Some thoughts as a former bootcamp graduate ( 2015 ) and current hiring manager.

11 of Michael's comments in this thread · View thread on Reddit ↗

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 14, 2023

+1 to the job is just the beginning. How do you feel about bootcamps claiming to help grads get mid level and senior roles in this market and claiming that the people do so well at them that 100% of grads get raises.

u/Iyace wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Haven't heard that claim, but I'd be incredibly skeptical of it. Ultimately title matters very little as aggregate across the industry: smaller companies give out titles because they're a free way to comp the engineer and underpay. Bigger companies tend to have have higher bars f

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 14, 2023 ★ FEATURED

The program is Codesmith. They have a high bar but most people have zero work experience and get mid level roles. The typical grad does so by lying about the length of their experience and the program itself has a non profit sister company sign off on letters of reference to confirm them. I agree it's impossible and all of my coworkers agree, but was curious about your opinion too.

u/Acceptable_Stock7908 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Hi Michael. Do you know much about Canadian bootcamps or have you reviewed their work? Do you think a program like formation.dev can be built in Canada?

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 14, 2023

Formation isn't a bootcamp but rather a mentorship platform for experienced people looking to level up their careers and prepare for interviews. We do accept Canadians actually but I don't know if anything equivalent that is Canada based (or really anywhere, it's a fairly unique thing)

u/Iyace wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Yeah, I'd call that bullshit. I think quality of the your first company will be quality of experience in your first role. I got supremely lucky that my first role was landed in a group of incredibly smart people who guided me, but if you're getting a mid-level role by lying about

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 14, 2023 · edited

Yeah their founder did Hack Reactor and their other founding partner claims to have a company acquired by Disney that didn't quite check out from my investigation (the domain is now a porn website which I can't imagine Disney would have allowed haha from my interactions with them.

u/Iyace wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

See, this is actually valuable IMO. A lot of people get stuck with a shitty manager or an unclear growth path. Especially at smaller companies where managers are elected because of their IC contributions and not their ability to grow people. Fortunately, prior to software, I had

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 14, 2023

Yeah that's why I know about that otherwise program. We help a lot of bootcamp grads later on in their careers so I hear about a lot of them.

u/Soft-Highlight-8470 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

How's the outcome for Canadian folks btw? I was under the impression that finding a high paying software engineering jobs are much harder in Canada, since there are less openings here.

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 15, 2023 ★ FEATURED

We don't have that many Canadians but they are definitely all over the place and typically lower than in the US. Some points: 1. The market in Canada is MUCH LOWER COMPENSATION than in the USA, the salaries are maybe 30 ro 40% lower and don't increase as rapidly as you get promoted. 2. We're see a combination of people getting FAANG-level jobs in Canada, working for startups in Canada, and doing remote jobs in the USA, but I don't see any clear patterns or trends (too few people overall), and I don't think anyone can come in expecting any specific outcome. 3. My typical stance is that you should come to Formation and pay to be able to **confidently** walk into a Google interview and feel good about your performance (in DS&A, System Design, Behaviorals) and I feel comfortable saying that in ANY MARKET we as-close-to-guarantee-that-as-legally-possible that if you meet our entry bar, we can get you to that point (and if you change your mind, or misunderstood something, or we made a mistake accepting you, then you'll leave with a substantial partial refund). But the market is the market. We have amazing recruiter/ex-recruiter career coaches and amazing FAANG-level/ex-FAANG engineers working with you 1-1 and in 2-6 person group sessions multiple times a week and that's the same regardless of the market. So I feel like we are a great place to get advice and feedback on how to make the best of the market, but we don't have any secret hidden pathways to hand you a job. 4. I'm certainly seeing even Waterloo grads having a rough time in this market (who traditionally had like a 100% job rate) so the market is tough and we don't have any shortcuts there.

u/Soft-Highlight-8470 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Oh yeah 30 to 40% lower sounds about right, but if there getting the equivalent 30 or 40% lower for us top offer after 1 or 2 years of experience that sounds like a great outcome at least in my opinion. Where the people who got fang offers in the 1-3 years of experience bracket?

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 15, 2023

We haven't had a Canadian FAANG placement for a while but the most recent one this year was about 2 to 3 YOE. In the US 2YOE is the magic number right now for FAANG interviews but the gears are turning for them. I don't have a pulse on in Canada FAANG jobs but the usual suspects aren't doing a ton of hiring right now unfortunately. I suggest people approach the traditional remote companies that have a presence in Canada, like Okta, Gitlab, 1Password as a starting point. But things change all the time!

u/CI-AI wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Do not blatantly lie. I just cross checked what you said and that does not add up. Not sure what “porn site” you’re talking about, the website was clearly fashion focused. This stuff is an easy google search away…

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 15, 2023 · edited

1. The company is Fanzter not Coolspotters (this is an app they built under their company Fanzter) 2 The cofounder went back to ESPN at the end of 2012 well before they were "acquired" 3. Court records show they were sued in earlier 2014 for copyright infringement 4. Then they liquidated and shut down 5. Pitchbook (the paid more legit crunchbase says they shut down from bankruotcy/liquidation) I asked people who worked at ESPN at the time that I know and didn't receive a comment. What I think happened is the founder was acquired back by ESPN (from where he left, and a branch of Disney was the main investor in the new company) and the company failed and was either acquired to shut it down or it was a acquihire. /u/CI-AI, happy to provide court records

u/Livid-Cup-7006 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Canada is different because of the generous government backed-student loan programs.

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 15, 2023

Yeah I think bootcamps in Canada face an uphill battle because of cheaper college tuition and strong community colleges as alternatives. I'm from Canada originally and left college debt free from a top school by just doing summer internships.

u/SlowestTriathlete wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Hold on, I think you need to clarify what you mean by "work experience". Almost everyone in my cohort were career changers (several xyz-engineers, etc), including the non-degree holding person (me) but I had +15 years of white-collar career progression ending in a managerial role

u/michaelnovati replied · Nov 16, 2023 ★ FEATURED

That sounds like you had a solid interview experience where they took the time to get to know you and your code, and that's not what people typically do. Phil at Codesmith repeatedly tells residents that "no one looks at your code" in a way to justify the exaggerations. But I'm specifically talking about SWE work experience and canonical top tier tech roles. There could be tech jobs where you leverage former backgrounds to get a better offer or better fit, **if you have zero SWE experience you are a junior engineer no matter what your title is and recognizing that is important for your career growth and trajectory.** More importantly, I'm speaking about trends at the level of dozens/hundreds/low thousands of people AND over one's entire career, and not individuals at a point in time. There are always exceptions and one offs and everyone's journey is unique.

u/CI-AI wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

u/michaelnovati replied · Dec 18, 2023

/u/CI-AI I talked to one of the final two employees at Fanzter who told me all of the details. I don't want to type it out in public right now because I have to spent more time than I have putting clear references in place, but feel free to DM me to chat informally. The TLDR is that Disney had no interest in Fanzter Inc. or their flagship app Coolspotters but Disney did purchase some IP from Fanzter Inc with the intention of 'repaying their investors' as the company was shutting down and they wanted to hire the final CEO and another engineer. The person didn't know who Eric was and had to look him up because he left long before any of this and from this person's point of view, wasn't involved in the acquisition.