[HN Gopher] Lambda School Lays Off 32%
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Lambda School Lays Off 32%
Author : caust1c
Score : 69 points
Date : 2021-04-29 22:33 UTC (26 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (lambdaschool.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lambdaschool.com)
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Can someone explain how you can train Data Scientists in 6
| months? What jobs do these grads walk into?
|
| The tech prerequisite is: "You should feel extremely comfortable
| with how a computer works including: touch-typing, web browsers,
| search engines, and basic computer programs."
|
| The Curriculum:
|
| Stats, Linear Algebra AND Data Wrangling: 4 Weeks
|
| Modeling: 3 Weeks
|
| Data Engineering, Databases, SQL, Productionisation: 3 Weeks
|
| Machine Learning, NLP, Neural Networks: 3 Weeks
|
| Python, OOP, Algorithms & General CS: 3 Weeks
|
| Project work: 3 Weeks
|
| At that pace over so many subject is anyone walking out able to
| remember what a dot product or a t-test is from week 1?
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| > Stats, Linear Algebra AND Data Wrangling: 4 Weeks
|
| Ridiculous. Introductory statistics and linear algebra are two
| separate undergraduate level courses. And if you want a real
| grasp of statistics, you need to learn probability theory
| first, which is another semester long course.
|
| To say nothing of "data wrangling", whatever the fuck it means.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| Ehh, you could come close to condensing 1-2 college courses
| into 4 weeks. It wouldn't be fun though.
| nr2x wrote:
| Pretty sure "data wrangling" boils down to god-tier regex
| knowledge - which is less theoretical heavy-lifting than an
| acquired art that comes with practice.
| sandofsky wrote:
| You assign precourse work that rejects 98% of applicants. That
| helps select students with existing experience, sometimes even
| STEM degrees.
|
| According to the example contract on their site, their income
| share agreements last up to seven years. Even if you fail to
| teach them anything, they can spend years studying on their own
| (or even get a degree), and still owe money.
| bboylen wrote:
| Data science bootcamps don't make much sense to me unless the
| student is coming from a STEM background. If someone has
| studied engineering and already had courses in linear
| algebra,stats, basic programming, then it shouldn't be hard to
| learn the more practical data science stuff
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| It's cramming. Simple as that.
|
| Enough buzzword to pass an interview. Unless someone already
| has a pretty solid degree, it's impossible to learn the
| fundamentals that quickly. And if they do, they should take
| grad classes on data science, not go into a bootcamp...
| NoblePublius wrote:
| My last memory of Lambda School was Austin blocking me on Twitter
| after asking him why every dev bootcamp grad I've ever hired is
| now on my product team.
| wbronitsky wrote:
| The levels of inhumanity and doublespeak in here are staggering.
| This post attempts to euphemize 65 people losing their incomes,
| and probably healthcare, to the point that it reads almost as
| farce. Not to mention what the impact will be on those remaining,
| students and staff alike.
|
| "...they believe it's impossible to make this model work.
|
| We strongly disagree." This is wildly insensitive to those
| involved. I find it hard to imagine how the 65 people laid off
| today are going to make that make sense when trying to look for
| new jobs.
|
| "...today's restructuring and right-sizing..." Is this to say
| that the 65 people who lost their jobs today were somehow wrong?
| Again, it staggers me how lacking in empathy these words about
| people losing their jobs, and probably healthcare, indefinitely.
|
| "For employers looking to hire senior product, engineering,
| design, community management, or instructional staff, we'll be
| sharing a list of interested staff looking for their next
| opportunity on social media" And good luck current students;
| these people will take all the jobs you're aiming for.
|
| Wow.
| catillac wrote:
| I get what you're saying here, but think you're being a little
| too harsh. I'm not sure what else to call a reduction in force
| for PR purposes, I don't imaging just saying "fired 65 people"
| is productive.
|
| In this comment:
|
| " "For employers looking to hire senior product, engineering,
| design, community management, or instructional staff, we'll be
| sharing a list of interested staff looking for their next
| opportunity on social media" And good luck current students;
| these people will take all the jobs you're aiming for."
|
| Sounds like Lambda School grads are pretty junior and they're
| giving people that are senior a good recommendation. I don't
| think there's much overlap between LS boot camp grads and
| senior people leaving LS as employees. Maybe I'm wrong?
