But then such schools that predominantly work on ISAs, will pre-select for good students, who are most likely to succeed and also for industries where the compensation is higher. Remainder (which is arguably 90%+) of the students will still be at the mercy of other schools + taxpayer.
It seems, this just provides one more payment option to students who are likely to succeed anyway and a refreshing business model for schools that move early into the space.
It doesn't address the real problem with schools i.e. making the 20th%le student successful and not a taxpayer burden.
> But then such schools that predominantly work on ISAs, will pre-select for good students, who are most likely to succeed and also for industries where the compensation is higher.
That still sounds far better than the current system of selecting for the most popular (instead of valuable) subjects that draw in the most clueless students to get indebted for life for something they are unlikely to succeed in anyway.
Exactly. With a federally garanteed loan no less! The school has incentive to take you and cater to your fanciful wim major, its free money to them up front and your problem (repayment) later.
> But then such schools that predominantly work on ISAs, will pre-select for good students, who are most likely to succeed and also for industries where the compensation is higher.
That actually sounds like a good incentive structure to me. Most people shouldn't study something that will not give them some advantage (which these schools would select for).
If you struggle to make ends meet it wouldn't be a reasonable decision to study something unprofitable in the first place. I wish it was different and everybody could invest an infinite amount of time to learn what they are interested in, but in a resource constrained reality that's not possible and individuals have to make decisions that are advantageous for them.
By definition and practicality, schools and fields of work will remain a pyramid i.e. at any given time, there will only be a few fields and colleges that "give advantage", being able to absorb only a fraction of students by competition. e.g. field of programming can only absorb a million odd engineers in next few years. (Ironically, when it absorbs more, it will no longer remain a field with high wages).
The remainder of the iceberg hence, will need to go to other lower parts of the pyramid. ISAs won't do anything for that. Only the government will. And the Govt does it for us, with our money, because not providing education to lower levels of pyramid will result in nothing but societal anarchy.
ISAs hence shouldn't be hailed as panacea for education loans which is what marketing makes us believe. The only advantage of ISAs, is that they unlock better education for some "motivated students" (for lack of an accurate phrase) from underprivileged circumstances. That's not a trivial advantage for those who qualify. I don't know what that % of population is, but it can't be much.
In any case, however small, that number sure seems enough to build a business around it with some feel-good marketing (like this article).
1. There was a time when the pay distinction between working for big companies and small/mid was clear and present. But these days, the line is blurring.
BigCos have realized that startups are eating their lunch and hence they are investing heavily in new ideas and doing better engineering on the old ones to develop those markets even further, faster.
Smaller companies too have realized that they need to compete with the BigCos and hence have started to offer similar comps/perks. More and more of the VC funded fast-growing companies are offering packages competing with BigCos.
2. Hence, for a software engineer, the main reason to join/not-join a company today is less about pay. It's more about the type of work you will get to do, and the people that you want to work with.
3. There is something to be said about having a brand, but given how tech is percolating everything we do, it is also getting very differentiated. There are hence brands in every "flavor" of tech. e.g. if you want to work on self-driving cars, Waymo is a great brand. But if you want to work on healthcare tech, there are others.
I train software engineers to do better at challenging interviews and I do that for a living. The way I see it, the landscape has been shifting in this direction for at least past 5 years, if not more. At least in the large tech hubs of the US.
I'm going to have to push back on your first point about compensation between large and small companies. At a large brand name tech company, $300k isn't uncommon for a few years of experience in SFBA or NYC. You don't need to land on the right team or have magical luck, you just need to be a solid performer. Even though startups are increasing base salary, they don't have liquid RSUs as a rule and (in my experience) pay smaller bonuses overall.
I would say that if a software engineer is optimizing for income maximization they should almost certainly join one of FAANG, unless they have a formidable appetite for risk and uncertainty. Consider some of the data compiled here: https://www.levels.fyi.
Unless your customers need you to incorporate, the idea is to incorporate when you start seeing potential liability. One of the earliest sources of potential liability, is when you hire a W2 employee (in the US). So that is a great time to incorporate i.e. before hiring your first W2 employee. And if you don't intend to raise money, issue stock, or setup international offices any soon, then LLC is a far simpler, cheaper (taxation at exit) structure to setup.
