Revature coding program promises jobs but costs $36,500 to quit

https://onezero.medium.com/recent-grads-are-being-lured-into-indentured-servitude-by-a-coding-bootcamp-8a3b2b8e87e8

by gHeadphone • 5 years ago

74 69 5 years ago

onezero.medium.com

uncledave• 5 years ago

Paywalled.

paulgb• 5 years ago

You’re being downvoted, but I appreciate knowing if clicking a medium link will count against my monthly free articles, so thanks.

kmonsen• 5 years ago

For me incognito/private mode works fine

FrameworkFred2• 5 years ago

steep, but not altogether unlike college. read your contracts folks.

ballenf2• 5 years ago

$36.5k for a 2-month online program is like what college? That's what it would cost you if you got a better offer than their internal roles.

postalrat2• 5 years ago

That comes out to about 1.2 million for a 4 year degree. Sounds about right.

kmos17• 5 years ago

Did you read the article? The problem is not just the fee (insanely high for a bootcamp), but that graduates are hired out to companies and paid rates that sound much lower than market rates, which most likely they are charging the companies a higher rate for. And if they refuse they have to pay the fee.

Your college owns you for 2-3 years after graduation and can hire you out and decide where you live and work and at what rate?

Sounds a lot like indentured servitude.

edoceo2• 5 years ago

s/a lot/exactly/

FrameworkFred2• 5 years ago

I'm not saying "go sign up with Revature" but I am saying that a whole lot of folks go to college and end up with a crap ton of debt which they end up working for years to pay off.

AND...a large chunk of those folks walk away with unmarketable skills.

AND...you can't declare bankruptcy to get out from under student loans.

...which IMO sounds kinda worse than indentured servitude in that, while you do still have to pay, the mechanism for payment is neither provided in the construct nor is it made possible by the training received.

stuff4ben• 5 years ago

How is this in any way like college? I agree that people should read the contracts, but if I quit college, I'm not on the hook for anything more than I've already paid. And you know what you're getting into when you get a loan, so I fail to see how this $36K quitting fee is like college...

whiddershins2• 5 years ago

Well, with college you don’t get paid at all for around 4 years of your time, and then graduate in debt or having paid for instruction.

Compare that to this case where you basically commit 2 years of time and emerge debt free, and presumably with real work experience.

I’m not advocating for this sort of system, it creeps me out.

What I am saying though, is that college can be a dicey value if you can’t figure out how to translate it to the job market, if that’s your objective.

We would probably be better off if there was a really good system for apprenticeships that was a win win for employers and employees.

Most grads basically have to be mentored for years to be effective, in my experience. It makes it hard on companies looking to hire, because they have to invest so much in someone who can just leave. And hard for the job-seeker, as they are in a difficult position because they may not be able to offer a lot of value, so may not be able to get a job.

For people with top tier degrees, or who are very motivated self starters, none of this matters. But what about everyone else?

ballenf2• 5 years ago

One of many lies of bootcamps is the boosting of stats by counting hires of grads as instructors. And theoretically talented grads would make great teaching assistants, but those are exactly the people who get much better jobs so they end up with students who struggled through the program "teaching" the next couple cohorts. And they are happy to have some employment their resume, meanwhile it's becoming common knowledge that that itself is a red flag for an employer.

908B64B1975• 5 years ago

And theoretically talented grads would make great teaching assistants, but those are exactly the people who get much better jobs so they end up with students who struggled through the program "teaching" the next couple cohorts.

You nailed it.

It's the complete opposite of someone who was a TA during undergrads.

toasted_flakes• 5 years ago

This might sound a bit naive, but is that even legal?

derekp73• 5 years ago

Typically it is legal for a company you work for to send you to training, but then bill you (typically prorated) for the training cost if you leave the company within a specified time after. And that seems somewhat reasonable in many cases. But then again, a company can come up with "mandatory" annual training with an inflated cost, with a 2-year escape clause, to effectively prevent employees from leaving.

gamblor956• 5 years ago

It is in some states, like Texas. It wouldn't be in CA.

