The Rise of the Software Apprenticeship Academy | Hacker News Reader

The Rise of the Software Apprenticeship Academy

bostinno.com

41 pointsCroaky13 comments

Is there some sweet spot for a developer with ~1-3 years of industry experience? Most of these programs note that all you need is basic programming knowledge - but is there anything out there for 'junior developers on the rise' that are already learning and advancing but want to turbocharge or learn under the leaders in the industry?

It's probably a lame excuse, but it's hard to trade in a steady paycheck for six months of either paying tuition or going back to living on a student stipend.

I really like the apprenticeship model but I feel like the logistics don't work out for anyone that isn't looking to get into programming for the first time or just graduated college.

Our top Code Academy student Geoff Massanek had 2-3 years industry experience (and had even been dabbling in rails for 9 months before) and got a ton out of the program. You can check out his perspective on the experience here http://refactoree.tumblr.com/

If you have a good base of the right skills, I'd bet that some of theses "learning and teaching" organizations (like ours, RoleModel) would be interested in talking to you about a Jr. position and you'd get much of the same training. You may or may not have to take a pay cut for a little while.

If you don't already have the right skills, my guess is that most of these programs will still work for you. It's up to you about the financial issues. It never ceases to amaze me how poor the practices of many environments are, so not sure what 1-3 years means.

I have often wondered at the lack of apprenticeship programs in our industry. We use unpaid interns at my day job and they basically sit on the other side of the building do whatever odd jobs management can come up for them to work on, instead of actually learning the specifics of what we do. The one intern that we ended up hiring full time has slowly started working towards picking up development skills, but it's definitely secondary to his other duties, even though it would benefit the agency considerably if we could get him up to speed.

I understand companies don't want to invest in people if they are just going to leave, but on the other hand they spend so much money trying to find good talent. I suppose you would have to take steps once they are up to speed to make sure you're paying them enough to keep them around. If I knew that a company had really invested in me and gotten me to where I am, I would be more willing to stick around, certainly more so than for a company who hasn't really invested in me (conferences, bootcamps, books, etc).

In my opinion the problem you're describing (people leaving after getting up to speed) has more to do with the HR department controlling salaries. If you get a bit of experience under your belt, and get good at what you do, you've got to switch companies to get a raise that reflects your new level of expertise.

There are some companies that will raise your compensation to reflect your experience, but most won't. And that's the problem.

On the other hand, not training your team costs a whole lot more! Shipping junk products can tank your company outright.

I'm curious what sort of success people are having getting hired after going through one of these. Without knowing much about them, these feel a little bit like the ITT tech of the startup world. Sometimes CS degrees rightfully get criticized but I'd much rather have someone who went through the rigor of CS fundamentals who can apply those fundamentals to whatever technology rather than someone who went through what I assume boils down to a very in depth HTML, CSS, Ruby tutorial.

Getting hired isn't always the goal, and some people (people who didn't have the luxury of a CS degree and/or college) want a better place to seriously get started once they exhaust online tutorials and books.

For full disclosure, I work at RoleModel, one of the companies mentioned... but I think the intention of all the academies is to be a lot more than targeted, long-term tutorials. They'll provide a lot of the same information you'd get from a CS degree, but in the context of a real-world projects instead of classroom problems. And they'll provide a lot of the information you ~didn't~ get in that CS program. Like real world software practices, current tooling, and so on.

Yesterday we had a junior team member run into a problem with a data structure, so that led to an off the cuff tutorial on data structures (linked lists, hash tables, benefits, trade offs, etc) for several team members, but in the context of the current project. And wasn't a part of the academy, just how we mentor our team. We've found that kind of "in context learning" is much more effective than many classroom environments.

I'm not sure how far back the idea goes, but I've only seen it recently, so I'm not sure what you'll find in terms of formal employment rates. However the RoleModel program is lining up sponsors. A "sponsor", among other things, gets first crack at interviewing the graduates. http://craftsmanshipacademy.com/sponsor/ But I must say, I don't think you'll find Ruby a bad skillset to have. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3404616

I strongly suspect these programs are just the beginning of the backlash against what many are calling the higher education bubble. People are tired of graduating thousands (or tens of thousands!) of dollars in debt after investing years of their life. These programs compress down the process, and eliminate a lot of the non-core learning, to help you become productive as quickly as possible.

I have a CS degree, but have seen and worked with a number of the people that have come through the RoleModel mentoring program in past years. I think the academy concept is a more formal iteration of that same idea. I'm looking forward to our first class in a few months.

Thanks, very informative response

Do you teach 'hardcore' cs? Like the master method for working out big O? That's is what I think he is trying to say people might be missing.

There are plenty of tutorials on the internet about data structures, relatively few about algorithm analysis.

Big O came up yesterday, but you're right... we didn't go that deep. There are some jobs where you'll want that depth of background, but in my career they've been rare. At the end of the day it's about finding the right fit for yourself. This type of training will suit some, but not others.

It's a bit dissapointing to me that they are all focusing on web technologies/development. I know, we're at HN and webapps are popular, but still... Are there any with a different focus? Drivers, firmware, OSS development? (Dislaimer: currently doing web and GIS development, perhaps I'm getting a little bored?)

I'm asking out of curiosity, being only 2.5 years out of college with a BS in CS.

I think they're just scratching the itch they have... a lack of those skill sets. If it catches on, I'm sure other companies will give it a try as well.

I have found the embedded industry to be a tad more conservative (That was an understatement. ;) ), so it may be a bit longer before they pick up the model.

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