Ruby on Rails Bootcamp in Seattle | Hacker News Reader

Ruby on Rails Bootcamp in Seattle

codefellows.org

158 pointsdanso118 comments

I went through a similar program in San Francisco - Devbootcamp. They are opening a sister program in Chicago. I went on to a 6 month apprenticeship at Groupon, and am now accepting a position at Hashrocket.

Some feedback - depending on the starting level of the class, 4 weeks is INCREDIBLY short. Taking a look at our class (Devbootcamp #1) - over 75% of the class went on to take dev jobs in some capacity with a $80k average salary...I don't know the validity of those marketed numbers. However, we put in 8-10 weeks. I wrote a HN post after that class "334 Hours of Ruby on Rails" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3794069). Weeks are compounding...I don't believe you can really hit your stride in just 4 weeks without prior ruby experience. This would be a great introduction class - but job ready, I'm highly skeptical. Apprenticeship ready - sure.

If you want more than just a taste of Ruby on Rails - I would take the leap and try to get into one of the Devbootcamp classes in Chicago or San Francisco. I've also heard good things about Hacker School in NY.

It's interesting looking at the arc that education related products/startups are going through. It's obvious that the internet should be revolutionizing education, but Universities and other traditional institutions still seem more or less unchanged. Various (mostly free) mass online education platforms/products/startups emerge. A lot of interest follows. Results are good but not revolutionizing education in 2 years good. A lot of people get frustrated with some of the hurdles (benchamarking, coaching, commitment) and find they can be overcome with in person education. A bunch of intensive, small, energetic courses with high teacher/student ratios emerge that squash those problems.

I'm not saying its not a productive process. It might be just what's needed. Education is hard and important and it seems like progress is happening.

Since it's free to comment, I'll comment that I'd like to see these two newly invigorated paths cross-pollinate. Is there a way of getting all the advantages of in-person education at scale and with lower costs? Can technology be used to lower teacher student ratio without costing effectiveness?

This is all of course through the lens of the stuff reaching me via articles & blogs & HN. In reality I am sure that the majority of people learning stuff are completely unaffected by either MIT Open courseware, Corsera... It's really more an arc of HN interest, but still.

In the UK the Open University has been doing distance learning for many years.

They approach this with distance learning materials, exercises regularly marked by real people giving feedback, IIRC regular monthly opportunities to go and speak to your peers and slightly less regular opportunities to meet the course tutors.

Once a year, depending on the course, they would run a 1 - 2 week intensive, usually in summer.

Can someone who knows this course, chime in:

Is this a way for designers & people who have dabbled with coding to become professional programmers (IE some sort of alternative to Uni) or a way for people who are already professional programmers to learn a new programming environment (IE alternative to on the job training)

This a way for designers to learn to code. Our next bootcamp is in Javascript and we're aiming it at designers who are tired of handing over their comps for someone else to build. I'm a designer who learned to code, and want to help others do the same.

Not quite: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732444230457823...

Universities are already starting to lose the monopoly they once held as more and more students realize that $200,000 of debt might not be worth it for a piece of paper.

I think we strike a great balance of what you're looking for at Tealeaf Academy.

If you're looking for an online option, check out Tealeaf Academy for an online bootcamp: http://www.gotealeaf.com Disclaimer: I'm a cofounder.

Our courses are project driven and you learn with a cohort. We want to maintain the quality and intensity, without forcing you to relocate or quit your job. The trade off is that we mentor you for a longer duration. If that appeals to you, then Tealeaf Academy could make sense for you.

hint: hover over the faces on the world map for student testimonials

Interesting. It seems like a paid version of coursera with a job-based focus, like the various intensive hacker schools. Do you post stats on your students' post-graduation placement like those schools usually do? Do you get any income via recruitment fees for companies hiring them?

Cool.

Would you guys should consider doing a podcast or something to document your progress & ideas. This is an area with a lot of interest and I think its likely that people would like to listen to conversations about what its like to run these 21 century courses. Might also be an opportunity to interview smart people and market your academy.