A "quitting fee" is generally illegal throughout the U.S...which is why Revature has the boot camp. Instead of being a quitting fee for leaving the job, the "quitting fee" is characterized legally as reimbursing Revature for the tuition costs of the bootcamp.

derekp73• 5 years ago

Back in 2009, I was laid off work for several months. One of the headhunters that contacted me sent me a contract to sign, that basically said that I agree to unconditionally accept whichever client they decide to place me with if extended an offer within 3 days of the interview, or will be sued for unspecified damages. I was desperate for a job, but not quite that desperate.

edoceo2• 5 years ago

This is disgusting. I do some placement and this kind of BS just smacks of the recruiter treating their revenue stream as cattle. I mean, the numbers make it easy but why be a supreme jerk about it? It's not like we lose much capital on a missed placement.

jacquesm• 5 years ago

There ought to be a site where you could list the name of a company like that without fear of repercussions.

zaphod122• 5 years ago

I am generally opposed to this sort of shaming, but damn would I make an exception for that behavior. Really freaking hope this doesn't fly anymore, since it's been a decade.

Turing_Machine• 5 years ago

"St. Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go...

I owe my soul to the company store."

-- Sixteen Tons by Merle Travis, performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford

gotoeleven• 5 years ago

    -- Michael Scott

thewarrior3• 5 years ago

As an Indian dev these stories about how coding bootcamps are disrupting education make me smile. This business model has already been tested and scaled in India. It’s called Infosys, Wipro and TCS and the 150 billion dollar Indian IT services industry.

They operate like coding bootcamps. They hire tens of thousands of random grads, put them through a “bootcamp” of six months and contract them out to Fortune 500 firms. They also have these kinds of exit clauses where you have to pay them if you quit early. These people often have no CS backgrounds.

These bootcamps will also end up shifting to India and turning into outsourcing firms. Nothing more nothing less. It can absolutely work and be huge but as you scale the quality drops and it’s not a panacea.

If I were the lambda school CEO I’d just start a remote first outsourcing firm in India and cut to the chase.

If I were an IT service company CEO I’d rebrand myself as “disrupting education” to get some of that sweet VC $.

jonfw• 5 years ago

These companies/practices exist in the US as well, one of the companies you mentioned offered me a 2 year contract with an early termination fee that was 4-5 months salary

thewarrior3• 5 years ago

Yeah I was locked into a 3 year contract with money up front. Learned a lot but glad I managed to get out and work my way up to FANG type companies. Just prep well for interviews and leave ASAP.

JakeStone• 5 years ago

They'll still keep popping up. There's profits to be made from "boot camps". A company I worked for a couple years ago partnered up with a UK firm that's doing something similar, so it's spreading.

thewarrior3• 5 years ago

It’s okay. Just don’t become a soldier for a mercenary firm.

29athrowaway2• 5 years ago

When their employees relocate to the US, they're required to give their employer power of attorney, which is used to report phony tax returns and take the refund checks.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/tcs-to-pay-30...

When they submit H-1B applications, they submit the same form 10 times so their employees get selected because they figured out that the H-1B selection process is literally someone grabbing a random envelope from a mail container.

908B64B1975• 5 years ago

When they submit H-1B applications, they submit the same form 10 times so their employees get selected because they figured out that the H-1B selection process is literally someone grabbing a random envelope from a mail container.

It's time these visas get a pool per country so we can punish the ones that are trying very hard to abuse it.

antihero2• 5 years ago

It can absolutely work and be huge but as you scale the quality drops and it’s not a panacea.

I mean this more sounds like the recipe for yet more garbage code and various levels of disaster.

pc86• 5 years ago

There's a reason off-shore firms (Indian firms, specifically) have such a reputation for absolutely horrendous, garbage work product.

treis5• 5 years ago

IMHO, I think this is great. It's taking people with shit job prospects and starting them on a good career. I went through something like this, got paid ~33k for a year and had similar repayment conditions and non competes. I did my time, left that initial shithole of a company, and embarked on a lucrative career. It's no exaggeration to call it a life changing opportunity.

