Learn to Code, Get Hired

http://blog.careerfoundry.com/learn-code-get-hired

by RosieA • 12 years ago

36 121 12 years ago

blog.careerfoundry.com

EmilLamprecht• 12 years ago

But which schools are the best is the question?

Anyone taken courses at these places? What were the good and bad of it?

chazu• 12 years ago

As an entirely self-taught programmer, I say skip these programs entirely. When I got my first real programming gig, my company sent me to a quick, 7-or-8 session long bootcamp for rails, although I'd already taught myself all the rails conventions. The program was a huge waste of time for me, and a waste of money for my employer.

I had already gotten 500% more out of just reading guides.rubyonrails.org than I did in the entire program. If I had been required to pay for the instruction, I'd have come out feeling distinctly ripped off, especially if I had been a web designer who'd never used command-line build tools before.

This might vary with the program. The particular format of the one I attended just wasn't well-suited to getting people up and running quickly, or addressing the varied needs of students at different levels. That being said, learning _how to learn to program_ is much more important. Learning that failure is the first step to success and a prerequisite to actually synthesizing knowledge. If they could teach that in these courses, they'd be priceless.

Hope that helps, kind of rambling but, that's my experience :)

socialmatchbox9• 12 years ago

It varies WIDELY with the program. Not all of these are rip offs. Not all of the students get the same or need the same things as you. There are all kinds of different ways that people learn. There are also lots of different levels that people are coming into things on.

jlees4• 12 years ago

It depends on your definition of 'best'.

Do you want to leave with a solid understanding of how a programming language works, how memory functions, many of the fundamental algorithms and data structures in CS, and more of that kind? Or do you want to leave with a couple of different, solid Rails/Python/JavaScript/mobile apps under your belt, and go straight into app development? Different courses focus on different things.

Many of the online courses skip the former and jump straight into 'rails generate' -- but not all of them, especially if you supplement with Coursera courses which are often far more academic in nature. The in-person bootcamps vary a lot, and I had a fairly low opinion of them as a breed until I started mentoring Hackbright students and realising that they do learn the fundamentals -- but I know there are others that don't teach that stuff at all.

Disclaimer: I'm a part-time instructor at Hackbright Academy and a former Thinkful mentor. In structuring the part-time class I have had to think a lot about how to help convey the elements of CS in a very limited time-frame. It's tough. I honestly welcome feedback and discussion from others who have tried to do it.

J_Darnley• 12 years ago

What if I can already do the first part, what automatically provides the second part?

I might post a more detailed comment if I could actually find somewhere to view this content.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Nothing automatically provides the job. We're talking about a process hidden behind a click-happy headline.

A huge part of the comments in this feed have been discussing the challenge of teaching bootcamp students what the actual career is about, what getting jobs is about, that realistically learning to code is just one small part of being a developer.

Does the headline say all that? God now. Does the article say that? Nope, because its trying to draw in all interested parties. The problem is that some, perhaps many, maybe even almost all bootcamps on that list? They might not clarify it until to late.

Some of us are trying to figure it out. Both how to communicate it, but maybe even the actual solution!

In the mean time, if you can code start pitching on elance, man! There is always work even for those of us who are, quiet frankly, sub-par developers> our CMO can code, he sucks at it.

;-)

crazypyro• 12 years ago

Site is down for me and no webarchive yet, does someone have another cached link?

e: Its back, but in case it goes down again:

http://web.archive.org/web/20141016140435/http://blog.career...

RosieA51• 12 years ago

We got KILLED by traffic today, sorry about that!

king_magic10• 12 years ago

For what it's worth, I think articles like this do a huge disservice to people looking for an easy way to "get hired coding", at least in terms of setting peoples' expectations. Reading this, this article makes it seem (to me, at least) like there are just thousands and thousands of companies who will happily hire you right away once you go through a few of these courses.

It's simply just not the reality, at least from my perspective as an architect at relatively decent sized consulting company (600+ people). It would be extremely unlikely for us to hire someone without a 4 year degree in a relative discipline (CS, software engineering, etc.). That's not to say we don't hire people without a 4 year degree, but those people have years of hardcore experience and are just as advanced/mature as their counterparts with degree - a far cry from taking a few online courses and declaring yourself "a coder".