Some new startups and technologies are serving great purpose. For example when you take some classes at uc Berkeley, they shove you into a social network of classes teachers and students. Students ask each other and the teachers questions about work assignments, etc unifying your 500 person lecture.

If you like codefellows' pricing model, you may also want to check out the hacker academy that I help run: http://www.appacademy.io.

We only charge tuition if you find a job as a dev after the course. Also, we've done this before: 93% of our grads have offers or are working in tech jobs now at an average salary of $83,000.

Companies that have hired from the program include: Facebook, Twilio, Zendesk, Thoughtbot and Carbon Five.

I sent in my application and am now doing the Ruby prepwork to prepare for the coding challenge (no prior Ruby experience), is there any advice you would give for the interview? App Academy is everything that I am looking for.

Practice, practice, practice! The more hands-on experience you have, the greater your facility with the material will be.

If you're looking for more material/exercises, check out the prep work that all of our accepted students complete before the course: https://github.com/kushpatel72/App-Academy-prep-work/blob/ma....

I really appreciate it, thank you. I'm very motivated to get accepted and do exceptionally well in your program, I will dive into this prep work asap!

It's good to see these programs continuing to pop up, but almost all of them are far too short, in my opinion.

When we (Jumpstart Lab) did Hungry Academy and now gSchool[1], they were six months long for a reason. There's a _lot_ to learn to be a competent Rails developer, and you just can't get that from a few weeks of morning instruction.

1: http://gschool.it

IMO, the best thing a shorter program could do is to prepare someone to be a useful apprentice.

For the 4-week bootcamp, we're aiming for engineers who know how to program and want to move to Rails. They will probably already have a CS degree and work in tech, but they don't know Rails. We'll migrate their skills to Rails and connect them with area startups (we're also aiming at professional designers who know HTML/CSS and want to move up the stack).

Our instructors feel 4-weeks is enough time for training these experienced engineers. If it isn't, we'll extend the course. If someone is changing their life and paying money to take this bootcamp, we're going to do our best to care of them.

For absolute beginners, we'll offer a different track. It's remarkable what you guys accomplish in a six-month program.

Roger! That seems _much_ more reasonable, but I didn't get that from your site:

    > Ideal candidates will have some programming experience.

Maybe I'm just being overly critical, but this implies to me that it's good if you have it, but not required. Just a thought. :)

True, I'll improve the wording. The site's a week old; we're now working on properly setting expectations and funneling people toward the right class.

The bootcamp is a very good idea. 4 weeks should be enough for people with programming experience to get a basic idea of how RoR works. I especially like the "1:1 Mentoring" idea. Personally I learned a lot from small group (2-3 students to a supervisor) supervisions (also known as tutorial/recitation elsewhere) in university.

That's one heck of a bold claim.

There are some details:

> want to get a job, attend the events and meetings we set up for you

Nothing too bad there, although I'm not sure how "want to get a job" is proven.

I like how the web-site forgets key details like "where is this course being run?" "Are you accredited?" "What supplies do I need to bring?" "Basic qualifications to start?"

"4-week RoR bootcamp in South Lake Union, Seattle."

"You do not need to know Ruby or Rails, but it helps if you're familiar with basic programming concepts and tools, like running terminal commands and using a text editor."

Admittedly, the latter is not too precise, but they do state it.

Where is the South Lake Union thing? I just re-checked the FAQ and still cannot find it.

Its right in the main "hero box" when you open the site. Right in the big header.

I hate it when sites don't say where the product is, too.

South Lake Union is one of the startup hubs of Seattle--Amazon has most of its buildings here, TechStars Seattle is here, and a bunch of great small and medium startups.

We're not accredited--you can't get student loans for the program. You need to bring a laptop to the bootcamp (we should mention that on the site...shoot).

"I like how the web-site forgets key details like "where is this course being run?" "Are you accredited?" "What supplies do I need to bring?" "Basic qualifications to start?""

Where is answered on the home page in fairly large typeface. Accredited is a bizarre question... As something that's trying to do something novel in education, you can assume not. Supplies aren't mentioned, but I think it's fairly obvious-- you need a computer. Basic qualifications are answered in the faq.

