u/MundaneValuable7 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You had recruiters constantly contacting you two years ago with zero experience?
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
Two years ago was 2021-2022 = the boom times, so I could see that. People the top bootcamps were pretty easily getting jobs within six months of graduating.
u/starraven wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I was laid off from my last gig and they kept 2 bootcamp grads on another team. I recently received 3 offers after a very long and painful job search. Companies are still willing to hire bootcamp grads but the competition is extremely fierce. This guy with a CS degree who I belie
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I post about this often and I get ripped apart, but Codesmith grads are not fairing as well as Codesmith says they do in talks and blog posts.
Many ARE! don't get me wrong! But some people who exaggerated to get that first job during better times are hitting a ceiling. Their hustle and grit got them 1-3 years of time on the job, but they struggle to continue growing - as the company expected them to when hiring the high-intensity under-qualified person. I've seen people who are really lost. They don't know what to do. They don't know if they should apply for "senior jobs" or go back to entry level (1-2 years is still entry level) and the next step might feel like a step back in order to get back on a good career trajectory. This impacts other bootcamps grads who had a similar story as well.
It's very personal and very tough and I know grads who are crushing it and doing awesome. But there is also a small pattern here.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Sorry to hear this and it's an unfortunate reality of the industry.
**!!! A 12 to 16 BOOTCAMP CANNOT PREPARE YOU TO BE EQUAL TO SOMEONE WITH MORE EXPERIENCE !!! EVEN CODESMITH DESPITE WHAT THEY TELL YOU (**Actually read the following notes on why everyone!)
I see day in and day out people from bootcamps, people who are self taught, CS grads, all in later stages of their careers, these are my notes:
1. Everyone is unique. Any person's unique journey cannot represent a bootcamp, a background, a city, or whatever aspects you are trying to generalize about the person.
2. Grit, hustle and effort can get you very far in this industry. If you are less experienced than a new grad and outwork them you likely will have better initial traction on your job. You might get accolades and a promotion. If you are a CS grad who has grid and hustle, it will be really hard for a bootcamp grad to outpace them (think your Stanford, CMU, MIT grads)
3. A CS degree on it's own doesn't mean that much, but what it represents is two things - A) Internships = Work Experience. B) 4 years spent engulfed in software. Both of these CANNOT BE REPLACED with a bootcamp. So even the most highly capable bootcamp grad will be deficient in these areas that many CS grads are not and there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. Codesmith claims the OSP project is like months of experience and graduates even perpetuate this. It is absolutely not true about the kind of experience jobs are looking for. It might be way better than a crappy CS degree or a personal project, but it's no where near the equivalent of real work experience.
4. So what happens on the job? 1-3 years into your career you'll face a wall. Your hustle got you this far and now you have to solve problems that people with more experience or theoretical training have an easier time solving.
**Possible outcomes from 4.**
1. You are laid off and replaced, they don't have time for it
2. You work nights and weekends to address gaps. You get feedback often about your progress. You leverage your network for extra secret help and you genuinely fill in the experience by working faster and smarter than your more experienced colleagues and catch up your experience by putting in the hours.
3. You get dragged along and managed out, but not being given good stuff to work on, not getting promotions, and the company really wants you to find another job and leave.
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
There's a lot of CAPS and bold and ! in here hahahah. It's an interesting view point. I'd argue that the following is true:
1. A CS degree isn't possible for a lot of people - in the US especially a 4 year degree can put an average student massively into debt if they don't have
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah I was a bit long haha. I don't think a CS degree is inherently better but I do think these two things need to be addresed:
>A) Internships = Work Experience. B) 4 years spent engulfed in software. Both of these CANNOT BE REPLACED with a bootcamp.
While they can't be replaced with a bootcamp, they CAN be replaced by other things.
1. Apprenticeships
2. Self studying for a couple years (and building personal projectS)
3. Freelancing and contract projects
4. Volunteering (e.g. Hack4LA)
5. Doing a bootcamp as one of the pieces
6. Moving to SF and going to tech events and parties and engulfing yourself in the tech scene
7. Doing a part time online CS masters degree or post-bacc
u/metalreflectslime wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>**!!! A 12 to 16 BOOTCAMP CANNOT PREPARE YOU TO BE EQUAL TO SOMEONE WITH MORE EXPERIENCE !!!**
Do you mean "a 12 to 16-week bootcamp..."
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah
u/LazyMeringue1973 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
"A CS degree on it's own doesn't mean that much, but what it represents is two things - A) Internships = Work Experience. B) 4 years spent engulfed in software"
I've never done a CS degree but are CS students really spending 4 years engulfed in software? From what my understand
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
The ones at Stanford, MIT, and CMU are haha.
I'm from Canada originally my program was 100% engineering courses other than three electives my entire four years. When I did an internship down here, I was housed with a bunch of Carnegie Mellon students and they stayed up till 2 AM every night just talking about different rhythms and technological approaches and debating the pros and cons and stuff like that. It was like a magically eye-opening experience that made me regret commuting from home.
