Shut down the bootcamps. The market is over saturated. Most are just showing YouTube videos anyways as a big chunk of the curriculum. They make people think anyone can code, but you really need ambition and an ability to accept failure when your code doesn’t work (not just memorization skills or a can-do attitude). Even though some states do have regulations, they rely on the public to report any illegal activity. That’s why a lot of scams persist. They’re also making the debt crisis worse with ISAs.

I fucking hate to interview people who have only done bootcamps.

It's great that they showed dedication to sitting through 23 hours of video, but what did they do with the knowledge that was jammed into their brain?

Once I start asking the questions of the why's and how's those folks are easy to discard.

I don't want to work with people who know stuff, I want to work with people who do stuff.

The smartest person in the room could build a nuclear power plant in their basement, but if you don't know how to harness the electrical output you're worthless.

To quote one of my favorite books;

"Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change."

@sariel But… but I only did a bootcamp! 😭

@AmyShackles I guess my problem isn't with bootcamps, it's with people who think they've mastered it because they watched 23 hours of someone talk about a topic.

Same problem with new college graduates.

@sariel you’ve probably heard/read this allegory before, if not, your rant makes me think you’d probably enjoy it

https://et.byu.edu/~tom/jokes/...

@ComputerToucher couldn't agree more.

Knowledge gets you in the door, experience gets you paid.

One bootcamp only guy (fresh graduate) I talked with wanted a senior level salary, wtf man

@ars1 I had a similar experience. We felt so bad for the idiot we hired them under the guise of "we'll review your performance in 6 months to see if you're capable."

It was a win/win. We got a talented greenhorn and they get a job/experience. Pay wasn't bad for fresh out of college, I think it was around $50k(more than I ever got).

FF 6 months. Kids been ok, combative and wants to make all the architecture decisions. Even tried to get me in trouble with my manager. They were not on my list to keep, obviously.

Kid goes into the review and wants to talk about getting a raise to $150k and getting a Sr level title. Humoured them and asked Sr questions.

Wanted all the power and money, but none of the responsibilities. We laughed them out to their desk and they were fired that day.

Hopefully they learned a valuable lesson that day. A Jr can only become a Sr when they have earned the respect of their peers. If you give none, you get none. You hold onto your title with your experience.

@sariel @ars1 So what you’re saying is I shouldn’t tell y’all about that time where my second gig as a developer/engineer was as a Sr and how my first gig was only for 10 months? 😅

In my defense, that was 10 months at a startup where there were like 10 people, I was the domain expert when I started because I was the only one who had previous experience building React/Redux applications, I ended up building out an aggregation pipeline to process application data so that we could actually enable filtering and sorting because SOMEONE built the frontend to only request one page at a time from the backend (which is FINE), but they did the sort on a per request basis, not over the entire collection, which, uh, led to some pretty interesting loading patterns and as soon as they wanted to add filtering behavior it became SO MUCH MORE OBVIOUS. Then there was that time I taught myself Swift basics in a weekend to be able to build out an iOS MVP in two weeks integrating some code written in Objective C because I was the only one who knew how to read C and the CEO had moved the deadline up by 3 quarters without consulting engineering saying he could “do it in a weekend”

@AmyShackles sounds like you earned the respect of your peers and it carried on with you.

I've seen plenty of "Sr" devs not be worth shit with decades under their belt.

IMO, you build trust as a Sr. And trust takes time.