Code Camp Chaos

Are code campers ruining the job market for those without a college degree? My company has always been willing to hire based on knowledge instead of degrees especially for frontend development. But over the last year or so the number of unqualified applicants has surged by an order of magnitude.

Used to be we could interview four or five promising candidates and find at least one worthy of hiring. Now we're seeing dozens who haven't the slightest clue about how professional development happens for each truly qualified candidate.

My boss wants us to implement a four year degree requirement in order to filter out the code campers that have swamped the application process. Though I have a CS degree, many of my best coworkers do not. But I agree that it is insane how many code camp folks are trying to get hired even though they don't know much of anything.

What's the best way to get past this problem? I don't want to make a four year degree a requirement but it does seem like the most likely to help.

Other urls found in this thread:

sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/#worksample
functionalcs.github.io/curriculum/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

>it used to be...

It used to be that someone decent would get the job and they'd teach them how to do the fucking job. Now it's entry level jobs requiring 10 years experience. Fuck off gen X

Why a 4 and not 2? Applicants out of a 2 year tech school tend to be more qualified than a 4 year program. Most 4 year programs tend to be more theory based and have a bunch of core subjects. A 2 year degree tends to just focus on teaching you to do a job.

Just ask for some background in CS theory as a highly desirable skill. That immediately kills all the 12 week code school applicants.

The code camp surge is due to a media hype on how programmers can make millions and its guaranteed work and a host of other shit. Most people I've seen from these camps (esp women) end up as scrum masters or some other useless shit.

Or here is another thing you can do, stop interviewing people from code camps. It might be unfair to the one out of 10,000s that is good, but why waste your time?

If you are in the US, the following applies.
Not sure about other countries.

> Colleges are businesses, and have very little incentive to produce qualified graduates.
> Colleges also operate code camps, though only because they make money.

Employees are an investment THE BUSINESS has to make, not the other way around. THE BUSINESS is paying THE EMPLOYEE to do a job, so they should consider training part of the cost of operating.

There is no "one size fits all" theory of software development to justify a CS degree. A business should understand its requirements well enough to have a training protocol in place.

If they want a degree, it means they really have no clue what their developers are doing.

How is this a problem? Ask them to send in a piece of code before selecting them for an interview. Then ask them to code something during the interview. Te second part will eliminate those few who cheated during the first part.

How do i learn to code and stick with it?

Saw a small heda brainlet jungle Asian who couldn't knack it as an engineer schilling coding camps on youtube pretty hard, I assumed they were a scam.

>Employees are an investment THE BUSINESS has to make
Wrong. You don't have to make shit, just hire only people who know their shit and you save lots of time and money.
Investing into some shitter is pointless because you invest all that money and find out that he is either a retard or he will quit and go work for the competition after you wasted money on him.

So hire only people who are good at the thing you need and require only minimal training.

However I agree that finding such people by looking at their degrees is retarded. There are plenty of for example self taught coders who are much batter than some college coder who doesn't even enjoy coding so much, he just got that CS degree because the society standard forced him to go to college and pick some degree to get. Not to mention that most of things they teach you in your coding degree are completely fucking useless in a profi environment (i got my degree almost a decade ago but i assume this never changed) i had to learn useless fucking languages that nobody uses, and lots of pointless shit around that you don't need to know to be a good programmer.
I don't regret getting the degree because it makes me look much better on paper, but almost everything worth knowing i learned by myself, the college money i paid only gave me a very useful piece of paper for my job search, but almost no useful knowledge for the job itself.

This seems like a good solution. I know tons of four year degree graduates who wouldn't make it through this, it actually targets the thing you're looking for directly, not by proxy.

>The college money i paid only gave me a very useful piece of paper for my job search, but almost no useful knowledge for the job itself.
There is so much truth in this post. It kills me a little on the inside when kids nowadays expect to learn anything from college. My college education only gave me some insights into what I should learn but everything else I learned on my own.
Management Science degree here by the way.

