Unbiased?
"We make money through inquiry generation. This means that bootcamps pay us to appear in various advertising placements across our site (marked with the word "Advertisement or "Ad") and if a user clicks on an advertising school, they will have the option to submit a form requesting that a representative of the school contact them with more information. Submitting this form creates an "inquiry", which the school pays us for, since inquiries can turn into future enrollments at these bootcamps." [https://www.switchup.org/advertising](https://www.switchup.org/advertising)
In Summary: "We get paid for lead generation by bootcamps who advertise with us".
They could make money with Google/Facebook ads but choose instead to make money from the bootcamps they feature on their site.
They might be trying to do things right, but not unbiased. Their business model is entirely based on b…
It's extremely unlikely unless you went to school in the USA and have OPT status. The H1B lottery was super over subscribed (like a 25% chance of getting a visa) so companies can't risk that as well when they have very experienced people they want to put in the lottery.
Your best bet is going to a top tier company in India, Europe, or Canada, and then transferring after 1 year on L status, or waiting in that country until you win the H1B lottery.
Oh that's funny, yeah I don't know about actual rocketship companies hahaha, or Elon's companies in general. I mean like solid $10B valuation high growth companies with very good products and lots of paying users.
Thanks for sharing your views. I hope I didn't come across like I was making a judgement. I work with a lot of people early career now, and I understand and appreciate, the real diversity in backgrounds and goals people have. I do think that all things equal, people can try to align their passions and interests with their jobs to different degrees, and doing so will result in a more successful and happier career over the long term. Doesn't have to be as extreme as maybe I made it sound.
Thanks for the push back! It’s a very good point that a lot of private stock might not be a rocket ship.
So what I saw at Facebook was that people with this passion alignment progressed in their careers crazy fast, maybe almost too fast. So after a few years, if the company failed, you might be a whole level or two ahead at typical FAANG. So I would argue that there are other ways it can pay off in your career other than annual comp year to year.
I agree I was absurdly lucky, but I do think others can try to make their own luck to have a better shot at that. It doesn’t have to be two binary outcomes. (Not through raw hard work, but aligning your passions)
You won’t learn enough in a bootcamp to gain true expertise any stack, so as long as you aren’t learning like a new stack every week it doesn’t matter thaaaat much. Both Hack Reactor and Codesmith are solid choices. Check out Rithm too. All of these are intense… Codemsith is 11 hour days, so making sure the day to day is a good fit is far more important than the stack.
Awesome you probably lean towards product then and this resonates. I would build projects that leverage your experience. Maybe some kind of integration with the Figma API for example. Then leverage that to try to get an interview there... or hit up some ex-FB colleagues who might work there and show it to them :)
I like building something out of nothing, and then seeing that thing help improve people's lives/save people time/enable them to do something creatively they haven't done before.
That's fair, I made a qualitative and biased-ridden observation, and 100% agree. I often tell people that the high performers are not on Blind and Reddit complaining because they are busy.
It was an emotional reaction on my part, but I'm human.
I think if you join some rocketship companies now you'll make much more in the next 5 years than making $250K at Jane Street or similar cash heavy comp company annually now for five years.
All of the richest people I know were so passionate about what they do, they became uniquely talented at something in that space that made them worth 8, 9, 10 figures. Even if you make a steady super high paycheck, relatively speaking these people will make more than your by an order of magnitude and you can never catch up. So IF MONEY IS YOUR MOTIVATION (which it is NOT for everyone) you will only be relatively rich by joining a rocketship you are passionate about... and you will be perpetually sad chasing that by accepting cash heavy crazy high offers.
I'm friends with one of the many founder yeah and I agree, Databricks is one of the hardest companies to get into and most talented teams around right now.
I don't want to name drop here, but I think Figma and Notion are others in this bucket of special companies right now.
Honestly, it was absolutely the norm/average for people at Meta in 2009/2010/2011-ish. It is absolutely NOT the norm if you join now haha.
But I do think there are the "2009 Facebooks" out there for everyone right now and if people find them they would be a lot happier than what I'm reading in this sub.
Why does everyone hate their job.... I love my job! Does anyone else love their job?
I was reading through the recent top ranked posts in the sub and it was super negative and made me sad. These were the titles:
[Is there no hope to start a career in software engineering without an internship?](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/wwwqk3/is_there_no_hope_to_start_a_career_in_software/), [I just don’t care about the job anymore. What happened to me?](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/wx3w70/i_just_dont_care_about_the_job_anymore_what/), [Verbal attacks at Work. What now?](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/wwiknn/verbal_attacks_at_work_what_now/), [Post Graduation job search isn't going well and I'm under a lot of stress, worry, and concern right now because of additional situations.](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/w…
It depends on the experience and people have different points of view here even WITHIN FORMATION haha, it's very personal and depends on how your job hunt is going.
Like bootcamps have a fixed curriculum and templates for each step so they steer you towards one resume, one way of doing things. I would start with this approach/way of doing things as the first attempt.
Then if you aren't getting traction you can can start being more creative. For example, my brother got a job at Riot Games 10 years working on LoL - he was playing so much day in and day out and this was his dream job, so he wrote a cover letter describing him as a new "Champion" in the game with a cute character image and stuff and he got the job! A new grad engineer from Canada with with an analyst role at a Game thousands of miles away.