Obviously, that's not the norm, but if you're someone like Codesmith who is comparing themselves to ivy league grad schools then that's I'm holding them to.
If you want to talk about like a decent state school compared to a Bootcamp, then I would expect graduates to also have a hard time finding jobs if they don't have a lot of internships and didn't spend most of their time engufled in software.
Whereas that is the norm at MIT, it's likely a smaller case at less prominent schools.
This is why I'm not explicitly saying anyting is better than the other.
u/armyrvan wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I’m sorry this happened to you but I would also say the blanketed statement that companies are not wanting bootcampers anymore would be a false statement.
I have several friends who still have jobs from learning at a bootcamp. I also have friends that just graduated from one an
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
+1 don't draw any conclusions from one off anecdotes whether positive stories or negative stories, they are all one offs.
I do think it's fair to look at the market trends and recent layoffs at Rithm, Turing, Launch Academy, Hack Reactor, Tech Elevators, and Codesmith as signs that the market is the dominant factor right now, anecdotal stories aside.
u/rebelpenguingrrr wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi Michael, I’m curious about the wall you are talking about. I’m surprised to hear that after several years of working at a job people hit a wall that has to do with not having gotten the college degree. At that point wouldn’t your work experience have given you what you need to
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I don't have all the answers but just my opinion... but this is my advice for a perfect world:
1. Find the right first job... many people don't have a choice in this market and I see posts about people taking support roles as a foot in the door, but that first role (or two) are really important to meet certain criteria: a) a tech company, b) a stable and large/established one, c) an entry level role (preferring under levelled vs over levelled) d) entry level + stable tech company = consistent support and mentorship. At Meta for example, a manager's performance is based on getting their people promoted through a very calibrated process... so if you don't genuinely grow and you put in the work, your manager failed.
2. Play the game a bit. Don't worry so much about exploring and learning new skills. Do what you need to do to be promoted on paper. Again, if you chose the right company, doing all the things you need to do to be promoted SHOULD BE things that impact the company positively and help you learn. It can be so overwhelming and you have so little experience that trusting this process is the best way to learn. Have weekly 1-1s with you manager and every week. ask for feedback on things you can improve, and ask which of the areas for the next level that you are weakest on and how they can help you address those gaps. If you chose a company not meeting #1 though then I highly advise not doing this!!! You might be dealing with politics, broken promises, and constantly changing direction and not really understanding why.
3. Go all in on your strengths. Instead of being well rounded, be T shaped and if you aren't T shaped be I shaped first haha and be amazing at just one thing and oblivious to everything else. Top tech companies are kind of like sports teams where there are different roles and people are exceptionally good at certain areas and roles and if you are starting out and you stand out in one of these areas then that can help you get noticed and given more challenging and interesting problems in those areas. For example, One thing I often recommend when you first start out on the team is try to do some extra work cleaning up old frameworks and legacy code and migrating them to whatever the latest standard is and that's a really good way to help out the team and also get a really strong sense for how the code works. And if you are really good at this you become THE cleanup person on the team.
Now if you can't find 1 and you just have to take any job, there's only so much you can do in this framework, can it depends.exactly on where you ended up.
If the company is small and growing and just a little chaotic, I would still focus on impact over personal skills and interests. Always ask leaders how you can have more impact and do those things if you like it or not.
If the company is just not a tech company and no one seems able to help advise you how to have more impact and grow then I would actually advise side projects, mentoring people, and building up a resume that will get you those #1 interviews in 2 to 3 years and in the meantime do your best to be promoted within what ever system they have so you have a more attractive resume.
u/SuttontheButtonJ wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
What is with all of these black and white opinions on what you need or don't need to have? Bootcamp grads get jobs, bootcamp grads also don't get jobs. CS grads get jobs, CS grads also don't get jobs.
It all comes down to the person. Can the person handle adversity? or are
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Eek sorry, I was explicitly not trying to have a binary opinion on this, but instead of just saying everything is case by case, I want to try to dissect each option as to people might choose that option and why it might work or not for them.
Sorry if that didn't come across.
Oh trust me... I AM CODING!!! [https://github.com/mnovati](https://github.com/mnovati)
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Your question: "how are they supposed to pay this back if they don't end up getting a software engineering job at the end?"
1. How are you supposed to pay back any education? Looking back on what I paid for mine it was a long term investment (one I'm still paying back years late
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Lots of interesting back and forth here, just wanted to chime in. I'm not sure who you are but these are Codesmith's talking points so apologies if I sound like a broken record - I strongly disagree with Codesmith's narrative about "the modern software engineer" and I think it's being made up to highlight non-SWE and non-tech placements as the future instead of because the people can't get entry level SWE jobs in this market.
1. It's really not a given that interest rates will drop and they won't drop THAT much. Like going from 5.25% to 5% isn't going to trigger all this dry powder to get dumped.
