As a hiring manager, this program seemed pretty sketchy from a legal perspective. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that interns need to be paid for their work if they're working on projects that have some commercial interest attached.<p>Austen DMed me about this on twitter a while back (presumably in search of pilot organizations to work with Fellows), and my response was this:<p>> I am reasonably sure that’s not legal if they’re working on “real” client work since at that point, the company would be the primary beneficiary of that person labor. The DoL fact sheet doesn’t make it entirely clear (<a href="https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs71.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdf...</a>), but HLR’s article about Glatt v Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc summarizes it well (<a href="https://harvardlawreview.org/2016/02/glatt-v-fox-searchlight-pictures-inc/" rel="nofollow">https://harvardlawreview.org/2016/02/glatt-v-fox-searchlight...</a>).<p>I know there are some Lambda folks around in this thread. Have you done any legal vetting or anything along those lines? I like the idea, and I think it's worthwhile, but I'm not interested if it means putting the company at risk.
Lambda school is a sham. They have students teaching students and it's like the blind leading the blind. Absolute chaos and since the student to teacher ratio is so high, it's almost impossible to get a decent education through them.<p>I realize it's a YCombinator portfolio company, but it's run like a pyramid scheme.
I went to a college with a coop program. This sorta seems to be similar but much shorter. But at least I was paid for that.<p>I also graduated Lambda School (I'm no longer in their slack). I can see how this is pitched internally to students. There used to be a large project that was the last thing you did before you graduated. It was always a bit of a mess, as most school group projects are. This is replacing that, and I assume the students are pitched that these companies could potentially hire them afterwards.<p>The Lambda curriculum is rather rapidly iterated upon, or at least was while I was a student. This can be good, as it lets them do things like add React Hooks relatively soon after they came out. It can also make things inconsistent, I went through one of the programs that also taught C, which was taken out at some point. I also notice they have the length of the program as 6 months again after having previously moved to 9 months. The last three were job hunting from what I can tell, it personally took me 4 to find something.<p>This actually looks similar to what the current company I work at did with me. I got hired and they paid me for 2 months to work on fake projects in their code base with all the other new hires. I assume this was super helpful for techleads as it means the person who's starting on their team has at least a passing familiarity with the code base and languages used. Pretty much everyone who entered with me had to learn PHP, and 95% of them were bootcamp grads (of the remainder only one had previously worked software, and the others were fresh out of college) But this is super expensive to do the way the company I work for is doing it and I can't see many wanting to.<p>If anyone is considering know my least favorite thing about Lambda was the way the ISA works. The 17% is calculated pretax, but charged posttax.<p>PS Hi Austin
Does LambdaSchool think the thing holding back their developers is that companies cannot <i>onboard</i> new developers?<p>While many small companies do not pay much attention to onboarding, I'm not sure that this is the actual stumbling block.<p>I think the bigger problem LambaSchool graduates who've talked to <i>me</i> say is that LambdaSchool's poor reputation and haphazard leadership have left the value of their schooling in question, and that puts them at a material disadvantage compared to people with a traditional college degree. This is a variant of the problem that Udacity and co face: companies recruiting have reservations about that type of education and view it as a risky hire.<p>AFAIK (it predates my time with Udacity substantially) Udacity discontinued their active placement programs, and generally when they do that (again, I have no special knowledge) it happens because it was neither working nor cost effective.<p>I think LambdaSchool would be better served using its resources to improve the reputation of its graduates by actually highlighting their work and functioning like a more traditional university; sponsoring open source work and research and showing their graduates and produce such work. Universities get famous and reputable off the back of work like this.<p>They might also consider not being such shady actors, with a long history of tax disputes and illegal operation. It doesn't matter if state and federal rules are unjust; what matters here is that companies (especially smaller ones) need to maintain the <i>appearance</i> of managing risk. An association with LambdaSchool damages that.<p>Full disclosure: I don't like the leadership of LS at all. But I have a lot of compassion and respect for the individuals that have taken their destiny into their own hands and learned the trade through any means necessary. I think folks that emerge from these processes are often <i>better</i> members of the workforce than traditionally educated people; because of the tight selection filter (only very talented and motivated people <i>can</i> pass through these processes and succeed, therefore you're selecting from an inherently more dedicated and energetic candidate pool).