| legerdemain wrote:
| > Lambda pioneered the income share agreement (ISA) in the career
| > and technical education space, and we're now watching many of
| > the schools who followed us abandon their ISA offerings because
| > they believe it's impossible to make this model work. We
| strongly > disagree. In fact, many things at Lambda School
| are working very > well, and we are... >
| ...laying off 65 Lambda School employees.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Looks like a refocusing on the full-time program.
|
| Doesn't seem _too_ surprising, given how many part-time programs
| (ie, Coursera) have struggled to retain users distracted by jobs
| and life.
|
| I hope they figure it out. 4-year university education for
| everyone is a broken model, and students deserve a cheaper path
| that doesn't eat half a decade of their life.
| fridif wrote:
| Agree. I used to be against the technical interview process,
| but now I wholeheartedly believe in every facet of it
| (Leetcode, book knowledge, project based behavioral questions,
| system design).
|
| The quicker everyone learns these important concepts, non of
| which are taught in school or in bootcamps, the quicker one
| gets to be productive in programming.
| andrew_ wrote:
| leetcode/hackerrank is the worst thing to happen to tech
| interviews this decade.
| celim307 wrote:
| Anyone with knowledge know if this is isolated to lambda falling
| behind their peers, or the industry itself starting to turn away
| from hiring boot camp grads?
| jurassic wrote:
| There are plenty of bootcamp grad alumni from the ~2013 era
| that are now senior and staff level engineers. Any company that
| wants to be stuck up about university degrees is missing out on
| a lot of potentially strong contributors. The bootcampers I
| know haven't had any trouble getting hired.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Totally anecdotal from an employer perspective, but I haven't
| seen any companies turning away from bootcamp grads.
| kbenson wrote:
| Possibly related to the submission here from a few days ago:
| "Lambda School agrees to end deceptive educational financing
| practices."[1]
|
| Additionally, I found another story from a few months back with
| a lot of comments: "Lambda School is the biggest mistake I made
| this year."[2]
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26946972
|
| 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25415017
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| In my experience, the signal to noise ratio for bootcamp is
| very low.
|
| You might get a diamond in the rough sometimes but it's so
| inefficient compared to a hiring pipeline from real schools.
| Lambda now has a program where you can "try" one of their
| graduates for a few weeks free of charge. Contrast that with
| the signing bonuses you see negotiated at serious career
| fairs... That should give you an idea how much people trust
| Lambda's grads.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > Lambda now has a program where you can "try" one of their
| graduates for a few weeks free of charge.
|
| Any idea how this works? It seems like it would be difficult
| to have such a program without running afoul of labor laws.
| Does Lambda have the equivalent of a temp staffing agency
| subsidiary to facilitate this program?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I think it is an industry moving away from boot camp grads.
| Almost all these boot camps focused on JavaScript and HTML/CSS.
|
| None of them were really teaching Linux sysadmin, clustering,
| scaling, etc. The real world needs developers that understand
| more than just frontend development.
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| Surprise, surprise, you can't speedrun engineering skills.
| rightsizing wrote:
| Never heard of a right-sizing before. The linguistic hurdles of
| execs will never cease to amaze me!
| rwc wrote:
| This is extraordinarily common language to use in this
| scenario. Dates back to 1989 according to MW:
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rightsize
| a_lieb wrote:
| "Rightsizing" is a weird one, because it's occasionally used
| for benign stuff like reducing the rate of hiring. Much like
| "enhanced interrogation techniques," the broader meaning
| provides shelter for what it's really used for most of the
| time.
| manigandham wrote:
| It's a common business term, specifically referring to an
| optimal size rather than just downsizing to reduce cost and
| overhead.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Strangely enough, you never hear about "right-sizing" when
| increasing headcount.
| fridif wrote:
| To be fair, while I'm no "corporate simp", it is entirely
| possible that a company has hired too many people and needs to
| fire them to return to the "right size" for profitability to be
| sustained.
| hobs wrote:
| We needed to reduce headcount to maintain profitability. You
| can keep some marketing speak without being absolutely full
| of it.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > We needed to reduce headcount to maintain profitability.