I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything here - just being realistic.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Hi King_Magic I understand the point you're making, but for people who haven't studied computer science at university, or haven't been tinkering on a computer since they were a small child, these courses are a way they can break into this career. Tech should not be an elusive industry - especially when their is such a huge shortage of skills. These courses open up the scene for people who don't have the background in the industry, but want to change careers or expand in their current roles. No one is saying (and the article certainly isn't) that you can just jump straight into a job after a few weeks studying an online course, but what is true is that by studying online people can acquire skills via a course, then build up their experience over time, build a portfolio and then get a job.

JoeAltmaier2• 12 years ago

I'm thinking this may be an illusion. Is there any evidence that this route works?

I know that the effective programmers I work with, have similar life stories. They love programming, have done it since they were young, do it for themselves and not just for work.

The guy who gets a CS degree because there's money in it may get a job somewhere, but not in the circles I travel in. Which is architecture, design, backends, libraries and embedded solutions.

So what is the real opportunity to a part-time online-course student?

Morgawr• 12 years ago

Tech should not be an elusive industry - especially when their is such a huge shortage of skills.

1) If you consider tech to be an elusive industry because of this, would you consider the same for biology, chemistry or other industries/sciences that require a degree to effectively get a job in the field? Why is there no counterparts to "learn to code" for those fields?

2) Is there really a shortage of skills in the software development industry in comparison to other fields?

famousactress4• 12 years ago

No one is saying (and the article certainly isn't) that you can just jump straight into a job after a few weeks studying an online course

Actually in my experience that's exactly what most of these code camps are saying to students before taking their money. I get empty resume's weekly with links to github accounts full of obvious Ruby on Rails classwork and no mention of the code-camp. All from students who don't even really know what our company does (because someone clearly gave them a spam-list of startups they're suddenly qualified for).

I'm a huge believer that our industry really needs a trade-education alternative to 4 year CS programs, but the problem folks who look like a code camp have is that as far as I can tell most code camps are failing to set or achieve the expectations of their students.

[FWIW the company you're working for might be totally different, and I don't mean it as an attack on you specifically, but since you wrote the article generically I find it fair to comment on how generically disappointed I am in what I've seen happening in the current teach-you-to-code ecosystem]

EDIT: Sorry, more to say.

I think quite frankly if you imagine a venn-diagram with two bubbles: People who want to write software for a living and people who have a natural or learned aptitude for logical abstraction. We want the people in the intersection. It's true that those people are incredibly hard to find, but it's also true that we'd usually rather get by doing less with fewer than hiring first-bubble-only folks.

The problem is that code-camps are out looking for people in the first bubble (Want to work in software cause it pays well? Sweet! Join us!!). That's the wrong idea. There are probably loads of people in the second bubble (folks who have a shot at being great developers) who don't even know they'd enjoy this career. Maybe there's a high intersection of architects or botanists or carpenters in that bubble... Maybe there are entire failing industries full of people who'd have a much better-than-average aptitude for software. No idea.

Regardless, in my mind that's where the best chance at success in converting people into this industry is. Unfortunately it's more profitable for code-camps to attract masses of people and letting the terrible conversion rate end up being someone else's problem.

king_magic10• 12 years ago

"especially when their is such a huge shortage of skills"

This is the piece I take issue with - the reality is that if you're coming from a 0% background, and you go through a few of these courses, you may really only be at 5%. Even with a million people going through these courses, there is still a shortage of skills if there are a million new coders who are only at 5%.

Sure, there are going to be a few great standouts here and their, but I strongly suspect that is the exception rather than the rule - as an example, of my initial class of CS majors, only 10% of the original group graduated at the end of 4 years - because it's just really hard work.

"No one is saying (and the article certainly isn't) that you can just jump straight into a job after a few weeks studying an online course, but what is true is that by studying online people can acquire skills via a course, then build up their experience over time, build a portfolio and then get a job."

Sure, in standout, exceptional cases. But back to the article - just the title alone - "Learn To Code, Get Hired" - don't you think that could give people just a tad bit of a wrong impression about how difficult it is to get hired?

