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Comment by plondon514 | Hacker News Reader

Hello HN! I started this project a few years ago when I was unfortunately rejected by Codecademy for a software engineering position for the 3rd time. I love coding, and I love helping others learn to code. In my spare time I volunteer at Justice Through Code (https://centerforjustice.columbia.edu/justicethroughcode), which helps previously incarcerated people re-enter the workforce. If you're passionate about helping others learn to code, it's a great program to check out.

Recently, I've added a chatGPT powered assistant to Codeamigo, to help learners when they get stuck. Someone in the ed-tech space once told me that over 95% of learners quit once they reach an error that they can't recover from. I hope that we can use AI to assist experts and learners alike.

If you're interested in trying out the demo: https://codeamigo.dev/v2/lesson/hello-codeamigo/step/intro

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Do you have any recent figures for job placement?

The market is very tough right now, and even well qualified seniors can’t find work. The general consensus is if you don’t have a degree you shouldn’t even bother (unless you have many YoE, then only maybe) and should go to college or leave the industry. Is that true in your experience?

Most companies don't let you interview more than once per year or once every six months, so if he/she has been rejected three times, I would expect their earliest interview to be over 1.5 years ago

I've never heard of this rule. If a company has three positions, for which 15 equally excellent candidates are shortlisted, and then three months later another position opens up, one of the remaining 12 will have a shot at it. (Of course, the not-shortlisted ones, not likely.)

Google, Facebook (Meta), and Amazon all had a minimum six month re-apply period when I last interviewed with them.

When was that? 2 years ago I was interviewing with Facebook and when I didn't get picked up for a position they offered to put me in for another one to interview a couple weeks later (I opted out, it was clear from the interviews and discussions WFH was considered temporary and I didn't want to switch jobs just to have to quit later since I had no intention of moving to a high cost of living area).

Looks like the FB one was in Oct, 2020. Google was in Nov, 2020, Amazon was in 2022.

That probably speaks more to the fact that they are lax with the rule for a reasonably well qualified candidates who they actually may want to hire.

The rule in the first place is probably targeted at the bulk of lower quality candidates to avoid them constantly reapplying

I was definitely low quality so that could be true.

The FAANG type companies are probably barraged by unskilled wannabes and fakes who want good paying jobs, so they have an explicit rate limiting policy (so they can have automated application systems enforce it?) Don't know about mid-size and small companies.

can you cite that statistic?

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