I find it interesting to compare getting hired at these places to the big tech firms. I've applied to places with collectively thousands of open engineer roles. But they all have a process to find a reason not to hire you. Like one place I did well on 3/4 coding challenges and kind of bombed the system design interview. None of these companies will look at that and say, well this person has potential let's give them a chance. They all will say, well they don't raise the bar so let's just keep our dozens of needed roles unfilled.

bigcorpdev• 5 years ago

The (large) company I work with brought on a bunch of Revature contractors, attracted to the cost savings. By and large, their skills were lacking and their attitudes overconfident which resulted in negative contribution to various projects.

The few that were good, got swept away when the company cancelled the entire contract. Those folks had to move to middle-of-nowhere America to work on projects that are unlikely to advance their skills much. They couldn’t afford to quit.

This experience mirrors my experience with software devs on H1B’s— these firms wield too much control over people.

treis5• 5 years ago

It's not a great working environment nor does it provide the best experience but compared to a service job it's miles ahead. They're paid above the national median and get a chance at a career where they can make several times the national median. Way better than making 30k as a waiter.

mywittyname4• 5 years ago

None of these companies will look at that and say, well this person has potential let's give them a chance.

I'm sure these companies do. When I'm interviewing, potential is what I weight most in a candidate.

Not to be an ass, but are you sure you are showing the potential you think you are?

treis5• 5 years ago

I'm sure these companies do. When I'm interviewing, potential is what I weight most in a candidate.

Amazon has the most well known example:

When Amazon launched the hiring plan for tech job candidates in 1999, it was called the ‘barkeeper programme’. But that name implied maintaining a hiring standard, when actually the programme is about raising the standard with each hire. Every person hired should be better than 50 percent of those currently in similar roles.

https://blog.aboutamazon.eu/working-at-amazon/what-is-a-bar-...

But that's pretty standard across the FANGs and trickles down into other tech companies. They're not interested in the 20% performer that might turn into a 50%+ one. They expect you to go work somewhere else, develop into that 50%+ programmer, and try again.

Not to be an ass, but are you sure you are showing the potential you think you are?

Yes, I'm sure because I received positive feedback on a couple rounds before bombing out. I (according to them) did well on 3/4 coding challenges, terribly on the 4th, and bombed the system design. They chose to give more weight to that 4th test and the system design than the 3 good performances. And they're sitting on 200 open engineering roles for a not that big company.

hunterloftis• 5 years ago

Like one place I did well on 3/4 coding challenges and kind of bombed the system design interview. None of these companies will look at that and say, well this person has potential let's give them a chance. They all will say, well they don't raise the bar so let's just keep our dozens of needed roles unfilled.

A bad engineering hire can result in worse outcomes than leaving a role unfilled because developers exert so much leverage through software. The risk when hiring developers is that they will create highly-leveraged negative value.

Taking your system design example, a poorly-designed system can:

- cost millions of dollars directly by failing its functional requirements

- cost millions more indirectly by being inefficient

- divert energy from other initiatives to fix

- dissuade other engineers from working at the company in the future

By this, I don't mean to say that we should demand interviewing perfection, or that the industry's interviewing process can't be improved. But it's important to recognize that "having potential" includes the potential for both good, and dramatically bad, outcomes.

treis5• 5 years ago

Taking your system design example, a poorly-designed system can

Sure, but I had 0 system design experience applying for a role with 0 system design responsibilities. No reason to expect I could design a system like that or that I would need to be able to for that role.

I'm not saying that they're wrong necessarily. It's more a commentary on how there's a huge swath of companies with basically no entry level. You're expected to know CS fundamentals, a bunch of algorithms, and be able to design a highly scalable system.

wootie512• 5 years ago

I think there is some place for these not quite ready junior devs. I have worked at and with some dev agencies and there seems to be a lack of technical QA on majority of projects.

My idea is to hire these devs that aren't ready to write code themselves, and have them do lots of technical QA. Pull down the code, run it on their machine, test all endpoints in Postman, write some simple scripts, etc. Then after several months doing that, give them a raise to move them closer to a dev salary and move them to active dev work.

You get to 1. Hire devs at a big discount since they won't be doing dev work quite yet. 2. Get to work with them for several months before letting them get active on code. 3. Even with the raise post QA period, they would be at a below market rate for junior devs.