|
| _Is_ Lambda School profitable? They're still pretty new.
| And in an entrenched /moderately regulated space. I'd be
| surprised.
| granzymes wrote:
| It's definitely not a new euphemism. Here's a HN comment from
| 2008 discussing it:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=403637
| acheron wrote:
| The _Dilbert Principle_ book from 1998 or whatever has a joke
| about it.
| jampekka wrote:
| What amazes me even more is how this doublespeak has any effect
| at all anymore. Are there still people who don't see through
| this? Or are the execs in such a bubble they believe it
| themselves?
| granzymes wrote:
| I wonder to what extent it has simply become a term of art.
| In biology, a specimen that is killed in the course of an
| experiment is described as "sacrificed" and has been for over
| a hundred years.
|
| We expect certain words in a layoff press release, and so the
| writers of those press releases use those words.
| afavour wrote:
| Also of note:
|
| > One immediate change, however, is that we are pausing new
| enrollment in our part-time programs.
|
| This all surprised me a little since I imagined schools like this
| would be doing well, pandemic job losses and expanded
| unemployment ought to make for a great market of prospective
| students. I guess it hasn't been that simple.
| symlinkk wrote:
| Kind of weird seeing this after following Austen on Twitter for
| so long, he is always bragging on there about how well they're
| doing. I guess things aren't always as great as they seem!
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| After seeing him on HN a few times it's really no surprise. He
| always seems to spin things positively. He even does it in this
| post.
| idoh wrote:
| That's too bad. I'm rooting for Lambda School, they are trying
| hard to innovate in the area of education. Maybe ISAs are the
| future, maybe not, but the traditional university track of
| spending out $100K+ is clearly not the future.
|
| They should have been really excelling during the 2020 year of
| covid, I wonder where things went wrong. Anyone know?
| lifer555 wrote:
| I am a recent LS graduate. The program is a total shit show. I
| was able to get a job but I would never recommend it to anyone.
| They are just very good at marketing. Great idea, terrible
| execution.
| pilingual wrote:
| What about it makes you say that?
| staticautomatic wrote:
| The job is at a fast food restaurant.
| void_mint wrote:
| Most code schools (including Lambda School) don't really
| train students effectively. It's closer to a crash course
| in a bunch of different topics. Students that graduate
| often aren't actually able to perform whatever they were
| supposed to have learned effectively on the job. Worse, to
| pad hiring stats, lots of code schools also will hire
| recent grads that cannot find employment as instructors.
| They technically aren't lying when they say "95% of
| graduates get a job within 6 months", but their statistics
| would be a lot worse if you looked at those hired
| _externally_.
|
| Code schools are actually pretty gross. The idea is fine,
| but reality and greed kind of ruin them.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Aligning educational incentives is hard because no one wants to
| take the risks (a student who could be a 1x-10x developer or
| just wash out) and the costs (quality engineering talent that
| could be making serious money in industry) on.
|
| Traditionally, you'd expect technology companies to have a
| pipeline to identify and cultivate junior talent (an
| apprenticeship). Instead, they rather pass the buck to leetcode
| and bootcamps. Quality engineers are expensive, so you have to
| operate your bootcamp similar to the traditional higher
| education TA model (low paid teaching the paying). Are ISAs
| predatory? Hard to say, depending on what you think of equity,
| free will, determinism, and "someone has to take the chance and
| pay for this."
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Traditionally, you'd expect technology companies to have a
| pipeline to identify and cultivate junior talent. Instead,
| they rather pass the buck to leetcode and bootcamps.
|
| They do. It's called internships.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Will they take you with zero engineering experience?
| Because my local trades union will take you from zero to an
| electrical journeyman. I am unaware of any engineering org
| that'll take you right off the street and take you to
| productive commits. If anything, everyone is looking for
| the cream of the crop.
| void_mint wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26946972
|
| Not all degrees are 100k. Lots of STEM degrees pay themselves
| off. The real issue is the time commitment. Most code school
| students (IME) are career changers that can't afford to spend
| 2-4 years changing skillsets. Also, Lambda School caps ISA at
| 30k, which I would argue is insane for a 6 month fulltime
| program. To your 100k example, college is actually cheaper.
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