Proper solution is to cut welfare since these losers have no other source of income. Eugenics will also work wonders. either way you will want to encourage suicide.

on the other hand I'm one of an elite few in a city of 150,000 who knows the difference between a public and private IP address. Yes, it really is that bad, it's culturally acceptable to be stupid because everyone else is and you can just spend 30+ years blaming other people. it's too easy for it to happen, so it does.

Considering they won't make it in the private sector, it's just more money for me. you can lie your way into a job like this but it's only going to be meme employment for a few months until you hit a brick wall of the most simple problem you're unable to fix

Tell you HR department to man the fuck up

>pajeets
>coder camps
>mommy coders
Why the fuck didn't I choose a different career? I used to be a good little Republican who opposed unions. Now I would like nothing more than to see a Software Engineering union.

>What's the best way to get past this problem?
>whiteboard
>fizzbuzz
>primes
>binary trees
Pic related.

Related to this, if I get a degree in CS in America, would I be better off using it in other countries or are we plebs compared to others.

Btw what company user?

Scout developers on conferences, hackerspace, HN, [spoiler]Sup Forums[/spoiler] etc instead of sifting thru shit.

What sort of numbers are we talking about here?

>Not a retarded right wing butthurt sexist.
kek

Should be called Code Chimps to be honest.

>Management Science degree here by the way.

Maybe if you didn't blow your parents' money on something completely fucking useless and subjective by all standards you would have learned something in school

logically explain how is a retarded right wing butthurt sexist

More like WOG in stem amirite?

It's a problem because interviews actually take time to conduct. Even phone interviews take a lot of time when you're doing fifty of them instead of five just to find the couple who can pass them.

We tried prescreening questions by email but found a close to 100% of the applicants get them correct only to show up and not know anything. They're either Googling the answers or getting someone to answer for them.

>Proper solution is to cut welfare since these losers have no other source of income.

What's really crazy are the welfare type code campus. Saw an ad for one in Atlanta where they provide housing and a food allowance to their enrollees. It was a government funded NGO so they had lots of money to spend on non instructional expenses. These types of camps aren't advertised in the mainstream press, you find out about them through churches and shelters. I heard about it because one of the enrollees complained it was racist that he didn't get enough housing allowance money to live in Buckhead (a mostly white part of town) and went crying to social media,

Note also that the WOC program in OP serves breakfast for free. Think many of these programs, be they one day seminars or three month long residential programs, are just an excuse to give money to community organizations. Developer quality isn't a high priority.

For obvious reasons I don't want to be known as someone that posts on Sup Forums. We're a web services company on the east side of metro Atlanta.

Roughly fifty applicants will reach the phone interview phase for each that ultimately gets hired. Used to be around five to ten per hire before the code camp fad started.

>Employees are an investment THE BUSINESS has to make, not the other way around.

I strongly disagree. I believe that businesses should have the option of outsourcing the hiring of good employees, if that's a better fit for them.

This whole thing is simply a crisis that was created by massive incompetency in HR. The HR function is tasked with bringing in candidates who will not waste the hiring manager's time. In this case, HR is not able to do that. And this is true both for in-house HR and for HR that's outsourced.

Engineers should not have to waste their time weeding through hundreds of unqualified applicants. That's a massive misuse of their time. This is THE specific problem that needs to be fixed. Focus on fixing the specific problem -- not on making overly-general proclamations about what businesses are "supposed to" invest in.

this isn't fucking hard.

maybe look at their github or some shit retard.

jesus fuck.

"asking questions"
"4 year requirement"

none of this fucking matters compared to actual experience as in a fucking github.

stupid motherfucker

No, "code camp" doesn't teach jack shit. It gets you on par with other no-degree code monkeys who only know the syntax for fotm languages and domain knowledge of web design or maybe .net. It doesn't provide any actual intelligence or industry experience developing actual products. Maybe it can get you a shit code monkey job at a place that makes data entry form guis or MS IT shit. But if you want to get a real CS / SWE job at a real company then "code camp" won't do shit for you. All it takes to get a real CS job is to real a book on white board / google style interviews and memorize the common questions. They don't teach that in school or "code camp."

>Completely subjective
>Literally demanded everywhere (I am already working and I did not graduate yet)
>Implying I paid thousands for college education like Americucks do
Are you jealous that I am better at math than you user?

