[linsomniac]

Is my shop the only one that is skeptical of bootcamp graduates? The thinking is that they have a deep skillset but in an extremely narrow track.

It's like they know how to use a hammer and a screwdriver, but they don't know why you would use a nail instead of a screw (or which thread pitch why) instead of a bolt instead of a jointery technique.

Maybe it is just that our company has a bunch of old timer generalists that aren't very good at interviewing someone with a narrow skillset? I know we try to, but it feels like the bootcamp people we've interviewed didn't have very good problem solving skills. We've successfully hired more junior people, but not from bootcamps.

What are we doing wrong?

[mgkimsal]

not sure you're doing anything 'wrong', but the few times I've seen 'bootcamp' folks hired, it was specifically to be on a larger team that focused on 'team'. A bootcamp person is not going to be able to just be dropped in to any problem in the stack and manage it on their own.

In a company of generalists, this is very likely how you operate, and you'll see little value in bootcamp folks.

As a generalist, I tend to be in that camp - seeing little value in bootcamp folks. Or, I should be more precise - the way I operate I don't see that I could get much value from bootcamp folks (I'm either independent, or work with other generalists). I'm not set up to be able to get much value from narrow-skill bootcamp folks early on.

Their value will be for shops that have teams of people where dropping in one more pair of hands has some incremental value. From there they will get more experience and can learn to be of more value in more situations.

That's just been my own observations talking with some folks about their 'going through a bootcamp' experience over the last couple of years.