Kalium4• 12 years ago

No one is saying (and the article certainly isn't) that you can just jump straight into a job after a few weeks studying an online course

That's not what you're saying. It is, however, the fantasy that you and those like you are selling.

A lot of us find this deeply troubling.

smtddr• 12 years ago

Perhaps I'm just an old get-off-my-lawn skeptic, but the phrase "Learn To Code, get hired" really brings up bad memories.

I was in school during '97-'01 and when I got my BSCS our dean gave the CS department a special speech about how messed up it was out there and told us to consider just going back to get our masters degrees. My CS classes had plenty of cheaters and those who used their academic-powers to brute-force memorize enough to get through the course but you knew they didn't truly understand what they were doing. These are the people I think of when I give fizzbuzz(with a twist) in my job-interviews. I had classmates drop out of school because some company gave them 90k salaries and _an actual car_ because they had a webpage at csdepartment.myschool.edu~/studentID - by writing one HTML file, saved it as index.html and put it in the /home/studentID/public_html directory.

I too really don't want to sound elitist, but I've actually seen people get burned by this. I personally really respect the approach http://go.expression.edu/ takes to this. I was at an open-house back in '06, you could feel the energy of the people there. So excited to break into the world of 3D animation and land a job at Pixar or SONY. There were even well-known people from the media scene. I got to talk to one of the developers of Sonic the Hedgehog music team, a Pixar employee was there(Pixar is like a 5min drive from this college) and someone from Industrial Light & Magic(ILM) was there. One of the presenters was very honest about the possibility of job placement. She made it clear to everyone that the chance of landing a dream job is not high at all; that anyone who goes through this program is doing it for personal passion and internal drive. She set expectations properly. Having the skill from classrooms was one thing, but it was up to the individual to really breath life into their skill and it took some luck on who you know to really make it in. e.g., these are the people hoping to make it: http://galleries.cgsociety.org/

I just hope that the students of careerfoundry know that it's one thing to learn coding in school, but it's up to the student to really go the extra-extra mile and learn things on their own.... and a bit of luck as well.

Bahamut• 12 years ago

Honestly, it just depends on the company when it comes to background, I'm the senior most frontend engineer at my company, and when I hire, I look primarily for critical thinking.

However, taking X amount of courses definitely does a disservice to the seekers - it is a huge amount of time investment to become immersed in learning enough programming to get a job, and how much you actually retain is one of the most important factors, as well as willingness to learn more.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Our operating theory right now is that the best (and most useful) evaluator of developer talent (particularly new developers) is the projects they did for themselves. Or their solutions and learning through a single-dev job.

Thoughts?

stickperson• 12 years ago

Totally agree. I took a class last year and learned a lot, but finding a job was extremely difficult. I finally found one in the early part of 2014, but now that I'm looking again it has been just as hard.

Everyone wants more senior people which is understandable. The problem is there's just such a shortage of talent. I argue that if you find someone who possesses the passion, curiosity, and ability to learn quickly and train them for a couple months, you'll have a decent developer. Unfortunately, I haven't come across many companies who share this viewpoint.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

"I argue that if you find someone who possesses the passion, curiosity, and ability to learn quickly and train them for a couple months, you'll have a decent developer."

I totally agree. This is exactly what we look for in all of our prospective students, as well as being passionate about it ourselves.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

king_magic10• 12 years ago

The competing viewpoint is "why should our company pay to train you, when you could have paid to train yourself?"

I'm not saying it's necessarily "right", but that it could be a reason why many companies do not share that viewpoint.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Edit: Just realized I commented twice to this thread, but I like this response (my second one) better so I'll leave it!

We take this approach in our company, but its a risky cultural move for a startup who needs to progress fast, and a lot of corporations don't want to take the time/risk that you'll end up being a flop--generally because they're less connected to individuals as they are teams.

There is currently a huge movement, however, of "investing in people" as an ideology for entrepreneurship, investment and HR. Gary V. has been making a lot of noise about it recently. Subject of his next book? I'm not telling. ;-)

Inhouse and education and training is slowly getting trend again, and cool companies like friends of ours in Amsterdam (Acheived) and SF (Degreed) are starting to make it sexy again as well!

mattmanser• 12 years ago

I've never needed a degree to get a job as a developer. 15 years now. I have a degree in philosophy.