This 'school' was the final marker for me for the 'programmer bubble'.<p>I remember back in the aughts when the rhetoric wasn't 'l2code' it was 'learn graphic design' in a few weeks and be a highly paid graphic artist working for the biggest most famous companies making the best money!<p>Really there was never anything special about any of it, it just seemed a daunting task. The more people realized this the more the job market was flooded until the .com bubble burst. Which was a good thing, really.<p>Here we have the same thing again. The things I remember most from last bubble that match with this are for-profit 'technical colleges' with 'degrees' but they arent really because they're un-accredited. Now they just call them coding boot camps, but I see no difference.<p>It all smells like taking advantage of the most desperate of people in the worst spots who want nothing more than to genuinely improve their lives.<p>I believe ITT Tech and Hallmark eventually got sued over the same stuff- lying about job placement ratios, constant teacher turnover, constant ripoff and high pressure tactics stories.<p>Also fanny packs are back again, so why not for profit pretend schools?<p>All we do is visit the same crimes to each other.
Truly innovative, outside the box, hacker thinking. If Uber and Lyft can violate labor laws, why shouldn’t everyone?<p>I can’t wait for the next innovation. Maybe Big Tech will give people free room and board (and no pay) in exchange for multi year contracts. Maybe Lambda School can set up a market where companies can sell these contacts to each other.<p>Don’t worry privileged developers. I’m sure this will never affect you. Traditionally in the US we only enslave minorities.
So.. I'm a little confused on how this is different from a college with a co-op programme (at least in that, students get paid) - and moreover I genuinely am a bit turned off by the fact that the "fellowship" is unpaid. That really kind of makes no sense to me - it's emphasised elsewhere on this thread by Lambda staff that the fellows will be able to contribute to the company. However, they are not being paid. Like, I'm unable to wrap my head around this - it's a fundamental rule of economics - you render a service for someone and you get paid in return..
Hey, folks. One of the creators of the Lambda Fellows program here.<p>We were trying to crack several problems with Fellows:<p>- The current hiring process in our industry is broken. Interviews represent a point-in-time measurement of someone's talent when you should be "hiring for slope", it introduces bias, and it's time-consuming and costly. It also unnecessarily punishes Junior engineers.<p>- The best learning experience for a Lambda engineer is real work. We've done our best to design an educational program that simulates real work, but it's still just a simulation. "If you want to learn how to do a thing, the best way is to do that thing."<p>- 1-to-1 mentorship from a more experienced developer is a powerful learning too, but it's rare. It best occurs within the context of a shared work product where comments are not abstract and squishy but focused and tactical.<p>- Despite placing over 1,000 Lambda engineers at top companies around the industry, there remains skepticism about their ability to be productive and ship software.<p>We think Lambda Fellows is the best of both worlds: it's an unparalleled learning experience for Lambda grads (real work + mentorship) while providing companies with an accelerated onramp to experience junior talent on their team while allowing them to give back to develop the next generation of software engineers.<p>I'll hang out here for the next hour or so. Feel free to ask any questions you might have.
I am not seeing the benefit of this vs. a traditional internship. If there is someone is pitched as a potential hire, I have higher expectations vs. someone who is pitched as an intern. I know we will need to train up interns - that is the whole point. But to fill an open role on the team, these folks will be compared with every other applicant, and odds are we will choose someone who we know can hit the ground running and contribute.<p>The term "Fellow" also reminds me of the title given to the top engineers in large established companies - it implies they are the cream of the crop from the entire industry, not a recent bootcamp grad.<p>In short, I'd just call this an internship to avoid setting incorrect expectations.
How is this company still allowed to pollute Hacker News and not treated as a low key fraudulent org? Other than the fact that the founder takes eighteen adderall prior to each post and defends any comment critical of Lambda School?
I've long believed that most programming jobs should be taught in an apprenticeship format - these bootcamps, overpriced CS programs, etc. just don't compare to the learning that happens when you sit with an experienced developer and start to solve real problems. Lambda School seems to be a for profit organization that is primarily interested in making money, and this "Fellows" program is just an extension of that.