can not make statistics out of the comments here.
Hypothetical example: Say only 1% of coding bootcamp graduates find the program to be a "success" for them. All of that 1% read hacker news and zero of the 99% read hacker news. If you ask about bootcamp on hacker news you'll only get HN reader's perspective, then you'd believe bootcamps are wildly successful whereas the real number is the opposite.
I search for next books to read by searching first on HN and also the constructive discussion that takes place here always leaves me being a bit smarter.
My point isn't that non-programmers can't or don't read HN. My point is that there are more programmers reading and posting on HN than Starbucks baristas. If you hated your boot camp, the odds of you reading HN is lower. Selection bias doesn't mean absolutes, it means probabilities.
> after some early career burnout I did a stint at a restaurant job to pay the bills while I decided what I wanted to do with my life
I really respect that. I think I'd like to do the same, but the mortgage can't be paid on minimum wage.
His day job? A bus driver.
I saw that in the comment section of YouTube, people always ask him "why don't you go code for a job and make tons of money!". His response is that coding is something loves to do, and he wouldn't want to risk losing that love for it, by making it a job.
I love the idea but sadly in the US, living on a bus driver salary would be very difficult. He was based in Finland I believe, so I assume their bus drivers make more money.
As is often mentioned, that depends on where you choose to live. Around here, I know someone who was a bus driver and a homeowner. She was quite happy with it.
One person's bug is another person's feature :-)
That guy is awesome. I love all of his videos.
If you are now working in Starbucks, you aren't likely to read HN _because you are fed up with this stuff_. Not because you can't.
Most people outside of the startup scene, including myself, especially those over 35, are only in this for the money. That doesn't mean we can't find both personal and professional success.
Boot camps are no silver bullet. Like any kind of education, more is better, and the quality of the student is a factor. I will admit that while I got a great job, but there are fundamental CS concepts I'm still playing catchup with. Not sure if I would really be all the more effective as a developer if I did have a traditional degree, and maybe I would, but I can provide for my family and have no regrets.
All said, I think you might be right about some selection bias.
If plenty of folks enter a boot camp and wash out because they aren't prepared, I don't think that's much about the students. I think that's a huge failure on the part of the boot camp program.
The theory of boot camps is that you turn anybody who qualifies into somebody basically competent. E.g., US military boot camp drop out rates are around 10%. If ill-specified student quality is used to justify higher failure rates, then we end up with something almost tautological: only the quality students succeed, and the way you measure quality is by whether or not they succeeded.
If you want a silver bullet for success, go to an ivy league or similarly-pedigreed school. There are plenty of people graduating from the top schools that burn out on their programs, but still get into successful gigs based on the reputation of their degree, and the connections they made.
Didn't study hard in high school, or Mommy And Daddy didn't send you to private school? Too bad. Life is competitive, and it needs to be that way if we want to make progress as a species.
No one is saying failure should come with punishments like unemployment or homelessness, but not every program out there needs to be as easy to coast through with C's as Harvard is. Not everyone needs to be a developer, doctor, pilot, etc., either. But the military needs almost everyone to get through boot camp.
I am fine with the programs being hard. But these programs should only accept students who are likely to make it through. If they create a hard program but take anybody who can write a check, then it's a badly run school.
I hope you can see how the above disagreements are still related... It seems self-evident, no?
In my limited experience, the ones that struggled most were the ones who simply didn't do the prework that was asked of them. Some people think education is something that will happen to them if they pay somebody enough, compared to those that went to a boot camp to accelerate the self-education they had already started.
My guess is there would be more failure cases than success cases, but I don't see many negative stories here and suspect much selection bias here.
You're not wrong, I could have worded it better. Mostly I wanted to give a little more context on what I meant by selection bias.
HOWEVER, that doesn't mean the answers are uninteresting or of no value. It is still very interesting to see what what some people who have gone through a bootcamp do with their careers.
I don't think selection bias is a problem for the questions the OP asked.