Someone with a CS degree is not a developer.

A subset of companies think you need a CS degree to be a developer. Yours is one. That you work somewhere that is so vehemently anti-autodidactic programmers means you are incapable of objectively judging.

In my experience good developers don't have to have degrees and there are many bad developers with degrees.

Basically, degrees are a poor indicator of developer skill.

In reality, programming is a vocation, not an academic subject and many academics are very poorly suited for programming.

kyllo• 12 years ago

Yeah. I recently had a guy with a CS degree ring up my groceries at the supermarket. There are definitely people out there with CS degrees who cannot make it as software developers.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Definitely. Do you think, however, that educational systems should be working to fix this? Or that the industry relies (and is ok relying) on private training resources like bootcamps, and the self taught wonders of the world?

dreamweapon3• 12 years ago

Exactly. As if becoming a developer were a matter of learning "to code."

sauere• 12 years ago

I got to agree with the overall chorus here.

Without wanting to sound like a dick: a bootcamp doesn't make you a full-blown top-notch $150k "software engineer" in 1, 2, 3 or even 6 months. I just doesn't happen. The whole ecosystem today is just to complex to learn this in a short time. Operating systems, version control, protocols, databases, best pratice for security, making maintainable code.

I have been coding for nearly 10 years now and i am still learning every year.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Definitely not, but where else do you start? We're asking this all the time as naturally there are a million pieces to becoming a developer. Code is just one tool in the box, but isn't it the basis? Particularly if you're starting from scratch, until you know you like code and how it works its hard to imagine being able to pursue a dev career.

enraged_camel2• 12 years ago

I think this is just one giant strawman that gets thrown around in any discussion on this topic.

No, a few months of coding classes do not make someone a developer. However, it does separate them from other people by demonstrating that they are hard-working, curious and have an interest in the field. In my mind those types of people are the ideal candidates for junior-level positions. Much more so than some CS graduate who went through the motions to earn a degree on theoretical computer science and thinks he's now a software engineer. (I mean, last time I checked, the vast majority of computer science degrees were not terribly relevant to professional software development.)

silverbax882• 12 years ago

I've worked 15 years as a programmer, architect, boss... I have one year of college. I found that once you hit 3-5 years of experience, getting a job was never hard. I also found that people who are mostly self-taught and self-motivated are almost always better hires than people with a 4 year degree.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

We have discussions all the time with CTOs and recruiters about what gets a dev hired. We always cycle back to the fact that its really their personal projects that win the day.

Would you agree? When you're hiring a developer is it the time/certification/companies he worked for? Or his own stuff?

I know that's a bit of a shallow look at hiring which is way more in-depth, but would love your thoughts on that point.

jamesli• 12 years ago

Right! What we are trying so hard to hire are not programmers, but good engineers. For candidates who don't have much industry experience, we are looking for potentials. Some crash courses won't grant potentials to candidates. Speaking frankly, we expect the new hires to learn fast, to have a great jump after working with good senior engineers for one year. This one year helps the new hires to connect the dots of their knowledges. That requires a solid background, which can't be acquired by crash courses.

There are genius programmers who don't need a CS or related degree. They are exceptions, though, not norm.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Just a thought that comes to mind here (not really a response) is that yes, problems exist with training good engineers, particularly in a bootcamp format. Many comments below go into this. But we see a lot of students who are learning development as a life style choice as well.

Maybe sounds odd but the mission for these guys and girls is actually never to get a "job", its actually to build prototypes of their own ideas or start freelancing as a web designer, doing small sites for friends and families then sourcing clients and using it all as a way to perpetuate their learning.

I don't know how many bootcamps get those kinds, but its become the majority of our student base.

I think for these people in particular bootcamps is brilliant. Though the problem with training good engineers for jobs in established companies still remains.

socialmatchbox9• 12 years ago

Go read the literature on Hack Reactor. They double load their students with learning to code (better (assumed they are not 100% green)) and with how to perform in the job. They also help with interviewing 101 in an applied sense. Imagine getting a job based on knowing how to code, but without knowing how to pass normalized interviews that many teams simply assume people have insights and experience around.