This is why large companies have started go do acquihires. They find a small company that does something well, acquire it, and then move the employees of that company to the buying companies empty roles. Even if a quarter of them leave, they still get a group that has proven they can produce. Often the product the bought out company produced is simply thrown away.

Obviously this isn't an option for a small business but for large ones like Google it's one tool they've used to notable success.

Only a very small percentage of software developers give away their code. Restricting hiring to Github users means you're going to miss the vast majority of competent developers while bringing in lots of cut and paste monkeys.

>we're seeing dozens who haven't the slightest clue about how professional development happens

>My company has always been willing to hire based on knowledge instead of degrees

>I don't want to make a four year degree a requirement but it does seem like the most likely to help.

wtf is this thread. only shit companies don't require degrees. have some fucking respect for your industry. would you go to a doctor who went to medical school or someone who 'knew the theory'. the only people who should suffer candidates without degrees are pleb tier startups, everyone else should have a degree as a non negotiable requirement in the job description.
every other profession has standards and a code of ethics but programmers shit on their own industry

>want to get a job in networking (not programming)
>positions are posted as open for months at a time
>never get interviewed because I have no networking experience
You can't just "build" a portfolio for every STEM job, some you can only get the experience on the job.
>never hire anyone without experience
>can't find anyone to fill the position
>wonder why there are no experienced people to fill it

Yup read about these types of institutions but they are still part of the private sector as far as I'm concerned, any real one will have an extensive screening process. They only make money if you do after you sign the income sharing agreements so they aren't going to waste their time on you if you're a meme "programmer"

sounds like you need to start demanding it then because that's the only way you know unless they legit have 5+ years of experience on their resume.

Making web pages ≠ performing heart transplants

there are plenty of opportunities for you to get meaningful experience.

research for one is pretty much applicable for any field. even business.

in computer science you have the very rare and exciting advantage of being able to pretty much build great things for virtually nothing more than the cost of time.

your lack of experience is ultimately your own damn fault.

Many of the system admins I know started off at a family company or small local business doing part time admin work on simple setups. They leveraged that experience into a better job and repeated the process, gaining experience along the way.

Lots of DBAs seem to be former programmers who didn't actually enjoy programming but didn't want to become managers either.

And there is always the military. They'll train you in a tech field if you aren't an idiot when you enlist (don't trust your recruiter). Now, you might end up dead, that's part of the risk in joining but you will be set for civilian life when you get out if you picked a useful tech field.

Okay retard, tell me how I'm supposed to say I have experience with enterprise networks when there are no opportunities.
>volunteer
>no volunteer work, all non profits near me just hire their IT team
>school
>not in school, college I went to had no programs like this, and never let students touch their IT infrastructure
>at my current employer
>same, never let employees touch their IT infrastructure, practically isolated from the network team
So unless you can TELL me where there is experience with corporate networks I can get, fuck off. Don't just say, "ooohhhhh there's opportunities you're just not trying hard enough", you old fuck. I've LOOKED EVERYWHERE.

work literally anywhere else
save enough money to start a corporation and to set up a corporate network
manage it for a few years
you can now get a job

I guess you'll have to get creative :^)

You know, I've considered that. It really seems like the only way to get that experience in my area, but I have to make it, I can't just go out and get it like you were saying. Too bad corporate networks are expensive as fuck and I'd need to outsource to IaaS or resort to something like angel investors.

so you never did an internship
you never tried "networking" maybe joining meme clubs or some shit
you never bothered to organize any event at school
you never spoke at some shitty local conference, either at school or elsewhere.

basically. you did this to yourself.

if you wanted to be a lazy faggot, you should have chosen CS where you can actually do shit that is meaningful experience without having to interact with people.

i guarantee you when these 3 month code bootcamp retards inevitably can't get jobs they'll whine to lower hiring requirements.

these jackasses really think a couple months is all it takes to stop working at mcdonald's and be a software engineer. i feel so fucking sorry for any competent person who gets stuck working with these idiots.

