Reinventing The Bootcamp Idea

Fueled by discontent for the lack of real-world coding knowledge traditional academia provides, we decided to organize and run free software development bootcamp in Croatia. It's called Infinum Academy, it's a month long course in building Rails, iOS and Android from scratch. We built the curriculum using our own best-practices and 10-years worth of industry knowledge. The talk is about how we ran the bootcamp, how our company almost fell apart in the process, what we learned, why we burned twice as much time as we estimated, and how came up victorious in the end.

Transcript

1. Reinventing the bootcamp
   idea
   

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2. Damir Svrtan
   Rails Team Lead @ Infinum
   

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4. 0
   30
   60
   90
   120
   2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
   INFINUM
   Employee growth
   

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5. C / C++ / C#
   

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6. C / C++ / C#
   

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7. Infinum Student
   Academy
   

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8. Goal
   Build a full blown app
   in a month.
   

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9. 3 Classes
   

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10. 3 Classes
    4 Weeks
    

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11. 3 Classes
    4 Weeks
    8 Lectures
    

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12. 3 Classes
    4 Weeks
    8 Lectures
    8 Homeworks
    

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13. 3 Classes
    4 Weeks
    8 Lectures
    8 Homeworks
    15 Students Per Class
    

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14. The Building Blocks
    

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15. Practical knowledge
    

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17. Mentorship
    

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18. No official certificates
    

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19. Employment opportunity
    

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20. 100% FREE
    

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21. Preparations
    with a strict deadline
    

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22. A month.
    

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23. 240 Candidates
    

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24. 45 Students
    

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25. Rails Course
    

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26. A Reddit Clone
    

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27. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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28. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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29. for i in 0..5
    puts i
    end
    For loops
    

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30. ..but in Ruby..
    

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31. (1..5).each { |i| puts i }
    Enumerators
    

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32. ..but in Ruby..
    

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33. (1..5).each do |i|
    puts i
    end
    Blocks with do-end
    

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34. -5.abs()
    Everything is an object
    

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35. ..but in Ruby..
    

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36. -5.abs
    Parenthesis are optional
    

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37. this
    Current object
    

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38. ..but in Ruby..
    

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39. self
    Current object
    

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40. null
    Non-existing value
    

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41. ..but in Ruby..
    

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42. nil
    Non-existing value
    

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43. Ruby is weird.
    

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44. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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45. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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46. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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48. AJAX
    The Rails Way
    

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49. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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50. Devise
    

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51. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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52. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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53. Curriculum
    Intro to Ruby
    Intro to Rails
    Active Record
    Action View
    Authentication
    Optimisations /ActionMailer / Image Upload
    API
    Testing
    

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54. Homework
    

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55. The Pull Request
    Ping Pong
    

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56. Tools / Services
    

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62. Be really specific?
    

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63. Mistakes
    

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64. Poor estimates
    

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65. Poor estimates
    300h
    

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66. Poor estimates
    300h
    600h
    

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67. “Taste the meal before
    you serve it.”
    

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68. let(:post) { create(:post) }
    ...
    it 'creates a post' do
    post :create, post: { title: 'Hello World' }
    expect(response).to be_success
    end
    

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69. Cover git basics.
    

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71. 30 Graduates
    

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72. 10 Employed
    

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74. Student Feedback
    

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75. “The Academy was oriented on practical work
    and it was the first time I had specific feedback
    on the code I wrote.”
    

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76. “In a month, I’ve learned more useful things
    than three-years-worth of college, and I had no
    previous experience in the technology.”
    

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77. Average student rating:
    4,6/5
    

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78. Linkedin
    

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79. Conclusions
    

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80. Comfort zone.
    

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81. Different viewpoint.
    

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82. Scaled onboarding
    

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83. Build your community
    

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85. Damir Svrtan
    Rails Team Lead @ Infinum
    Organizer @ Ruby Zagreb
    @DamirSvrtan
    www.infinum.co
    

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