Hi guys, I'm Brad and I run Code Fellows. I'm here to answer questions. Ask here or write me at...my first name at codefellows.org.

Are you accepting international applicants? (i.e. from Canada) Would you be able to get them hired in the US after?

Good question; I'll look into it and get back to you.

Any news on this? I'm interested in attending too.

Take a look at Bitmaker Labs, we're located in Toronto and are helping our grads get placed into positions with companies in the area: http://bitmakerlabs.com/

Thanks--abeh, shop local with bitmaker!

Thanks for the plug. I am strongly considering applying to your school.

Similar idea/concept in Portland as well: http://www.portlandcodeschool.com/program.html

And yes, we have way more jobs for most types of positions than programmers available.

How good a salary is $60k? In the UK, £60k is a really good salary, and about three times the earnings average. (I know that £60k is more like $96k, once you convert it, but I'm not sure how good a salary that is in US terms.)

Entirely depends on the area of the US. In rural areas that is a fantastic salary. In any major urban area that is below average.

It's far far above median for jobs in the US, but on the lower end for web development jobs in general. I'd say it's quite normal for a starter position nowadays.

It depends on the area. In Seattle, it'd probably be seen as junior-mid-level compensation. In the Midwest, it is more solid-mid-level. Generally speaking, $60k income is solidly middle class, perhaps with a hint of "upper middle class", again dependent on the region.

Salaries for web programmers in the US usually cap out around $100k for the most senior guys, +-20k, depending on the region (the Bay Area being the exception, where senior-level guys will get closer to 200). Programmers who do lower level stuff (OSes, etc.) can usually expect to cap out at something like 140, +-20k. In most cases, you're not going to get more than that unless you either a) become a manager or b) have unusual circumstances around your employment (like name recognition).

If you're in some sort of "web developer" ghetto, maybe that's possible. If you have a software engineering job title, you can get over $100k entry level in Seattle, even if your actual job duties involve web development. This is total comp, not base.

Microsoft offers $72k (or used to) for entry-level SDE.

Over $100k for entry-level around Seattle seems too much unless that company is printing good money every milliseconds.

I don't think that MSFT figure is accurate at all anymore. From what I understand from some of my peers, they start somewhere around $85-90k now, base salary. Glassdoor more or less agrees, for whatever they are worth.

"Used to" are the key words. Check Glassdoor. It's gone up in the past few years.

Also note that "Middle class" doesn't translate well between British and American English.

$60k as a developer in Seattle is pretty crappy, but I guess if you need a class like this to break into the profession...you gotta start somewhere. You would need to double that salary to enter the range where you could afford to buy a house in the city limits. Between the $60k salary and the 6 months to land a job they have a pretty good hedge.

It is a great teaser and certainly is the most initially intriguing thing about this program, so from a marketing perspective it is brilliant!

We're in Seattle, where the average Rails salary is more like $80-100k [1]. Our guarantee is at least a $60k job offer.

[1] http://www.simplyhired.com/a/salary/search/q-ruby+on+rails/l...

These courses are themselves a sign of how high demand for programmers is.

I disagree. The courses just show how high the demand is for courses.

In general you often hear stories in the newspaper about "we cannot hire programmers!" but I know tons of unemployed programmers.

If you go actually look at the job postings in a lot of areas it is slim pickings right now. The pay is bad, the benefits are worse, and the competition is high.

Schools continue to pump out CS grads and compensation continues to plummet.

I think what they mean when they say "there aren't enough programmers" is "we have to pay them too much, look at India!!"

I highly disagree with that statement. Personally I'm a recent CS grad, and I don't know any of my classmates who is unemployed.

I also wouldn't describe my current job as "pay is bad, the benefits are worse, and the competition is high" because that would be lying.

Also, we're hiring. Check out the careers section http://www.rhythmia.com/

That's odd, because when I graduated CS I myself spent a year unemployed as did many of my peers (some of which who wound up going into other fields entirely).

From people who graduated after me (in particular 2008 and beyond) they talk of even longer unemployment and even worse prospects.

Unless you work in a niche area it is damn hard out there.