You know what, shut the fuck up. Networking isn't like programming at all when it comes to getting experience and you're a retard for not being able to realize that. I can't make networks like you can programs to appear marketable. I'm going to back to studying for my CCNA, try not to lobotomize yourself any further.

We all know what is eventually going to be said.

lol salty faggot.

I'm more than aware which is why i said maybe you should have since obviously your an incompetent failure in his field who cant' even get a job.

So I dropped out of college because I couldn't afford it. I didn't want to rack up debt so I decided to take what I learned and build a portfolio.

It's not impressive really but it shows that I can actually make something that works. It's not fizzbuzz in C it's just some little applet that uses reddit's API. I also have a school project that I wrote that's pretty involved but it's not like I just forked the master from a classmate, I also added a few features to it.

I've been looking for an entry level developer job for 2 months now and I'm not sure when to cut my losses.

Can anyone give me advice?

>work as a software engineer for a railroad company
>we get lumped in with the railroad union
>make $20k more than market value
>best benefits package in the city
>Christmas bonuses
>no Social Security tax
>snack lady knows I like vanilla yogurt so she brings me one for breakfast every morning

They work us like dogs, but goddamn they treat us nice.

Finish collage. Even if you get an entry level job you will never be promoted until you finish collage. I work with a great programmer who didn't go to college. He's been programming for twice as long as I have but has never been promoted beyond entry level because he doesn't have a degree. I'm 5 years out of collage at senior level making twice as much as him just because of the degree. We are probably on par skills wise.

This is pretty interesting because I was wondering if programmers would ever unionize.

Do you see this becoming more widespread in the field?

I've never seen a dedicated programmers union.
The only programmers I've seen that are in a union are those like me, who work in a particular field and just get lumped in with the rest of them.

Programmers don't unionize because its a high skill job. Workers unionize because they can be instantly replaced by the next random guy in line, so its a race to bottom in terms of wages if they don't unionize. With programming jobs there is a shortage of workers who are skilled enough to fill positions so there is no need for a union.

What about the influx of H-1B holders willing to work for peanuts

are you retarded

if you can't find one to run, BUILD YOUR FUCKING OWN

They don't really affect things that much. High skilled cs or software engineering positions most often go unfulfilled because companies can not find people skilled enough to qualify, immigrant or not. And there are other costs for companies hiring H-1B that makes it less appealing than hiring a US citizen, so it doesn't impact it much.

It's fine for teaching yourself, but how the fuck would that be useful for finding a job?
> That's right, 1 year experience running a home network with a nas, three phones, a laptop and a pc with vms on it with a virtual switch! Managed it all by myself, believe it or not. Here's a reference letter from mom...

All the places I applied to recently usually had codility challenges, or hackerrank challenges. Nothing too difficult just standard 'implement X sort/fizz buzz' type shit you would get in a typical whiteboard interview.

After I had to do a work sample test, which was to add a feature to their existing product.

In the interview(s) they asked me mainly how to optimize my feature I added. This is probably the best way to do this, develop your own online challenges or use codility/hackerrank to weed out the code campers, then work sample tests sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/#worksample

btw req a 'degree' doesn't matter anyway you'll get the same amount of applicants with phony degrees or real one's but they paid somebody to do all their work so don't remember anything

>Programmers don't unionize because its a high skill job.

Programmers unionize. I was part of a union for scientists and engineers. They provided salary statistics so you could see whether you're being secretly fucked, and free legal help if you're being obviously fucked.

Then I moved to the US where (((people))) tell you that joining a union is anti-American, and that (((the market))) will automatically ensure you get the best deals.

Do you pay into the railroad workers fund instead? NS was hiring here not long ago but I didn't give them much thought as it seemed like just another corporate job. Didn't consider the railroad worker angle.

Again, I'll reiterate my point that you're retarded again.
>Why should we trust you with our critical infrastructure that will run us out of business if it goes down user?
>I went to a networking club in school! (one of the things you suggested).
Are you even employed? This is like NEET or kid logic.

Hackerrank looks like an interesting solution but how do you prevent applicants from having others do their test for them? We can catch them during the interview but want to filter them out before that point so we're not wasting time.

this
Already have a home lab you stupid juvenile faggot.

