To me they never made sense in the first place - outside of ZIRP era that is which was very much a fluke. Something that someone from the street can pick up in a couple months isn’t likely to command an enduring market premium.

Doesn’t help that most of them taught precisely the things LLMs are good at. Boiler plate front end and a sprinkling of glue together back ends.

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toast0 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

To the extent that they could be a somewhat reliable pipeline into a programming job, they made sense for people with reasonable programming skills (or perhaps capacity, if we're generous) and a lack of credentials.

Can do the work, but can't get hired? Find a reasonable boot camp (hard), do the time and get access to their placement assistance. From there, now you've got work experience and will have an easier time getting through hiring pipelines.

I think they were definitely oversold as the solution to everyone's lack of a good job, and some of them were outright scams.

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willio58 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

I've hired a couple of quality developers from bootcamps. Especially if you're looking to hire Junior devs, I highly recommend keeping an open mind about these bootcamps if you're a hiring manager.

I went to a 4-yr university for a CS degree. I mean I did learn a lot and I don't regret it, but tbh I didn't learn any web dev languages or most things I use at my job today through my program. I learned C, C++, etc. which was super interesting at the time but it just doesn't translate into JS/React-world super well. I think there's a place for legit bootcamps that focus on what you'll be using in your day-to-day and connecting you with some potential hiring companies. They just need to be careful to not guarantee anything and I think they could benefit from almost an internal hiring round after the program to see if you have the skills to even be recommended for a job. That way hiring managers could build more trust with the bootcamps.

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bluefirebrand 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

> I learned C, C++, etc. which was super interesting at the time but it just doesn't translate into JS/React-world super well.

The technology you learn is not really the point though, it's all of the fundamental underlying principles

Have you ever worked with someone who has no concept of Big O? I have. They wrote almost woefully inefficient code, and actually had no concept that code efficiency was even something you could reason about

This is not a terribly difficult thing to teach to a Junior, but it's just one example of things you learn in a degree program that bootcamps generally gloss over

	▲	aurareturn 7 months ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I've met some excellent bootcamp devs and I've met some absolutely horrendous 4 year college CS grads. It also highly depends on which bootcamp you hire from as some do do push on CS fundamentals using Javascript as the language to teach. The top bootcamps filters out a lot of unserious, low quality candidates for you already. In addition, it's not a 3 month learning experience. It's 3-6 months of prep work, 3 months of actual bootcamp, and then likely months of practicing leetcode for interviews. It can take a year.
	▲	7 months ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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kid64 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Holy fuck, hope I never come to depend on your company's products.

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schwartzworld 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

To back up your point, I taught myself sans boot camp. I got my first job 4 years later. Although I was ready much sooner, it was tough, and I lost motivation a few times.

When I finally got hired, somebody applied who had started coding the same time i did, only she had gone to a bootcamp. All the time I had been looking for work, she had been working. Not saying I’d do anything differently, but no question bootcamp would have shortened the journey.

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sufianrhazi 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nah, I advocated for hiring someone out of a bootcamp who was previously a dancer. She ended up being a great addition to the team, was an excellent communicator, and was a significantly more clever and harder worker than others I’ve worked with who came from elite schools.

I sometimes think this attitude that you can’t teach good programming practices quickly on the job comes from folks who have never tried. We literally have code review practices for this reason.

	▲	ungreased0675 7 months ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That’s a great point I hadn’t thought of. There are a lot of things built into the coding process that are designed to support and develop junior engineers. Why shouldn’t bootcamp developers be successful?
	▲	aurareturn 7 months ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		As someone who is at management level, for most dev roles, give me someone intelligent with a really good attitude over a dev who is full of himself but highly technical.

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j45 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You are missing out on the huge world of self-taught developers who run many of the massive companies out there. Many of them dropped out too.

Learning informally, or formally, in person, online, in groups is all valuable.

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tredre3 7 months ago | parent [-]

Someone who is self-taught is likely to have an interest in the topic of programming. Most bootcampers I've come across have no interest in understanding the fundamentals.

In my experience, the former produces much higher quality developers and it's not even close.

	▲	j45 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Bootcampers can absolutely learn the fundamentals. I'd put that on the material being taught, how it's organized, and being presented. Why? Teaching adults is very different than teaching children, and universities mostly teach how to teach children as a degree program. In terms of teaching adults, there are ways that have existed for hundreds if not a few thousand years at least: apprenticeship, learning with and beside someone who knows how. Pro-tip for all bootcampers: run thru something like javascript30.com first.

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luckylion 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Something that someone from the street can pick up in a couple months isn’t likely to command an enduring market premium.

There's a large gap between your local market value and that in a poorer country. On the Balkan, a nurse will have a terrible salary, but if she goes through a bootcamp and learns enough to be useful in QA, she'll quickly make 2-3x what she would earn working in a hospital. There's a pretty hard ceiling when you approach Western income levels, but everyone I talked to is super happy hitting that ceiling, because it'll mean they have great income compared to the national average.

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harrall 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

A bootcamp can be someone’s best entry into the field if they’re later in their life where a 4-year institution would be difficult to swing.

The average lower bound for the quality of a bootcamp graduate is likely lower but the upper bound is limitless.

And I’m saying that as a electrical engineering graduate who knows some basic things that some CS grads don’t know that they should really know better than I know.

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herbst 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

Its still an mostly American phenomen. I've met plenty of people in my career who didnt learn CS and changed in the field later, mostly trough self education and interest.

In Switzerland if you make a second degree it's usually shortened and better payed. Plus often sub-financed by the state. I made my programming degree with people between 19 and 50.

Never did I meet anyone proclaiming doing a private certificate bootcamp thingy.

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kid64 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

That's ridiculous. If you can't afford actual education, settle for a scam? Wtf?

	▲	xyzzy123 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		> If you can't afford actual education For working people it's not necessarily the cost of a degree, it's the opportunity cost of time out of workforce. Rent/mortgage still needs to be paid. > settle for a scam? Yes, boot camps are a "scam" in a sense, but when done right they are a happy one. The service they are providing is legitimacy washing. It is working around credentialism in the hiring process by providing a baseline credential or ticket to participate. A company that wouldn't hire a "self taught programmer" will often be more inclined to give a "boot camp grad" a chance. Really it's the same person, just with 100% more rubber stamp. It is VERY rare in my experience that you're going to take someone with no aptitude or experience in software development and make them employable in a few weeks or months. This part is oversold. But targeted training on in-demand skills (e.g. the modern JS horror show) can be quite beneficial for people who already have some foundational skills.