Junior devs get 1. Experience in a technical position. 2. Opportunity to continue learning and see what it takes to build professional quality code. 3. On ramp to being a dev.

Maybe I got the numbers wrong on this and it isn't feasible. But it seems like a good tradeoff for agencies to bring on devs. Because devs are crazy expensive in the US and agencies have a hard time bringing them in while staying profitable.

necrotic_comp• 5 years ago

This is a good sequence of events. Kind of what happened to me after I graduated from school - I didn't have much programming experience (my BS was essentially a math degree and I did it in < 2 years), so they hired me to answer phones, then from there I did level 1, then level 2, then releases, then level 3, then bugfixes and then I was finally granted the title of Dev.

Has the benefit of making sure you know the cost of issues and outages, knowing how to spot bugs, and generally how to be a good citizen both with the dev teams and the rest of the company at large.

kthejoker2• 5 years ago

Yeah, I think the issue is telling a client with a straight face you're going to add a "not quite ready junior dev" to a project to QA your own work for the client and charge the client for the privilege (even at a "below market rate") is a bit ... off.

And if you're doing it fixed-fee, then you really need to confirm that the QA is either accelerating delivery (and therefore reducing costs) so you can keep the price constant and collect more margin or ensuring a better (i.e. more valuable) outcome to the client to justify an increase in price in a fairly competitive bidding market.

908B64B1975• 5 years ago

You get to 1. Hire devs at a big discount since they won't be doing dev work quite yet. 2. Get to work with them for several months before letting them get active on code. 3. Even with the raise post QA period, they would be at a below market rate for junior devs.

You'll pay every penny of the discount by wasting time tutoring them to the level of a real CS grad.

commandlinefan• 5 years ago

Despite graduating college with a degree in engineering, James could only find employment in the service industry

How does this happen? I know it's nearly impossible to find people to fill open positions.

freeone3000• 5 years ago

Because the so-called entry level positions require an in-depth knowledge of abstract algorithms, proficiency in coding skills, and a working knowledge of source control. There are no jobs for someone who goes to an interview armed only with what they learned in school.

mywittyname4• 5 years ago

Companies are hiring people to do a job. It makes sense to ensure the people you hire can actually make something.

You should have learned all of that in school. If you have a 4 year CS degree and can't do those simple things, then you didn't actually pay enough attention in class and are, in fact, a bad candidate.

zaphod122• 5 years ago

Engineering degree != CS or software engineering degree. No idea what the job market looks like for a civil engineer or for some sort of unspecified 'engineer' grad.

ThrustVectoring• 5 years ago

These programs get to ask a court to enforce a $36,500 judgement against you if you quit. That's far from having a job "cost $36,500 to quit". If the role is truly worse than nothing, as long as you don't have a pile of assets to go after the entire cost of quitting is going through bankruptcy at worst.

The only scenario in which you'd pay the full $36,500 is if you found an alternative job that would be at least that much better. In which case you move on and make them collect from you. How difficult that is for them and how much of a hassle it is for you varies by state, but I suspect you could settle the debt for a payment plan that returns at most 50 cents on the dollar.

IMO, more people need to be educated on the debt collection and bankruptcy system they have, and learn what their actual best alternatives are, rather than what creditors want you to think your alternatives are. Debt collection is slow and risky at best, and these exploitative programs are run by slimeballs, so fuck 'em and play hardball.

ipnon• 5 years ago

On a fundamental economic level we can think of this as a negative employment curve: employees are paying for the privilege of entering the tech labor market, rather than employers paying the employees compensation to entice them to join.

mywittyname4• 5 years ago

rather than employers paying the employees compensation to entice them to join.

Umm, people are paying $35k for an opportunity to break into the lucrative tech job market. Which indicates that the wages must be fairly enticing.

Lots of lucrative employment markets cost money to break into. One can't become a doctor, lawyer, dentist, etc without paying for an expensive specialty school.

ohdannyboy• 5 years ago

I've come to despise coding boot camps, they are just so predatory. They have no academic standards, no standardization, and they promise the world. I took the more traditional CS degree route but understand it's not the best path for everyone. However, bootcamps aren't the new way and probably never will be (I expect them to take their place next to DeVry and other university level scams advertising on daytime television).

