They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia

Re:They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia by skybrian on Monday May 13, 2019 @12:04AM (#19896348)

Having been in the situation, all I can say is that sometimes you have to expect "shocking" gaps when working with inexperienced people at not let it throw you. It's part of being a teacher. You have to remain positive. If they're quick to learn it when you teach it to them, it's fine. This is learning on the job and it's expected.

That happened to me at Google for someone who didn't come in as a software engineer. I didn't handle it well and it's one of the things I most regret.

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Re:They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia by Kalium on Monday May 13, 2019 @03:02AM (#19896893)

Good advice.

In this particular case, my student was hired directly into a software engineering role from outside the company within the past few months. This, to my mind, suggests a whole sequence of failures starting with the contents of the bootcamp.

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Re:They Were Promised Coding Jobs in Appalachia by TeMPOraL on Monday May 13, 2019 @05:32AM (#19897479)

That's an important thing, I agree. Seen a few shocking gaps in my co-workers at previous jobs, and whenever time and energy allowed, I always tried to carefully (to not bruise egos) and positively[0] patch it with a quick mental model update. I don't fault people for being inexperienced, or for not growing up as a computer nerd like I did. I only start having issues if someone wasn't given knowledge they're supposed to by organized learning (hence my scepticism about bootcamps, but see jfarmer's comment in parrallel), or when they claim knowledge and competence they visibly lack.

Programming is a profession. As you say, learning on the job is normal and expected.

[0] - https://www.xkcd.com/1053/

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