Hack Reactor Acquires MakerSquare | Hacker News Reader

Hack Reactor Acquires MakerSquare

wired.com

74 pointscdepman14 comments

As an alum and current Hacker in Residence at Hack Reactor I was really interested to see what direction HR's (inevitable) expansion would take.

This approach seems like a good one to me. Giving Maker Square access to their model and materials will allow some of the things I love about HR (rapid iteration, epic alumi support, holistic focus on software engineers rather than just coders) to spread without creating cookie cutter campuses. Increasing quality without losing diversity.

Reading this piece makes me a little ... I don't know if uneasy is the right word but, fine. It's like these bootcamps are just popping up to give out Web dev jobs to people that have never programmed before and now they will be slapping together Javascript like nobody's business. It gives the impression that any "monkey can be a software engineer."

The quote at the bottom just has me shaking my head:

“We’re still seeing lots of Ruby developer jobs. But we’re seeing a huge uptick in JavaScript developer positions.”

I'm not sure this is really a good thing but I guess it doesn't really matter either way. Maybe I'm a CS elitist or maybe I don't like the idea of saturation and dilution of market by bootcamp programmers. Who knows.

> It's like these bootcamps are just popping up to give out Web dev jobs to people that have never programmed before ... It gives the impression that any "monkey can be a software engineer."

I'm an instructor at MakerSquare who is intimately involved with our admissions process. We don't believe that "any monkey can be a software engineer." We believe that anyone who has spent time teaching themselves the basics can be taught to be a productive junior developer.

We have not accepted applicants with zero programming experience for some time now. We made that change for several reasons but the main one was that we wanted to be able to start with more advanced topics. Starting with more advanced topics means ending with more advanced topics. Ultimately, that means that our students will be better prepared for the job market.

> The biggest change for MakerSquare—its new curriculum—was already in the works before the acquisition. The school intends to focus on the JavaScript programming language. Traditionally, programmers used Javascript to write code that runs inside web browsers, but now they’re using it to write code that runs on computer servers, code that drives the heart of online services. As a result, Phillips says, MakerSquare can now focus on teaching only one language for both browser-side and server-side programming.

Sigh.

I was accepted into Hack Reactor's 5th class and MakerSquare's 1st class. I chose Hack Reactor (and I'm glad I did) but I really liked the MakerSquare founders and was happy to see them be so successful. Both teams have liked and respected each other as long as I've known them.

This seems like a win-win for both sides: Hack Reactor's hiring support is amazing (the 99% hiring rate is not just accurate but calculated using a higher standard than most competitors[1]) and MakerSquare is still the big dog in Austin.

I'm especially excited as a Hack Reactor alumnus who's getting tired of SF and eyeing Austin!

[1] http://www.quora.com/Hack-Reactor/When-you-say-the-average-i...

Austin is amazing! If you're in town stop by an Austin on Rails, great community. There's always friendly folks, companies hiring, and ususally some food.

I am an instructor at MakerSquare in Austin and I just wanted to say that we're all very excited about this. If anyone has any questions about our program I'd be happy to answer them.

I'd be interested to hear how this will affect MakerSquare. I saw the announcement and it seems like Hack Reactor is adopting a fairly laissez-faire approach. Have you seen any changes in the lead up to this? How do you think it will play out?

I agree that they are taking a laissez-faire approach. For now we will adopt their curriculum (which is great because we were moving to a JS only curriculum anyway) and their class schedule (till 8pm daily and class on Saturdays). We'll keep our name and staff as is.

We'll likely adopt their admissions process, however, we're very proud of some aspects of our process and we're looking forward to see how the two can work together.

No changes were made to any part of the program leading up to the acquisition.

Although I haven't checked in a while, MS used to have a policy of allowing alumni (I went through the second cohort) to access the new curricula whenever updates were made.

Will that still be possible? I'm interested to see some of the new materials.

That will not be possible. Though alumni will be able to access the curriculum we developed prior to the acquisition.

this is incredibly disheartening to read...

Not cool.

Kaplan bought Dev Bootcamp a while ago - Interesting to see so many aquisitions in this space.

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