The LLC is great for smaller businesses and startups. Which is why it's a shame countries like the UK and Canada have no such structure and business owners are left to choose between sole proprietorship and a corporation. I have lived in both of these places and I know the governments in both talk a lot about promoting small business and entrepreneurship but talk is easy, they need to do the work necessary to make company structures available that would work for this group. I have written to the relevant UK government department and received no response.
I’m not too sure what problems you feel a UK private limited company has. It’s super easy to set up, requires minimal paperwork, and indeed most IT contractors I know work through their own limited companies.
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There are usually several of these $10K ones, especially from angels the founders like and want to have a longer term relationships with. Also, most initial development is either outsourced or done by the founders.
It's a part-time bootcamp focused on preparing for technical interviews at (so-called) top-tier places i.e. places which interview heavily in DS/Algos and Large Scale Design for their core engineering roles, and also make staggeringly high offers. Think G/F/A/Netflix/Amazon/MS etc.
It is intense and also taught by Sr. Engineers working in core systems at these places. There is a rigorous academic take to it, with homework, tests, mock interviews etc.
A little known fact, is that many people come to the program with no intent to look for a job. They are already at good places, paid well, and just want to get better as an engineer, which I think is what you're looking for.
Many have figured out, that the structure and the forcing function challenges them to be better. Most of your peers will have backgrounds in CS/CS, and you'll also see people coming FROM some of the same companies others are aspiring to go to (e.g. Amazon, Microsoft etC).
We start an online cohort every month, where people join from all over US and Canada (and sometimes even other countries).
How high are we talking about? Let's say around ~5 yrs exp dev who would otherwise be considered intermediate level elsewhere spends the equivalent of 3-6 months of full time effort in preparation: what comp can such a candidate expect to negotiate in the big4/5?
225k total comp (salary + bonus + equity) for Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Apple sounds about right. I've personally gotten offers from those companies only slightly less than that with only 2 years of experience under my belt.
If you're curious, hop onto Glassdoor. It's really accurate for the tech giants because of how many datapoints have been submitted.
That sounds like something that I am looking for. I'm interested in a "CS fundamentals" bootcamp. I have years of web development experience and while I could take a React bootcamp that would make me more marketable for that particular area, I'd like to increase my scope beyond web dev or mobile dev. Work on massive systems, and places where they need smart ways to move mountains of data.
In college I graduated in a digital media like program, and took a "super minor" in Computer Science- one Data Structures and Discrete Math class, and two courses on OOP software design. I have familiarity with some structures, understand the general concept of Big O but I'd like to fill in some gaps.
As far as getting better as an engineer in some domain-- how does a program like this compare to hacking on and contributing to a FLOSS project in that same domain for a similar total number of hours?
Probably better to hack/FLOSS. But there is a severe lack of structure there. Very easy to get started and get distracted, work on suboptimal projects and in general, never get validation on what you worked on.
wow you dont accept bootcamp grads? we're precisely the kind of people that need you. do you have any interview prep peers you would recommend that are slightly lower tier than you? or do you have a detailed syllabus anywhere?
I think it makes sense to not accept brand-new bootcamp grads. That subset of people should already be able to at least get on a junior web or QA engineer position and will be better served by actually getting out there and doing it. Going straight into one of these programs would be the equivalent of getting a Master's just because you don't know what to do after getting your Bachelor's.
> Going straight into one of these programs would be the equivalent of getting a Master's just because you don't know what to do after getting your Bachelor's.
In all fairness, isn't this exactly the situation for most of the people pursuing their Master's?
Most CS students should get at least an internship before grad school. If nothing else there is a summer between your CS degree and the start of a masters program. 'Bootcamps' are very short term and don't really allow for that kind training.
No, at least not in CS at "good universities". Jobs are too easy to come by for this pattern (which is more common for humanities majors I think).
In CS It's a combo of people playing the immigration game and people looking to one up their credentials and/or network. Which is different from "don't know what I want to do".