Entry level programmers are told that there is a huge demand. There is a huge demand, but everyone wants at least some experience. Some will do personal projects, maybe work at a chop shop for a few months and work their way in. Others won't or never get past the project phase. Coding bootcamps come in and claim to bridge that gap for an exorbitant price. The attitude is so often "just pay for this piece of paper and get a job." Students pay up front and are left out on their ass when they realize it was a scam.

Unfortunately by the time I see people get desperate enough to buy a piece of paper from a bootcamp I think they should either work on their soft skills or reconsider this industry altogether. I personally know a few people who either have gone or are considering such programs and they all lack passion. They only want to program because they see it as a stable line of employment. Hiring managers can see this from a mile away and lose interest. If it's just a lack of soft skills then learn how to sell yourself and communicate your interest. But if you don't really want this and can't bridge the gap then I'd find something else to do.

justaguy88• 5 years ago

I'm interested in hearing who is actually hiring bootcamp grads? I've not actually met one before (though maybe bootcampers don't end up in backend roles)

pcthrowaway• 5 years ago

I worked for a cash strapped startup a while back, and we hired a bootcamp grad. Even though his starting salary was low ($20 /hr canadian), it worked out swimmingly for all of us. He got plenty of training, ramped up fast (with a pay increase after a month), and got loads of stuff done. The startup ran out of runway after another 6-8 months, but it gave him the experience he needed to move forward with his career as well

908B64B1975• 5 years ago

I tried interviewing some.

The signal to noise ratio was just not worth it. Not a single hire.

Ancalagon• 5 years ago

God forbid someone should want a stable line of employment.

908B64B1975• 5 years ago

I expect them to take their place next to DeVry and other university level scams advertising on daytime television

50K Javascript jobs advertised at bus stops with a coding bootcamp URL.

We're already there.

There is a huge demand, but everyone wants at least some experience.

Any job add with less than 5 years of experience is entry-level. Apply even with 0 years of experience.

ecshafer• 5 years ago

When I graduated college with a CS degree Revature was the first job offer I had at the time for a development job. Luckily for me, I already an IT job so I wasn't in a rush, I had found another shortly after, and I read their contract and told them not so kindly, to fuck themselves. There are a few companies I have seen that do this process as well, where they have a steep "quitting fee".

So my experience with Revature, I am not sure if I even applied to them or if they scraped my CV off of Indeed at the time. The "job interview" was a 20 minute phone call. It included a painfully easy trivia type quiz with 5-10 basic programming questions "What is the differences betwee == vs === in Javascript" level questions. The recruiter said "Wow great, we would like to hire you". The contract was for $50k a year, and with $25k quit clause if I left the company for any reason before 2 years for anyone but one of their clients, AND this was in DC so a painfully low salary. So basically I they put you through a short training program, find you a job as a contractor, they make >$50k a year selling you as a contractor, if you leave before your slavery is over they get even more money, if you leave for the company you are working they probably get even more money. I told them no, they tried to hard sell me telling me it was normal, I told them to fuck themselves and to not call me again.

I could see how someone desparate for a job might fall into this. Total Scam and those companies should be forcibly shut down by the government.

baron816• 5 years ago

When I graduated from a coding boot camp, I struggled for ~3 years trying to get my first real SWE role. At a few points, I was literally begging startups to let me work for them practically for free, and they were still saying no. A lot of companies have a genuine fear that just having inexperienced people around is more of a liability than an asset.

I doubt I would’ve ever taken a deal like this, but I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to have to eat some shit for a year or two in order to break into what you want to do. If your choice is between earning $8/hr working retail, and earning $8/hr as an engineer, the latter is the way to go. Maybe also judge it against going to grad school where you’re not just not making money, but you’re actually going into tens of thousands of dollars of debt.

jbki• 5 years ago

I am a revature alumnus. I had a very positive experience and now a successful career. I can answer any questions

Revature coding program promises jobs but costs $36,500 to quit

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