I am not affiliated with HR and have not met them, but I like their approach on paper and could see it making a big difference. I have met people who have graduated from different programs. Some are ready, but that is largely a product of the person...not the program. I do not feel as confident about all programs generally.

I think what you are thinking is that people get knowledge, but not capability but things do not have to happen that way.

socialmatchbox9• 12 years ago

It isn't like this is an article from a developer or hiring manager. It is just a paid blogger who is trying to net students via web searches. But more to your concerns, it isn't like this article promises six figures after taking a course. IF someone wants a job as a developer, there are jobs doing web content management and things like .PSD implementation as well as brochure website freelancing projects. Assuming someone wanted to learn, they have to start somewhere. No everyone is applying for your company's programmer job.

To your point about just being realistic: There are a lot of jobs that require some coding experience, but that are not full time programmer jobs. A marketing person might use some HTML and some JavaScript or even a little PHP. A designer will ultimately need to learn some JavaScript if they want to advance, especially if they want to do freelance projects on their own.

Hell, there are investment bankers and financial industry people as well as political campaign staff who do some coding because it is an implied part of the job or just because it makes the job easier. You never know.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Hi guys, The site is back up again now - please try again!

7Figures2Commas• 12 years ago

It's like 1998 all over again, when basic HTML knowledge promised the key to a comfortable middle class existence. And if you knew tables and how to use spacer GIFs, the sky was the limit!

The only difference is that in 1998, you actually did have a realistic chance of finding a job in tech with limited knowledge and skill. Today's supposed tech labor shortage is more the result of a lack of experienced, highly-qualified candidates who fit a certain mold and reside in a handful of geographic areas. There is no shortage of the inexperienced, under-qualified candidates bootcamps and online programs produce.

famousactress4• 12 years ago

This is exactly right. In '98-'00 people in this situation were actually getting hired, in droves. I'd venture to guess most of them lost their jobs a couple years later and fell out of software development altogether, though.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Really? I feel like most people I know who were developers before the bust are either millionaires or still rocking. A few moves on when the bubble blew out, I even lived in an apartment in SF of a failed 2 man company during that time period; they both went to back to being finance guys. But that was the catalyst of the industry we're now all talking about, and its grown more and faster than many other.

It also took a lot of crappy people to produce the few genuine talents that took the industry by storm. The industry is growing faster than talent because its not standardized or accessible enough for all potential to be found. The problem is greater than a discussion of the validity of bootcamps, and though business driven I would argue bootcamps are a step towards understanding the true needs on a global scale.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

I can totally agree with you, accept that I would say that for the future to be brighter, to be more filled with highly qualified talent, you need to increase the pool of potentials. That means more education sources and building interest and awareness around it. That's what bootcamps are doing, whether its for that purpose or otherwise.

We're actually far MORE interested in the long long term solution, which is teaching code as part of standard education. Its inclusion in schools. We're actually joining efforts with teachers, administrations and government in both the US and the UK (closer to home for us) in the effort to make this possible.

For that tope 5% to exist, the other 95% have to as well...

UUMMUU2• 12 years ago

This is one of the biggest problems with the industry now; a lot of people learning to code without learning computer science. Coding is applying computer science fundamentals and without those fundamentals, you end up writing terrible and unmanageable code. Bootcamps are one of the worst ideas because they charge a lot of money, waste a lot of time with overzealous promises and, worst of all, hurt the industry by cranking out sub-par developers. Don't push people to learn to code, push people to learn computer science, math and algorithms.