I work with a guy who does pic related. When I asked him why, he told me it's because of 'code readability'. 10 Year experience, "senior developer"...

You don't get how the modern job market works.

First of all, they will never fill that job because it's only there as a requirement to outsourcing via H1B. That's why for months it doesn't get filled, because they are never going to hire you unless you're name is DagJeet Pabinder and you are willing to work for $5/hr.

Second, those jobs are run by recruiter bots, that literally are bots and will reject your resume into the black hole based on arbitrary filters. You never, ever apply to a public listed job because it's a waste of time, you go find people who work there and directly appeal to them, but not in a faggy/desperate way.

Go on libgen.io and pirate What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles and read every HN story about resume black holes to discover that 90% of jobs are never actually posted. You have to know somebody to get a job because it's too much risk hiring an unknown these days with lawsuits, shitty work/fake credentials and other issues. They want you go come with an endorsement because the market is saturated with people claiming they have MSc's ect.

Try this test yourself, post a "corporate network" job on CL, and see you will get 100+ replies in minutes all of which claim masters or higher degrees.

Sounds like you want to start at the top instead of working your way up.

actually i am weirdly enough.

but I didn't jerk off at school all day and actually got an internship and did meaningful stuff in my field.

I have a CS bachelors from a state school and at this rate I'll be 30 before I get my first job.

Thank god social engineering and food stamps are enough for my rent and food.

He cries about being Italian?

Geez an actually good response. A good question to this would be where do these kind of people congregate so that I can meet them? Workshops, job fairs, what?
Still being retarded?

I'm not the one who is unemployed kid :^)

You can't really which is why work sample tests are the only way though stuff like hackerrank helps weed out the obvious frauds.

By making them do the work they'll actually be doing you can find qualified applicants to then interview later the whole problem with the whiteboard style interview is that lot's of people have read books on how to pass these interviews but then turn out to not know anything once hired

Neither am I, I'm just not where I want to be, I still make $21 an hour :^)

With the flood of wannabe programmers in the jobmarket, how does an aspiring programmer get into the field without a college degree?

I'm currently learning a popular general-purpose programming language (I won't say which, to avoid shit-flinging). It started as a simple hobby, but I'm growing more interested in it and would like to profit from it in the future.

I already have a steady career path, so I don't want to enroll in uni and get another degree in CS.

As I build my knowledge, what's the best way to develop a portfolio and a network to display my competence? Github and other open projects are obvious, but what else?

I'd like to hear from people like OP and others involved in the hiring process: what would make you trust an applicant with using and developing your company's code?

QTs attached for your time.

kill yourselves

YOU LITERALLY CAN SET UP AD, SCCM, DCHP SERVERS YOURSELF

>Yes, I've got experience with manging AD, sccm and dchp, whilst not on large scale I have [insert basic windows server ms certs]

Does your company work in anything remotely in programming? If so, try talking to your manager. Moving internally is easier than to another company. If it's not the language you're learning, then tough shit, learn what your company uses. You need to be flexible and not be tied to a particular technology.

Sorry kid, we're talking about experience with actual companies here, not your home lab you could just as easily be lying about.

>I have basic windows server ms certs
My company doesn't hire people with said certs, because most are frauds.

You can be smug all you want buddy.

This is how people learn, they have their own labs with dns, dchp, AD and AV servers. I mean, you screech and scream about company's not hiring you, but you sure seem to have an exact idea of what they want of you, eh?

>company's
**companies

I've said multiple times on this thread I have a home lab and have set up all kinds of servers. I'm talking about verifiable experience.

I'm self taught.

You work on open source projects: write a feature, debug said feature, repeat. Be helpful on the mailing list and stack exchange about said product. Have all your contact information on there linking to a github/gitlab or whatever full of your projects. You will get recruiters trying to hire you.

You can also try some shitty mill like Toptal or other mills who post on weworkremotely.com these are places where you're a contractor and advertise your rate to their internal clients, and they cover all the billing. Set your rate low enough to build up more work (I orig set mine at $25/hr CAD which is a joke) and then AirBnB hired me directly from toptal to work F/T for them. I did that for a year or so and then had the exp to get a real paying development position (i also learned CS Theory though, not just programming).

