I'd be curious to learn how others approach private alpha (how long to stay in it, who to include, what to test, how to think about feature additions/pivots, etc...)
Like many of the other commenters here, I'm also a co-founder of a trade school (Code Fellows, we're 2 years old) that offers immersive programs for web and mobile developers. We have 13 different offerings to accommodate developers with varying skill levels and interests. Our flagship program teaches students who have on average ~2yrs of experience writing code professionally, and our hiring partners offer them >$75k/yr in Seattle (on average, though the spread is interesting...detailed stats here --> https://www.codefellows.org/alumni-stats)
I've talked with hundreds of hiring managers about this topic, and - to answer your last question - the reason why they want CS degrees is because web/mobile developers often need to design systems and solve complex computational problems (not to mention the need to build well-tested, scalable products). There really is no shortcut to learning the foundations of CS necessary to perform well at these tasks.
Thus, to piggyback off of what others have said here, many students who go through these intensive programs often have CS backgrounds and are looking for intense "polish" to get up to speed on recent industry tools and practices.
Good call, this does need better clarification. Thanks. I was aiming at the idea that a JS Dev will need to think through model relationships, views, security, performance, etc... (similar to what a "back-end" dev does)...but I could have phrased that better.
I totally agree. Most startups have one or two people wearing all 5+ hats (which is OK, of course). I've found it especially helpful to think about these different roles when building out the team (and, in earlier stages, considering if there is sufficient coverage amongst the founders).
Agreed. Seriously. Great work, team. If anyone is able to help them get to the finish line - as I see they are requesting - go grab a task to work on (https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js/issues/3246) and join the #emberjs-dev IRC channel on Freenode.