Without paywall: <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://online.wsj.com/articles/kaplan-to-buy-software-development-school-dev-bootcamp-1403660869" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...</a>
I must say this is quite exciting! Disclaimer, I am one of the founders of MakerSquare (makersquare.com), a similar software development school currently in Austin, San Francisco, and Houston.<p>It’s great to see that the HN community is not surprised by this acquisition. As a witness of this space for the past 2-3 years, I am excited for the future of the education space. I can say with confidence that some of the top programs (like Dev Bootcamp - <a href="http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-five-best-coding-bootcamps" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-five-best-coding-bootcamps</a>) have been training and placing great talent (up to ~90-95% of graduates).<p>Also, we have also have had a number of meetings regarding acquisition, mergers, and investment; however, I never imagined an acquisition of this size would happen so quickly. Congrats to Dev Bootcamp and their team (especially one of the cofounders, Dave Hoover, who has been so helpful for so many people since the start).
These boot camps are obviously a reaction to the current demand for developers. I'm not sure if that is permeant.<p>That aside I like the idea here. I think 1-4 months is a greta period of time. You can maintain a great pace that way. Personally, I do better in sprints. My University years were really 5-6 2 week sprints a year spread out between long periods of procrastination (and fun). The useful work I did outside of sprints doesn't amount to much.<p>The idea of paying your tuition (ideally, lower than £12k), working hard for 9 weeks and expecting to meet some legitimately valuable goals at the end of it is appealing to me.<p>Obviously I'm getting speculative, but I can imagine something like this being a fixture of 'lifelong education. Something you can do dozens of times in a lifetime.<p>Zero-to-junior developer is obviously in the current market, can sustain that high tuition. But, I would like to see tuition go down to levels that can make it available for other markets.<p>I can imagine a lot of useful 9-week sprint courses that could be very effective, if the quality was high enough. Writing. Data mining. Accounting.
It'd be interesting to hear the hire's perspective on people who come out of these schools.<p>Where I work we get a lot of these applicants but their applications are so generic and skill sets so shallow that we've never seriously considered hiring one -- and about half our team is completely self taught, so I don't think we are bias against non-degree holders.
The prospect of bootcamps graduating tens of thousands a year instead of hundreds is quickly becoming a very real thing. Will be very interested to see how this affects the job market over the next few years.
I came into the field without a background in computer science. I learned on the job how to design, develop, and test software. However, I wasn't allowed to work on high value projects at the time and a formal mentoring system was in place. I haven't seen an office environment with formal mentoring since the late 90's.<p>I'm a little worried that a crash course in particular development stacks are going to put people with some literacy in a language but no professional judgment (takes years to develop) in positions in which they can do damage. Software is socially pervasive now so mistakes from underdeveloped judgment can have great effect.
Went to a bootcamp myself. These are fairly profitable businesses. I can see it making sense for an acquisition, especially for one that's as recognizable as Dev Bootcamp.<p>Also wondering if the bootcamps sorted out their government issues.
Love it! Great for the industry. I'm a former bootcamp student too and can vouch that this immersive learning model can be very effective.<p>As an industry, we still have a long way to go but with news like this, we will become more and more trustable in the public's eyes.<p>Like the article says - it's one thing to educate a few hundred people - can we do it at scale? Can we educate hundreds of thousands of students and get all of them jobs?<p>We need to work together as an industry and really try to figure out what are the next best steps to move forwards.<p>We need to diversify the technologies that we teach, curriculum, class sizes... Above all, we need to establish an amazing brand in the public eyes. That's where transparent, third-party review sites like <a href="http://www.switchup.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.switchup.org</a> can really help.<p>Started by students, Switch is focused on producing the most cutting edge content that will help transform public perception of this industry and give it credibility.<p>We need alumni to speak out about their experiences. Talk about the pros and cons. We need prospective students to voice their concerns. We need schools to be transparent. We need standardized definitions of hiring rates...<p>I could go on and on... If we all work together, this industry will grow and help boost our economy. Are you ready to make the Switch? :) Shoot me a message at jonathan@switchup.org, <a href="http://www.switchup.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.switchup.org</a>
Interesting, considering Kaplan already has a bootcamp arm, Metis (<a href="http://www.thisismetis.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thisismetis.com/</a>). From what I can tell, Metis provides courses developed by industry groups, although it's not clear what Kaplan provides - infrastructure for applications and buildings, perhaps? Either way, this purchase shows they're serious about the whole thing.
From the DevBootCamp web site:<p>"We offer a $500 scholarship if you're female, a veteran of the U.S. Military, or from an ethnic minority group underrepresented in the software engineering field (African American, Chicano/Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander)."<p>Isn't charging someone more because of their race or sex is illegal? That's what a "scholarship" for only certain groups
amounts to.
Congrats to Shereef, Dave and now Tanner in NYC!<p>I am the co-founder of a similar program, Launch Academy (<a href="http://www.launchacademy.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.launchacademy.com</a>) in Boston. We're a more intimate program than Dev Bootcamp but share some of their early core principals towards educational diversification.<p>I first met Shereef Bishay in early 2012 after he wisely took an MVP approach to what is now known as Dev Bootcamp via his cousin and a small group of other aspiring developers based on a 'bet' that he couldn't teach them to code in 10-weeks. Not only did Shereef prove that small group wrong (winning the bet) but he's gone on to pioneer an industry that has benefited thousands of people to change their lives for the better through immersive education in software development.<p>These programs are not for everyone however. Are you ready for a bootcamp? I've written a bit about this here <a href="http://qr.ae/sVVQs" rel="nofollow">http://qr.ae/sVVQs</a>
That is amazing. Good for them.<p>But how did the first mover in this space, Dev Bootcamp, lose out to App Academy in the prestige stakes? Was it expelling people without giving them a full refund? Counting people who were working for them and for themselves as working? Something else>
Flatiron did a $5.5M round at a $15M (guesstimated) valuation, and DBC is probably 4x bigger, so this was probably in the $60M range, with a bit more thrown in for being a big player?
Very exciting news. It will be interesting to see which direction Kaplan takes Dev Bootcamp. The article seems to indicate that the high placement percentage may have been a driving motivation. Congrats to Dev Bootcamp.