This is less of an issue with your field and more a general cultural issue with the US in general. For decades, politicians have been trying to replace thinking and college degrees with training and certifications. Now it is has finally come to the software field and you have to deal with hoards of people that think they're the next John Carmack because they got a piece of paper and Carlos' Koad Kamp.

Then again, colleges themselves haven't been turning out great material since they decided to cash in and turn CS and other programming oriented fields into meme degrees. I got so sick of dealing with candidates that couldn't answer basic questions about the tech they claimed to know. Today, I talk with them and give them a simple test. If they can stumble through it in a reasonable amount of time, I can consider them.

>Applicant: "Hi, I taught myself engineering online"
>Engineering firm: "Fuck off"
>Applicant: "Hi, I taught myself medicine online"
>Doctor's Office: "Fuck off"
>Applicant: "Hi, I taught myself programming online"
>Development studio: "You got the job!"
I don't see why requiring a degree is an issue desu. Or something equivalent that proves you know your shit. Like having had a job in programming before.
Sure, you might pass over a few ones who'd do a good job without having a degree. But there are also a lot who have.

A 4 year degree is better at producing someone who can easily adapt and pick up new languages, frameworks, etc.

The problem is code camps were originally for STEM degree holders who wanted to get into industry development, so they already had a 4year degree plus experience, but some employer sent them to a codecamp in order to learn Ruby/Rails or some bullshit.

Somehow those highly educated codecampers became "anybody can code!" and turned into a scam fleecing fools of $10-20,000 to take a month of Rails.

On HN every thread about code camps/hacker schools only the women are being hired to satisfy shitty diversity req so if you're female or a queer/blackasian whatever you should do it otherwise it's a waste of time.

You go for an entry level desktop support post, from there you'll get to play with the engineers who managing/fix the serious stuff. You'll get your verifiable experience as if you're working with the AD server you'll be required to reset passwords and things.

From there you'll learn more and people are really happy to teach you things if it makes their lives easier.

Eventually after a year or two, you should try applying for an engineer post at your company.

Get around this by only hiring people with experience in CL, Scheme, ML, Haskell, or another classical functional language (i.e. not "JavaScript is functional too!!!")

I think some of it is people thinking they've found a way to game the system by not going to college and therefore not racking up lots of student loans. Now they've realized that not having a degree puts them at a disadvantage compared to their peers, and they're bleating that it's unfair and that they should be hired despite being less desirable candidates than those with degrees.

You cant really practice medicine or engineering outside of a real experience. Dev work, on the other hand, is something almost everyone does online.

Been there done that, issue is my job doesn't let people move off support onto networking/system administration. I have to find another company for that.

>WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY CODE DOESN'T WORK?
>THE CODE KILLS ITSELF PROPERLY JUST AS ALLAH WILLS IT
>THIS IS ISLAMOPHOBIA!

True, if you know ML then you likely either went to a university, or you know proof by induction which means you're already a better programmer than the vast applicants since you can reason about program correctness and complexity functionalcs.github.io/curriculum/

HN claims the biggest issue with codeschool grads is none of them have problem solving skills, you get this by doing HtDP (scheme) or learning something like ML or CL or just doing a bunch of math.

Thanks for the link, looks interesting.

But that's not what they want. They don't want to train people. They want people that already know how to do the job.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately I don't exclusively work for one employer (unionized electrician -- I hop to and from several contractors in a year, but local and out-of-town). But I'll keep that in mind for the future.

Thanks for the advice and links. When you were working freelance, did it keep you busy consistently? Programming as a side-job appeals to me quite a bit, as my job allows me ample spare time. (Most people in my field moonlight as under-the-table, unlicensed electricians, which is illegal.)

Any company that survives is going to have to retrain its employees from time to time.

If your outside of the US, do a knowledge/skills test to screen potential employees. If you are in the US, you're dickerd because that's a discriminatory practice and you will have to go off of degrees.

Not if the MBA's email their favorite Gartner sales "analyst" to draw up an excel chart explaining how firing someone saves more time and money than hiring someone else.