u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
Sorry to hear about your experiences. I wanted to add some thoughts at the industry level, not to support or attack the post or to defend app academy but just some thoughts comparing them to the industry because I feel like several complaints are industry wide complaints as well.
- The gender ratio in tech sucks. At FAANG it's about 25% female and non-binary.
- Top bootcamps with super long hours make this so much worse and are really non inclusive. HR and Codesmith have 11 hour days. How can a parent not find that intimidating? How can someone living paycheck to paycheck afford to not have any other time to work? They appeal to unattached, ambitious people who have the savings to do them, or people who otherwise have the supportive life circumstances to do it. And this unfortunately is not a represetative bunch of our society.
- A lot of bootcamps that are operated as schools seem to have various fines and complaints levied against them for all kinds of reasons. (Not lawsuits, but various complaints)
- Most bootcamps have instructors who are former students. It works well for some and terrible for others. My college has super legit professors but I guess this is kind of like having all your classes taught be students that just finished the class? Definitely doesn't sound great when I do the thought experiment but people insist this works really well at places like Codesmith. Others like Rithm have legit dedicated teachers teaching class and have similar outcomes.
- Recruiters being paid commisions does seem a bit sketchy because I thought schools couldn't pay recruiting fees... maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't sound sketchy for a business in general though if it's disclosed. It 100% creates an incentive for them to sell sell sell, similar to how 3rd party head hunters get a fee for placing an engineer and put much more pressure on you than a recruiter working for a company.