Translating Bootcamp & Collab Lab
to Real Dev Job
Caitlyn Greffly
Hey, I’m Caitlyn.
I’m an Associate Software Engineer at Zapproved.
I was in the first cohort of Collab Lab!
@thecaitcode
Codebase
Bootcamp: Start every project from scratch on a beautiful blank slate. You copy the up to date examples from the coursework and it looks great.
Real Dev Job: There are tens of thousands of lines of code already written by 200 different people over 8 years in 3 different frameworks. You try to copy the existing code but it was poorly written 3 years ago.
Volume of Code
Bootcamp: Write 200 lines of code in a day.
Real Dev Job: Read 200 lines of code. Write one line of code. Research. Read 50 lines of code. Write one line of code. Break something. Delete one line of code.
Code Quality
Bootcamp: Make it work!
Real Dev Job: Make it work. Make it readable. Make it consistent with the current code. Make updates if the current code is old. Make sure you didn’t add any code that doesn’t actually do anything. Make sure your variables are named well. Make the changes suggested in your PR.
Meetings
Bootcamp: Coding is 90% of what you do with your time.
Real Dev Job: There will be stand up. And design meetings. And team meetings. And company wide meetings. And code review. And sprint planning. And sprint review. Some days you won’t write a single line of code.
Timeline
Bootcamp: You just learned React last week so this week you will write an entire React app in 2 days.
Real Dev Job: This sprint you have two tickets to work on. One requires you to fix a button that looks a little wonky. Another is to write an error message for when a user tries to do something stupid.
Talking About Collab Lab in an Interview