Can a New Type of School Churn Out Developers Faster? (dice.com)

Nerval's Lobster writes: Demand for software engineering talent has become so acute, some denizens of Silicon Valley have contributed to a venture fund that promises to turn out qualified software engineers in two years rather than the typical four-year university program. Based in San Francisco, Holberton School was founded by tech-industry veterans from Apple, Docker and LinkedIn, making use of $2 million in seed funding provided by Trinity Ventures to create a hands-on alternative to training software engineers that relies on a project-oriented and peer-learning model originally developed in Europe. But for every person who argues that developers don't need a formal degree from an established institution in order to embark on a successful career, just as many people seem to insist that a lack of a degree is an impediment not only to learning the fundamentals, but locking down enough decent jobs over time to form a career. (People in the latter category like to point out that many companies insist on a four-year degree.) Still others argue that lack of a degree is less of an issue when the economy is good, but that those without one find themselves at a disadvantage when the aforementioned economy is in a downturn. Is any one group right, or, like so many things in life, is the answer somewhere in-between?

Comments

Great another stupid dice article...

[grimmjeeper]

Yeah, schools can't churn out qualified software engineers in 4 (and in many cases 5) years already. What makes you think you can do a good job in 2 years?

Code monkey

[khasim]

But it is possible to take someone with no experience and turn him/her into a code monkey in only 2 years.

And I think that that is the point with this. They aren't looking to educate new "engineers". They want cheap, fast labour. Code monkeys.

If one of those people goes on to learn more, on their own, so much the better.

If not, well the CxO's of those companies will claim that it is the fault of the workers.

Re:False Shortage

[lgw]

There's no shortage of qualified developers.
What there's a shortage of, are qualified developers who are barely old enough to shave, have no family (wife/husband/kids), will work for next to nothing, will put in 80+ hours a week for months on end, and who you can basically treat like shit because they don't know any better and are just desperate for any job in the industry.

That all depends on what kind of job we're talking about. My first job was just such a shit job, and it was fine since it let me break into the industry.

But for the Big-5 software dev companies, and dozens of others in Silly Valley who model themselves on them, there is a shortage (and these companies probably employ the majority of software devs on the West Coast). If I average across the last 3 companies I worked at, so I'm not revelaing anything about any of them specifically:
* We hire 1 in 20 people we phone screen
* We hire 1 in 4 people we interview in person
* We lose maybe 10% of offers due to salary offered being too low (hard to measure that well, but it's low, these companies don't like losing on price)
* Normal work week is 40 hours, with crunch time being rare.

So, no for the big names, it's simply not about employee abuse, it's genuinely about finding people qualified to work at this level of expectation. And once you're past your first few years, almost no one cares where (or whether) you went to school. If 2-year programs broaden the talent pool to more people not following the traditional path, more power to them. Whatever helps those bright enough to make a career of it get in the door is a good thing.