arenaninja• 12 years ago

Partly because I'm self-taught, I don't know how much of your statement I agree with. I agree that the bootcamps thing is out of control, but I don't think that I agree that it's bad to code without learning computer science. It might make you more effective, but I've known people with CS degrees who were terrible at coding. Also, in college, I could design better relational databases than CS students in their last year of college (well, my roommate at least, who went on to work at Microsoft). But I don't know the difference between a binary tree and a b-tree, because it's never been necessary for me to implement one. Even then, I'm curious about CS and read up on it when I have free time, and I've been working on nand2tetris, but that's mostly because I'm curious, and while I think it's interesting I don't think it's made me a better programmer (yet). I've also had interviews for web dev that included algorithm/data structure (most don't!), one such place even wanted to hire me, but I didn't want to work there because given the nature of the job I find it unlikely that I would be writing most of the things they asked me about

socialmatchbox9• 12 years ago

A lot of big companies like MS hire boy scouts (or girl scouts) who feel that they need a certification to carry around a pocket knife at camp for their entry level jobs. They also hire really smart people too, but they tend to hire the B's, not the A's. Sometimes it isn't clear whether they can tell or not. They like people who can be molded ushered in a direction over time. What you are describing isn't isolated is all I am saying. For better or worse, these are hires that they can shape into sequoias in their forrest of talent.

angersock• 12 years ago

CS grads write shitty code too--and often, it's harder to figure out what they're trying to accomplish, because they use some weird non-standard red/black balanced bloom filter with LZ sliding window compression instead of just, say, a fucking hashmap.

At least with coders you often find code that is obviously wrong, instead of code that is non-obviously wrong.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

I honestly never thought of it this way (your last sentence). But yes, to your first point many of our students are CS grads who realized they wanted to work as developers but didn't know how to code... They might start with a stronger theoretical understanding, and perhaps can code more complex functionality or software than our non CS grad students, but ultimately they're on a similar level. Just depends on what the individual wants to be doing long term.

jlees4• 12 years ago

Some bootcamps do teach computer science principles. Many do not.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Do you know off hand which ones really do? I'm not sure I've seen evidence of it apart from sort of a brief introduction to theory...?

RosieA51• 12 years ago

I couldn't disagree more!

I know great, long time and successful web developers who have never studied maths and CS! I think this really depends on your goals, and the complexity of what you hope to be building. If you want to be at the top of the software development field you may be correct, but if you want to be a really strong web developer working at startups, building your own light weight apps and products, or freelancing as a digital nomad and building portfolios and private e-commerce stores? You don't need any of that.

I think there are a lot of self taught and bootcamp taught developers who would disagree with you, and while you could argue they are all "sub par", you and I both know it takes a lot of people trying to find a few people who are genuinely talented. That goes for any skill! That's what makes YOU stand apart! But that doesn't make them or their own pursuits any less valid.

king_magic10• 12 years ago

I know great, long time and successful bridge engineers who have never studied math and physics. I think this really depends on your goals, and the complexity of what you hope to be building. If you want to be at the top of the civil engineering field you may be correct, but if you want to be a really strong bridge developer working at construction startups, building your own light weight bridges and other buildings, or freelancing as an engineering nomad and building small private bridges? You don't need any of that.

See how ridiculous that sounds when you take another complex field and substitute it in? It should sound just as ridiculous for software development.

socialmatchbox9• 12 years ago

Coding and Computer Science can be mutually exclusive. There is no requirement or reason why you should be required to take computer science to be a programmer. There are plenty of coding jobs out there that do not require (in principle or practice) a CS degree.

On top of that, having a CS degree is no guarantee of someone being even a decent coder. There are tons of crappy CS grads who are bested by people with no degree, associates degrees, and random liberal arts degrees (e.g. philosophy, english).

You are right about the cost of boot camps. However, the exact same argument could be made against traditional 4 year college programs and masters degrees.

Ultimately, what you learn in the class is quickly eclipsed by what you learn on the job and in through continuous self study and pursuit of knowledge.

redmattred• 12 years ago

I'm currently conducting a survey on the effectiveness of code bootcamps. If you've recently attended one, please share your experiences at: http://www.codejobs.io/surveys/codebootcamp/student

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Hey! This is awesome! Will you be publishing your results!?! Would love to see the data!

ilghiro• 12 years ago

I'm still excited for the day when a 2 hours a week, 6 week bootcamp sets me up to easily become a pilot or an architect.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Yes! I guess the only real difference there is that both those skills directly endanger other people! :-p

king_magic10• 12 years ago

So poor software doesn't directly endanger other people? This is why I'm so nervous about a generation of "coders" - they just don't know what they don't know. Software can get people killed. Or (far more likely) can get peoples' bank accounts wiped clean.

pnathan4• 12 years ago

Gack! No! Nearly all of the recommendations are a really bad disservice.