I can only speak for myself, but as what andrewem also mentioned, I have been getting emails from recruiters too albeit at a lower frequency of about once a week. I got my current job 6 months before graduation.

Won't call C++ a niche area. I don't know where you are, but have you considered moving to a place with more developer jobs?

I have considered it but the cost of living is a fair bit higher (e.g. London). So we're talking about a 20% cost of living increase.

Even the jobs coming out of London aren't that good. My current job is better than most. As I said there is a lot of unemployed programmers around here and competition remains tight.

A lot of people got thrown out when a bunch of service and or financial companies went bust, and they've been stealing all of the interesting or well compensated work.

You mentioned London so I'm guessing you're in the UK? From my POV, the US and UK markets are chalk and cheese right now. The UK is still sorely in the duldrums with lower salaries and opportunities (especially outside of London.) The US certainly has it far better for programmers right now.

I see you're in the Boston area, as I am. Here it's a feeding frenzy for programmers, to judge by the number of emails I get from recruiters, probably at least one a day on average, and the high ratio of people at Boston Ruby meetups (http://bostonrb.org) who are trying to hire versus people who are looking for jobs. None of the programmers I know have had trouble getting jobs, and salaries don't appear to be falling.

UnoriginalGuy said "If you go actually look at the job postings in a lot of areas it is slim pickings right now." I suspect he's right, and there are places/fields where demand is poor, but there are also others where that's not the case.

The demand for programmers is geographically based. Essentially, if you're not in SF, NYC, Boston, DC, Seattle, DFW, or Phoenix (maybe a couple other high-population areas) I missed too), it's not going to be a easy job hunt.

Add at least Chicago and Portland and don't forget that a growing number of companies in these cities are willing to pay for relocation or hire folks to work remotely.

It depends on where you are. I'm in silicon valley and yes - regardless of the compensation or benefits you offer it seems impossible to satisfy the demand for programmers. I tried really hard to get a job (specifically, one that shared my interests and appeared to have good benefits) near Denver for a year and couldn't - but I get recruiters contacting me every day near San Francisco.

Sounds like you've left Denver already; that's too bad, because we're hiring Rails devs in the Denver area-- http://www.comverge.com/careers/

I'm not much of a rails guy - but I'll remember to look you up when I decide it's time to move back :)

Among the few unemployed programmers I know, there seems to be a universal theme: either the unwillingness or the inability to relocate.

I have to say, having relocated several thousand miles myself, I find it hard to sympathize with the unwilling.

That's weird, I've never once met an unemployed programmer.

Really? Have you ever tried to hire one? They're out there.

Sure, but the only people I've interviewed have either been employed at the time and looking to move, or they have had really specific job requirements, like: I want to be a web dev, but I want to write python only, but nothing Django.

I wouldn't really call that unemployed in the sense of desperation that most people mean.

As I happen to be such a thing: hello.

(Not for much longer, I'd like to think)

It's a step or two away, but demand for programmers & demand for courses is hardly unrelated.

> I know tons of unemployed programmers

I think you need to clarify this rather questionable statement. I do not know a single unwilfully unemployed programmer.

> I think you need to clarify this rather questionable statement.

I speak to other humans who have a BSc in CS who are currently unemployed and have been unemployed an extended period.

If you need further clarification I am happy to try and provide it. But if you could tell me exactly what you want to know that would be helpful.

Where are you based?

I see from other comments you're from non-London-area England, so excuse my comment - I was thinking of the US or Australia, where demand for programmers could only be described as "red hot".

I'd advise your unemployed CS grad friends to come over here (Sydney) for a working holiday; they'll get work within days if they have in-demand skills (web/ios/android).

I guess it must depend where you live, because there aren't nearly enough programmers to fill job openings where I am, and these jobs already pay more and more every year. It seems like you're in the UK, and outside of London at that--that is a bit rough, but in the US it's a veritable bonanza and the worst that happens is that you'll have to relocate.

As someone who relocated to the UK I would pack up tomorrow for a well paying and fairly interesting job. The numbers discussed in the comments on this post seem astronomical to someone living in the UK (outside London) and on top of that you don't pay as much tax, if any at all!

