Here's how to stand out: a CS/Engineering degree from a solid school.
A JavaScript course with 2000+ students all "coding" the same portfolio app, to me, is a pretty big red flag.
A JavaScript course with 2000+ students all "coding" the same portfolio app, to me, is a pretty big red flag.
You _could_ take electives with complicated freeform projects, or that mimicked actual software engineering, or that focused on the state of the art in various CS specializations, but you didn't need to.
On top of a full course load, of course, so they have a few like these in parallels. I don't think there's any bootcamp out there that has that.
[0] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/academic/class/15213-f10/www/l...
No signal is foolproof.
Why? Are you exclusively looking for 10x developers or something?
One 10x engineer is what, 300K total comp?
I don't think I can get the equivalent of a 10x by splitting that 300K and hiring more coders at a lower price. That also means more employees to manage, more communication channels and more 1:1 time because they are less autonomous. Doesn't scale as well.
If you can find them, 10x are an incredible value.
>If you can find them, 10x are an incredible value.
Efficient market hypothesis implies that this arbitrage shouldn't exist, either because the 10x 300k total comp developers you found aren't actually 10x, or 10x developers cost much more than 300k (either because employers are clamoring for 10x developers and bid up their salary to 10x regular salary, or that they're so in demand that finding/recruiting them is expensive enough that it massively increases the cost).
> either because the 10x 300k total comp developers you found aren't actually 10x
That's a possibility. Honestly I've seen both approaches (going with prevailing wages, CoL or whatever metric) vs just matching what's happening in the Valley no matter where and the caliber of resumes you get with the second option is simply on an other level.
> or that they're so in demand that finding/recruiting them is expensive enough that it massively increases the cost
The trick is to adopt a different mindset.
You have to understand that these guys are never on the market. They'll get offers and interviews long before they publicly announce they are looking for a new job. Google has second year interns coming-in that won't work anywhere else but Mountain View for the next 7 years because they'll get an offer long before graduation.
It's all about finding a pipeline with a high signal to noise ratio and investing in it.
it does not guarantee you a job either
most people i work with today have either no degree or degree in some other unrelevant field
they're brilliant engineers, they bring lots of value to the table and i enjoy working with them
You are right, but it does show that you can stick to something and finish it, that you most likely have at least a baseline knowledge of the subject, and that you are committed to the field.
I'm not even saying that it has to be a CS degree, but having a CS degree is definitely bonus for an applicant.
IMO, CS degrees don't prove anything other than a) you had the means to attend a university, b) you learn best by having somebody else guide your learning, and c) you can survive the classes designed to "weed people out". Personally, I'm a lot more interested in interviewing people who may have come from more humble backgrounds, who learn really well on their own, and who don't entertain artificial barriers to entry.
Sure there are exceptions, but what about looking at the signal to noise ratio?
Having one candidate clearly not employable out of 20 from an engineering school/CS program is much better than interviewing 19 unemployable people from a bootcamp to finally get to the one that's actually a good hire.
I just need somebody who can do the job. New CS grads usually can’t - not without a ton of handholding. If I’m going to hire somebody and I’m going to have to provide a ton of guidance and mentoring up front, what difference does it make if I’m mentoring a CS grad or a self taught programmer?
A caveat: CS theory is useful. Given a choice between two otherwise equal bootcamp grads, I’m probably going to pick the one that has some deeper understanding of CS foundations (or potentially even better, an enthusiastic interest in learning that material). I truly do not care about the credential though.
That goes against my observations, but perhaps we're not hiring from the same bracket.
Idk. My conclusion is that hiring a software engineer is like hiring an artist: without a portfolio, the requisite skills are barely quantifiable and rely mostly on the word of the applicant. There’s really no way to determine the quality of an engineers work without actually seeing that work. Therefore, the most useful interview is to actually pay them to do something. I’ve had a lot of success with this approach and it eliminates the need to consider credentials at all.
Different hiring pipelines. I suppose the pool of CS grads has already been thinned.