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Comment by okl | Hacker News Reader

> Become a Full-Stack Developer

I don't think 5 months is sufficient for most persons with "little or no software skills" to reach a level at which they can work as programmer, software engineer, or (maybe even) computer scientist.

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So what do you say to the 50,000~ bootcamps students doing this currently?

I did a bootcamp in 10 weeks and got hired immediately. People may be against that for whatever reason but I was able to meaningfully contribute to my company, and it allowed me to learn while working in the industry. Been going 2.5 years now, and admittedly, I still have a ton to learn, but I'd like to think I'm not a fraud at this point.

What do you say to the students that do not get hired?

YMMV.

My bootcamp had 90% placement rate within 90 days and has for years. This question kind of ridiculous though, no education system works for every single participant. There are plenty of people with B.A.'s not getting hired. Even people with law degrees occasionally. Much less financial and time risk with a bootcamp tho.

You can pay $200K and go to university for 4 years and still not get hired. That's more likely for non-CS degrees, but true nonetheless.

Completely agree. The majority of people are not suited to be even basically competent developers; they just lack the mindset / diligence / intelligence / etc. You can in no way compare this to apprenticing as a plumber or carpenter, which are positions that do not require anywhere as much mental capability. All that aside, I guess these guys have done their calculations carefully, and might make some big 'wins' based on finding diamonds in the rough, and otherwise find enough average Joes to shovel into the meat-grinder of low-level development work.

Methinks you underestimate carpentry and plumbing as professions.

I agree that this is a great way to unearth some talent trying to break through.

Those trades do not require the same level of abstract and logical reasoning, no matter what other skills they do require. It's the former that is in short supply in the general population.

Why not? I bet all of the people reading this wrote programs at 5 months into their careers that did something useful, most probably earlier than that! I imagine that most of us readers now have more than 5 months experience under our belts and have since grown, so we can write that program faster or to do more or what have you. None the less, we and these potential students can be productive before being fully educated.

I think it's important that we don't gatekeep as a community and encourage people, especially visible minorities, to join the industry and help us build better stuff! https://dellsystem.me/posts/fragments-50

It's not gatekeeping, it's an argument against false promises.

Out of curiosity, how long should the program be in order to turn new coders into full-stack developers, in your opinion?

Maybe between 2 and 5 years, depending on what a new coder is and what a full-stack developer is. You didn't define either and in my understanding someone with "little or no software skills" is not a "new coder".

If companies are willing to hire after five months of training and let people continue to learn on the job then that is the very best option for these "new coders." The quality of learning that you do on the job is so much higher than what you do in the classroom that it should be every new coder's goal to get the bare minimum of skills required to get hired, and then get started on your real learning.

Realistically if you are hiring entry level people, with few exceptions you are hiring on potential, not skill and experience. You end up training the explicitly, or implicitly by paying them to learn for the first few years.

In this context it is useful to think of bootcamps, ideas like this, and even most undergrad degrees as a filter - not a certification.

If someone is motivated enough to do a program like this and shows some good understanding of basics, that gives you a lot of information in hiring.

With zero skills and no technical training in any field, it is a big stretch, you're right. Most of the applicants come in with something to work with -- self-study, training in another field, etc. As the market develops (and financing costs come down), we will make the program longer (year or longer) and open it up to more people.

Your website suggest that "No experience in software development is necessary [...]" to "Become a Full-Stack Developer" after taking the course, and get employed as software engineer. ("Create a project portfolio and we find you a software engineering job")

Are you saying 5 months is not sufficient? ("[...] we will make the program longer (year or longer) and open it up to more people.")

Most of the applicants/cohort right now have a dabbled on their own (picked up htm/css/js) for a while and this is their big push, so 5 months ends up being appropriate. We will see how that scales though. We think that if someone has done zero investigating/learning on their own, they probably aren't ready to commit 5 months in the first place, however.

> Suitable for those with zero to intermediate coding experience

> Most [...] have a dabbled on their own (picked up htm/css/js) for a while[...]

Which is it?

"dabbled on their own" could mean "(slightly above) zero to intermediate coding experience".

Starting from zero, most people will require at least 18 months to become productive software developers

And then 6-12 months in a company which has the structure and process around software development to become as productive as 1.0 software engineer vs. being <1.0 of a software engineer and requiring that another engineer drop down to 0.8 to help you along.

A misconception I've often encountered in first time founders is that engineering productivity accretes linearly with headcount.

that's why i like pair-programming. it makes me as a senior more productive. so even if the output of the junior is 0 at the beginning, my productivity rises from 1.0 to, say 1.2. that means the junior effectively adds 0.2 in productivity.

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