I don't see this at all. There are plenty of openings in every major city, the distinction is the majority of them are from companies that treat programming as an after-thought, and thus you won't even get in the door if you don't have a degree or some absurd experience requirement because HR is screening applicants instead of a technical person.

I work in DC, which arguably has one of the more vibrant tech scenes in the country outside of SF, NYC and Chicago. With that said, my managers have told me they spent months looking, both themselves and through recruiters, without finding any qualified candidates. I don't have a college degree and I have minimal professional experience in the field(internship). I don't even have much of a portfolio. I've been interested in computers since I was ~12, and programming for a bout that long. They hired me because I ask the right kinds of questions and have proven I can solve my own problems for the most part.

Now, the pay and the benefits aren't -amazing- like what you'll find from some hot companies, but it's pretty decent, more than enough for a comfortable lifestyle and buying myself some shiny toys every now and then. I would gladly take the lesser pay and much more relaxed work environment over the "rockstar programmer" falsehood that would likely be projected on me at a higher paying company.

As a marketing guy who has dabbled in learning programming online and failed, I think that these bootcamps are the answer. Mentorship and development of projects with peers is engaging, teaching myself from a book is not.

This is just me though.

As someone with little to no experience with coding boot camps , can I get some feedback on someone in his mid-40s attending one of these? I have a lot of coding background, mostly in C#, asp.net and MSSQL experience.

If you know C# and asp.net, (especially MVC) and have experience with SQL Server then this course is probably right up your alley. Often times people have skill sets in one stack and lack the opportunity to learn a new stack because they are in a company committed to one particular vendor (ie a Microsoft shop) and immersion is the key method for picking up these other skills. I think you are exactly the target audience.

Agreed!

I attended Starter League (formerly Code Academy) in Chicago last fall and I'm in my mid-30s with the exact same background as you. The development part was the easiest and like Keith said you will pick it up very quickly. The toughest part was juggling my full-time job (longer story) and family responsibilities. I was one of the oldest, but not the oldest. Not getting to hang out and build more meaningful relationships with the rest of the class due to other work and family obligations was the hardest part for me. It was a tremendous experience and I would recommend it if you are up for it. Your commitments may not be the same as mine were, but I would be happy to let you know more if you are interested.

I teach at Catalyst, and one of our students shares your background. He's doing great, and I wouldn't be concerned if I were you. Feel free to email me if you'd like to be introduced, or if you have any further questions -- shawn@catalystclass.com.

I'm both happy and sad to see these bootcamps spread. Happy, because I think they're a good way for people to get into the industry or learn rails/node/ios/whatever. Sad, because they indicate the failure of colleges and universities to teach modern development tools, environments, and frameworks. Yes, I understand that education is supposed to "prepare" for the workplace rather than "train." But the notion that in 4 years of undergraduate study a 200k education can't bother with what these bootcamps do in 6-12 weeks....

Except that they do. A friend of mine currently in school seems to be spending half his time writing Android apps. I find this a little disgusting, since it's like teaching political science students by asking them to write speeches for current politicians, but I guess industry is king.

I'd be okay with it if it were a vocational school, but it's not.

I suppose I have to asterisk what I said. My university didn't, and few friends with eng/cs degrees from other schools did anything like that.

I'd be interested to know why you find writing Android apps disgusting. My personal opinion is that hands on, real world experience like actually building software drives home theory far better than talking about building software. I'm not saying that schools should only teach android or something, but I would have been far more satisfied with my education if I had actually built things as part of it. Have students build a webapp one year, one or two mobile apps another, an os another year, a compiler another year. Something like that with the order shuffled, and you should be able to ram home all the theory you want AND students can graduate with a small portfolio, a strong understanding of current topics in industry and computer science, and strong theoretical knowledge.

Maybe what I'm saying is that the current "accredited" degrees are so sparse compared with these bootcamps that the value proposition of a 200k, 4 year cs degree vs a 10-20k, 10 week program is so fatally flawed as to be... not worth it.

> I'd be interested to know why you find writing Android apps disgusting.

The long and short of it is that industry is not the purpose of education. The knowledge gained should be for the sake of gaining knowledge, not for the sake of making money.

