I'm a Dev Bootcamp grad from the summer program. I also just got hired on at Tapjoy. Can I write production-quality code?
Probably not just yet. What I do know is that Tapjoy isn't the only company hiring grads. In the last 4 weeks since graduating about 20 people have been hired as Jr Ruby Developers at multiple companies. Every single one of them had to go through technical interviews to get the positions. Many companies have decided the grads have enough real knowledge to be valuable. Average salary has been somewhere around $84,000.
$84k average salary is surprisingly high for non-production-ready engineers who are still in training, especially when compared to the rest of the industry.
I wouldn't have expected there to be so much money in a field that is so approachable. Is there a dearth of quality rails engineers, or is it related to web engineers in general?
To tell you the truth, this makes me wonder whether there's significant opportunity in the web space for senior engineers with traditional software engineering backgrounds. If people are so desperate that they're willing to hire brand-new engineers at an $84k average and spend months/years training them, how much will they pay for people that require no training at all?
You assume that people with traditional software engineering backgrounds need no training to move into web development, which is not what I've observed. In fact, I have personally seen several who either weren't willing or weren't able to acquire the new skills required at all.
How many C++ programmers grok CSS? How many Java programmers understand prototypes? How many enterprise developers are used to shipping code at least weekly? No CS degree I've seen has covered analytics, or even effective logging at scale. As much as CS-oriented coders look down their nose at web devs there are skills involved. If engineers can adapt there are huge payoffs sitting on the table, but they have to actually do so. There aren't very many who have, not nearly enough to meet demand, and so prices rise and companies swap from teaching web development on the job to teaching CS on the job.
The skills you list involve very simple knowledge acquisition. Once you have core CS competency, you can pick those things up very easily, and do a better job by far than the person that lacks the core CS competency.
To use your examples:
* I'd never worked with web CSS, but I built a CSS styling system for iOS, and used the CSS spec for inspiration.
* I've never worked with web analytics, but I ran a team that built a real-time (non-web) custom analytics/logging/querying system for a huge consumer-facing corporation.
* My team had never written any sizable JavaScript, HTML, or CSS, nor had any familiarity with prototype languages, but we were able to bang out a comprehensive HTML/JS XMPP client using BOSH in a couple weeks. We had an external HTML and web design expert on-hand to actually make it look pretty.
I think the real reason the engineers don't adapt is that we'd have to go work in environments that are filled with less skilled people using frustratingly knee-capped technologies. I might be able to stomach HTML/JS/CSS despite their myriad of flaws, but I'm not sure I could do it if I also had to use Rails and Ruby working for one of the existing players.
Finster, You have a very good point with the Windows 2000 MCSE bootcamps, though the comparison to Dev Bootcamp is not a perfect analogy. I speak from experience. I spent 10 yrs in the IT Industry. I actually went through the process of getting the Windows 2003 MCSE certification. I did it over a two yr period of working as an IT administrator.
I also just completed the last Dev Bootcamp class last week.
Having an MCSE is supposed to denote a large amount of IT knowledge, if not being an expert. So people that spend a week, get an MCSE and then claim to be experts aren't going to fly very well in a production environment.
At Dev Boot camp we spent 75 hrs a week learning for 10 weeks. The motto here is that we are 'World Class Beginners'. So we spent about 10-15 times longer and then claim to be 'beginners' not experts.
We all spent last Friday meeting 30 companies that want to hire us, being very upfront about our knowledge. In just the last two days I've gotten 8 interviews for companies looking for Jr Developers. I'm going in this week for technical interviews with these companies. They are going to know exactly what I know and what I don't very fast. I'm not alone here, I know many of my classmates are also getting this many interviews.
I've also been told that about 94% of people from the last class got jobs. I've personally met about half of the last class and know they are all working at very respectable places. Actually some are at amazing places.
So with a lot of knowledge on this subject I'm very confident that this program is nothing like an MCSE bootacmp.
This is one reason I'm joining Dev Boot Camp for the summer session. I think all the people and support will help push through all the blocking points of learning programming