2. This is why you want a really good top tier tech job from day 1 if you can get it, improving a button is shortsighted and not thinking about your 30 year career: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1cz4pal/comment/l5e8600/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1cz4pal/comment/l5e8600/)
3. Where are the stats that climate tech and health tech are hiring SWEs like crazy right now? This [Galvanize report ](https://www.galvanize.com/blog/companies-across-industries-hiring-software-engineers/)suggests Healthcare is equal to Construction and Manufacturing and Climate isn't even mentioned.
Again apologies if you aren't Codesmith - Codesmith's CEO is just making up all a whole narrative about the entire industry that's full of holes but fits Codesmith's own outcomes - which do not represent the whole industry.
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I had to google what Codesmith was, sounds like everyone one here is making up a whole narrative about the entire industry, each to match their own agenda.
1. Nothing's a given, but with an interest rate that's not going to satisfy investors for ever fund LP's are going to have
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
1. Yeah we'll see, I hope that's what happens too and it's what's broadly expected. A number of bootcamps that are not doing so well though are banking on this happening to avoid further layoffs or shutdowns. If I'm planning ahead for multiple outcomes I would bias towards your view here, but I wouldn't bank the survival of my company on it.
2. Agree to disagree, I don't think my view is the only view here and it does depend on a bunch of personal factors. Agree there are startups that can be fantastic to go to as well.
3. Yeah it's old and it's Galvanize so I assume it's bias. I have a bunch of friends leaving Climate Tech to go to AI companies, so my personal view is bias and I tried to find other resources and couldn't find any showing that Climate Tech will dominate hiring this year.
RE: CODESMITH - long story. But the triggering point is that they are an advanced bootcamp that tries to get people into solid six figure jobs who almost all have no prior SWE experience. They tend to push people to mid level jobs at non-tech companies, like Mavis Tire, or software agencies, that are a step beyond entry level and pay low six figures.
And from number 2, I feel really strongly these people would be better off in entry level roles (unless they did have prior SWE experience) and that going into the roles they are is harmful to many people's 5 year trajectory.
I'm constantly battling people on here because alumni are fervant supporters and claim to have amazing trajectories and the company itself publishes a lot of anecdotal stories about this too and I stand firmly by my argument. They have a high bar and select for incredible individuals and give them good trajectories, when those individuals might have incredible trajectories following a better career rampup path.
A good example is someone who lied on their resume to get a more senior first role at non-tech but good company, and recently switched to FAANG after about 2 years into a mid level role. The person had a rough time in a that first job. They might have been able to have a better trajectory where those first two years had more mentorship and support in a more appropriate role that set the person up for more success in this second transition.
Everyone is unique, but I'm talking about systematically reproducible advice that I would give someone by default and I stand by.
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Interesting stance - sounds like sales pitch for a career coach hahaha I think everyone is an individual and being challenged early in your career can be great, but that's my individual perspective, definitely not for everyone I guess. Not sure if I've waste my time being trigger
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah disclosure my company runs an interview prep and mentorship platform to help people get ready for interviews. We don't solve these problems I'm talking about but we help people on the ground who are in the process of changing jobs. So some overlap, I disclose if I was directly promoting my company to someone :P
Teaching AI or using AI?
BloomTech has a B2B $5000 'using AI' course that's 5 months or something fairly detailed.
Codesmith is working on an AI add on package and had the first session this week and someone who went didn't find it very useful yet. (It's early stage)
Most of the companies I talk to don't really need any AI skills yet and want senior product engineers who will figure out AI. Because it's changing so fast there isn't a way for these companies to consistently and fairly test people for AI so it's not really meaningful yet in hiring decisions.
It might matter if you just perform better as an engineer because of AI competing head to head with another engineer who isn't using it.
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Ahh yes, everyone has a reason for their narrative, makes sense why you're anti-some bootcamp then. It'll be interesting to see what they teach. Whether it's an attempt at the glamorous side of understanding/building LLMs or the practical side of how to incorporate LLMs into prod
u/michaelnovatireplied·
So I would argue that I'm investing in an team member to 'learn LLMs' is currently not a no trainer and depends highly on the team and their goals and that's why companies aren't trying to hire for these skills yet.
LLMs are powerful but generative AI is a specific type of AI that can be used to improve a lot of user facing product.
There is still a tremendous need for ML adjacent skills for non generative AI that is far more critical to current companies.
The advertising engines that run Google and Meta are not generative.
Google IO just talked about dozens of new generative AI products and features and didn't talk much about ads at all!
AI will help customers build better ads, faster and more interesting ads, more dynamic ads, etc... and the people that work on that are product people.
And those product people aren't going to be hired because they spent 6 months learning about RAG, fine tuning, and using the Chat GPT API. They will be hired because they have experience building complex products
Anyone can learn AI skills online, but it takes experience working on complex products at tech companies to get irreplaceable product skills.