CS students don't feel like they understand theory? The correct response is to set up "bootcamps", hosted and endorsed by the university and vetted by the faculty, outside the classroom. Research practica and MIT's Battlecode and the like are examples of hybridizing this: using the structure of a class schedule to explicitly set aside time for building software.

It doesn't really matter; my opinion isn't going to sway anyone. The university has largely already been commoditized and that's a part of why it's so vulnerable to disruption. The purpose of the university is now hugely to serve as a state-owned racket at the behest of industry. And of course industry is unimpressed by the transient state it's currently in, as you are unimpressed: what industry really wants is, well... these bootcamps: ways for industry to make money so that industry can have more workers who make them more money, neatly cutting the state out.

you forgot to say why "industry is not the purpose of education".

>It doesn't really matter; my opinion isn't going to sway anyone. The university has largely already been commoditized and that's a part of why it's so vulnerable to disruption.

Ah, but that's what I'm saying. I would fully agree with industry not being the purpose of education iff the only people who went to universities had the financial means to not need to join industry afterwards, and our world didn't require highly educated people for something other than research and education. It is unfortunate that the two are so incompatible at the moment, but I think they will adapt to each other in the next decade.

To address the initial point, I don't feel strongly about it but I don't think programming Android or iOS apps in college as part of a curriculum is a bad thing, even if it is tied to industry. As long as it's used as a vehicle to drive home cs fundamentals and theories, that is. Best way to learn to code is to code and all that.

> failure of colleges and universities > to teach modern development tools, environments, and frameworks.

They shouldn't. Universities should teach fundamental knowledge necessary in the field. I find it ridiculous that people go to universities and expect to be taught how to make websites and mobile apps. That's something you teach yourself over the weekend. You don't need to go to a university to learn that.

You don't need to go to university to learn computer science. That's something you can easily teach yourself using a book and/or the many freely available resources on the internet!

This. This is what my point is. So if someone is going to go to a 200k 4 year institution, they should get their money's worth.

University is too easy. Pack in more info than is required by the accreditation. You might be able to learn to program iPhone apps in a weekend, but you won't understand the rationality behind a lot of the decisions you make. So professors should have their students watch the iTunes U iPhone course at home, then come in and work on an app, running through design decisions, data structures, what have you, all in the context of reality.

I think people have been told that you can't do both theory and actually build something.

Does anyone know of a program like this in CT, MA, or RI? I'd gladly pay, but I can't seem to find anything as immersive as this.

I would too if there was something similar in DC/VA/MD, although I would have to quit my 9-5 job, find an evening job, and rely upon my girlfriend a lot.

Edit: If anyone does know of a program, I'd love to hear about it. Thank you.

It's not quite Connecticut, but in New York City there's https://www.hackerschool.com, which lasts about 3 months. An acquaintance of mine did it and liked it a lot.

Yeah, I've looked at this one before. Forgot the name though, so thanks for the link! Not a huge fan of NYC, but I think it's one of the better options out there.

Side Note: I've been teaching myself Python on Codeacademy, but am still pretty early in the coursework. I've noticed most of these programs focus on Ruby. Without getting into the ruby vs. python fight that is so easy to find online, does anyone know why these classes focus so much on ruby and not another language? Am I going down the wrong path?

I have the same question. The ubiquity of these Ruby/Rails bootcamps make Python/Django feel like some archaic language and framework when that is hardly the case. What gives?

http://launchacademy.co/ - They are currently accepting applications, and the cohort starts early May in Cambridge. Hope that helps!

I'd never heard of this one. It's a little more expensive than some of the other options, but I might have to look into it.

I'm sure Boston would be successful for these dev bootcamps. But $11K tuition?!!

Yeah...it's too rich for my blood. And of course, if it's successful, then I could afford to go.

Toronto isn't too far away: http://www.bitmakerlabs.com

Hah, I beg to differ. Yet another interesting program however.

There's http://www.bostonstartupschool.com/ and several if you can make it down to NYC.

I might actually apply to this one. Has anyone gone through this program who can vouch for it?