Learning to code is relatively straightforward. Learning to do it well, applying the fundamental principles of computer science, is a different kind of horse (transportation device). People in the industry KNOW this. It's obvious. You have to put in the time to really know what you're about, and bootcamps & MOOCs don't really bridge the gap between 'ignoramus' and 'junior professional' as a rule of thumb. Of course, if you subject yourself to a diet of these things and study the field for some time (months at least), doing serious investigation of the fundamentals, I don't think you'd be much different than a particularly motivated intern or new grad. :)

That said - if you are, e.g., a marketing person, learning coding to help do your job and simplify your work will do amazing things for you, I hear. Learning source control will drastically make "copy 1 of report final 1" type problems go away. As patio11 often says, automating business process has huge value. (Which, by the by, doesn't make you a professional software developer if you do it).

Coding is a great skill, applicable in many places, but professional software creation with the high salary comes at the cost of serious competition with people who have seriously studied this topic for a long time.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

Totally agree with this. Reaching the top level of anything takes time and dedication, but there is huge value to having a rudimentary understanding of code regardless of your professional focus.

Code is slowly becoming a mandatory part of education in primary and secondary schools in Europe. Do you think this helps approach the greater infrastructure of tech?

pnathan4• 12 years ago

I would actually argue that "code" should be taught at the same time as algebra formally. But I don't know enough about European education systems to specify more.

pnathan4• 12 years ago

A followup:

Do you support the idea of "professional guilds" or other associations that delineate the "people who just learned to code" from "people who have seriously invested the time to learn the fundamentals of their field in a very professional fashion"

adregan2• 12 years ago

I haven't an opinion on boot camps as they currently run (but am entirely self taught and having a great time architecting and building APIs and front end applications); however, I wish that the " Interested in learning to code, but not so keen on leaving your current employer?" section was the focus of the article and the boot camps.

A buddy of mine told me about the cascading discounts that he and his coworkers calculated by hand. They all know how to do it, but he wanted an quicker way. A little recursive function later and I made him a simple little calculator he could pull up on his phone. It saves him—and his coworkers—time and would completely be within everyone's grasp to create with a little bit of training.

I wish there was a push for practical programming and automation for everyone. Boot camps to help you improve your work through simple programming.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

But did he WANT to code that himself? Or was it really a job for you?

I actually agree, but as a business of course you go where the interest market is most stable. If nothing else than for the sake of your investor's heart-rate. ;-)

Jokes aside, I'm wondering if the increasing demand for education in school systems and traditional education is the long term solution to exactly this problem. We're working hard in Europe to participate as much as we can as we feel the skills-gap philosophy is actually an education gap it just hasn't been figured out yet.

adregan2• 12 years ago

He was banging away at excel for a while trying to come up with a way to do it, and he probably would have hit on something sooner or later but wanted something for the next day, so I figured I'd give him a hand.

I figure, as programming is able to become more abstract and high level, "practical programming" will become a lot easier.

kabdib2• 12 years ago

"Matchbook programmers"

Imagine a talent shortage; you are lacking skilled programmers. No, really! :-)

So what you do is print out (say, on matchbook covers) a very small ad "Learn programming! Start a career!" with a phone number to call and you basically spam the whole country / world with these things. And a few people call in, and you screen them, and a few of those you bring in and talk to, and a few of those you might wind up hiring. And you plonk them into a classroom and teach them some programming, and a few people turn out to be just incredibly good natural programmers that you might not have gotten otherwise. (The ones you hired that didn't work out so well? You use them on government contracts).

IBM's model in the 1970s (and probably a few other shops as well).

It takes quite an investment, and you need to be able to deal with people at scale, which is something that start-ups and even most big companies (like Microsoft) are terrible at, for various reasons.

RosieA51• 12 years ago

This is an awesome comment. Is there documentation on the IMB model you describe? I'd love to see data on this!

kabdib2• 12 years ago

Another drawback: A lot of the candidates you get are smokers. But hey.

Learn to Code, Get Hired

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