Does anyone have experience hiring people from these camps vs. those who did study on their own?

I'm in Boston, did some programming in college (mostly C++, a bit of HTML and CSS - a few web sites for family, mostly for fun) and then had the slight misfortune of going to law school just before law crashed. We all make mistakes, but I did mostly IP so I hope it comes in handy down the road.

Anyway, I've been helping with a startup doing a little bit of everything and have been using Team Treehouse to work through Ruby and iOS (since that's what the coders do at work). I'm basically working for free and can only find "internships" for non-tech people. (I do have another part-time job that pays something)

I can't afford $10k for a bootcamp. If I keep going with Treehouse and Code Academy, produce some small projects, will that be taken seriously? These camps are full-time for a few weeks, but I'm learning part-time for months.

I wonder if there is Anything like this in the Atlanta area, if there isn't, then I think it would be a great idea, there is a very vibrant rails community here, lot's of startup activity, mentoring programs, incubators and accelerators, and the number of recruiters in the ruby meetup is almost larger than the number of developers, if I wasn't too busy doing my own things I would have opened a program here, cost of living is very low and salaries are not that far from NY / SF (buying power is much, much higher, and housing is pretty cheap) so more and more companies move things to the area. If anyone reads this and plans to open a similar program and can allow themselves to be geographically flexible, I would have Georgia on my mind.

>If you want a job, complete the program, work with us on finding an employer, and don't get an offer within six months of finishing the program, we've screwed up and we'll give you your money back.

On one hand that seems like a pretty safe bet for them. How many programmers go six months without finding a (relatively low paying) job? Worst case: they give back the tuition. Not really a big deal.

On the other hand, I'm wondering how many start ups really hire people with only 4 weeks of training and no experience. Maybe a lot? I really don't know.

Start-ups; probably not many.

Big-corps; a lot more.

Big corporations are hiring programmers with no comp sci degree and only a month of training to write Rails apps? Really??

Boy, did I waste 10 years of my life.

I know a couple of guys who got into I.T. with just a high school diploma. However, those people went through a lot more than 10 years of life's hard knocks before they got there.

Yup. I know a lot of people with physics, maths and engineering degrees hired as programmers.

Big-corps: almost none.

Contractors/System Integrators who "body shop" for Big-corps: a lot more.

I hire developers for a startup and I don't think I'd necessarily rule out someone with 4 weeks of training. I don't know if I could start them at $60k though.

From what I saw, the majority of the Devbootcamp class I interviewed went to Tapjoy. I'm not sure if this is a good thing, but it seemed like Tapjoy had some things in mind that they were qualified for.

TapJoy hired 6 or 7 of or summer students out of 30 students interviewing. They were the largest single employer, but definitely not the majority. :)

This is a very interesting take on the problem of "finding engineers". I guess the model is to partner with companies who need engineers and then connect thsoe engineers with the sponsoring companies once they are trained. I am not sure though if 4 weeks is enough for someone with no background in computer science or programming. But it is probably a great idea for people with some background/experience already in programming.

It's a selective program; the students will have some programming experience. We'll run a different track for absolute beginners.

I live in San Francisco now, but I used to live in SLU before it was Amazon-land. The phrase "one of the many SLU lunch trucks" sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. I used to get frustrated at so few lunch options around there. I was back recently; there's a lot that's new and a lot still in transition; it's funny to see things change in such a short time.

Awesome idea. It seems like this would be a great way to capture a different part of the market than a codecademy or teamtreehouse. Especially with the "guaranteed job" afterwards, it's much more of a crash course focused on skill building. I wonder if this type of thing is what companies like degreed.com are going for in changing education.

I'm a designer working on learning ruby on rails. This seems like an awesome program and a great way to learn. I'm not looking to land a job as a rails developer, but I want to learn how to build projects I design. Do you think this bootcamp would be a good fit for someone like me?

I was thinking why a programming class can't be run online, but I imagine the local component is important to help students secure jobs in the students' hometown.

I applied for this a few days ago. I hope I get in because I am not having any luck in the job department. Read that they are only taking 10 people.

We'll have 20 students in the first bootcamp.

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