So if you have a passion and unique take on things, even if you are delivering Doo…
Derek is pretty funny has an edge that at first I was like whoa who is this person, but has a lot of good stuff to say too, looks at things from different angles. And I think he has a good sense of humor too :D
Yeah alumni do spend a lot of time cranking Leetcode, and giving back to Codesmith, by teaching and doing random things to boost experience, and if it takes 3 MORE months to get a job I think that time can be spent more efficiently. Which I need to disclose my extreme bias here, because Formation (disclosure, co-founder) works with numerous Codesmith alumni to more efficiently and effectively prepare for top tier interviews after Codesmith and then refer them and help them find pathways to solid matching companies. It's really a win-win-win IMO (despite two leaders at Codesmith badmouthing me, and being accused of stealing students). Also note, we are backlogged right now for people with zero work experience so if you are reading this, you likely have to wait a bit to start.
That’s what I’ve heard too but are all cohorts 34 to 36 people. The CIRR results are never close to multiples of these numbers and do look like people drop out.
Sorry u/Swimming_Gain_4989, I have to disclose that as the co-founder of Formation.dev I have a following on here and I try to answer questions more broadly for everyone and sometimes a too broad lol.
So the CIRR data is audited and Codesmith follows the process. Now CIRR is a business league non-profit, and auditors are not perfect, there are some small loopholes in CIRR but I don't think it's enough to invalidate the results.
I think some of it is perception. People who get jobs before graduation might be out the door and it feels like for SIX MONTHS it's the same old crew trying to get jobs.
That said, Codesmith cohorts have fairly consistent sizes and they have been "fully booked" for a long time. Yet the number of people included in each report doesn't add up to 36 \* a whole number +/- some wiggle room, it's been like all over the place. Now Codesmith countered this with "cohort…
So I'm obviously extremely biased here, but if you can pull out any kind of relevant experience and frame it authentically but getting the most bang for your buck for your audience, then you should be able to get some interviews. And if you can get some interviews and have solid DS&A, you should be able to get a job.
I can give some thoughts on this, TLDR: CIRR results are real and Codesmith has very high outcomes on paper, but there are two sides to everything yes, nothing is perfect. I talk often to Don (disclosure, Formation.dev, company I co-founded, has sponsored one of this videos - as he doesn't accept bootcamp sponsorships, this is one of the only non-bootcamp sponsorships he's ever done but it could be a bias)
So first of all, I believe it was hard for him to find Codesmith alumni for a few reasons:
1. People don't list it on their LinkedIn's often because Codesmith suggests people exclude it from their history so their skills can shine, rather than any credentials.
2. To remain unbiased he won't include people who reach out to HIM first wanting to be on his podcast.
3. There are a lot of vocal Codesmith supporters that have worked either part time or full time at Codesmith in some capacit…
Thanks for sharing, that's definitely interesting. And cool that you were a chef!
We have history, you don't like me, but nonetheless, I have some advice given that! I don't think you need a degree to get a job and if you have a strong history in the fine dining industry it would be cool to leverage that to get a job.
I know Toast is hiring a lot of people, generally senior, but like need to hire dozens of people and there could be a path there. Doordash is also hiring a ton of engineers, but they do have a fairly high bar leaning senior. OpenTable is also hiring a ton of people and is also super relevant for how a dining room is run.
Anyways I would double down on that experience. You might have insights into food-adjacent tech companies that can help land that role. I would make a resume that highlights this experience and have a good mini cover letter ready and send it to some rec…
So the 90% placement rate is of people who graduate, but about 95% of people graduate as well, so the actual placement is a little lower.... this is one of the downsides of CIRR, that it breaks apart the two, but nonetheless, Codesmith's results are strong.
So there was a Course Report talk a few years ago where an exec, Philip Troutman, said 'a third of people have a degree or relevant experience' but I also would love to hear concrete numbers. Codesmith pointed this out recently as well, but showing results by background is really important missing information.
If you look at CIRR, 20% of people make under $110K and 20% over $140K. So I would suspect the people making over $140K have relevant experience and under $110K don't.
Hi, if you've done any scripting, or even Verilog, I think you'll pick up programming fast. So I think going to a bootcamp depends on your goals. Codesmith is certainly one of the top programs for getting a job at the end, and wouldn't be a bad choice. But you likely don't need a bootcamp either, as your friends have said. If you can work on the CS fundamentals (e.g. CS50) and get really good at solving general data structures and algorithms programs, you can probably get a job on your own.
If you are gunning for a top tier/FAANG-level job, I would look more at career accelerations (e.g. Interview Kickstart, Outco, Formation.dev (see disclosure)) that focus on getting you interview ready. Codesmith/a bootcamp would be a good option for getting a solid first foor in the door job as a SWE.
Disclosure for any biases: I'm the co-founder of Formation.dev so I'm fairly biased to focus on th…
Keep a close eye on the deadlines for apprenticeship because they are normally once or twice a year and short time windows. Dropbox Ignite just closed. LinkedIn Reach is expecting the fall: https://careers.linkedin.com/reach
Take a look at Formation.dev, I dont want to market it so look on your own. We work with a very small number of people with no bootcamp or prior experience but they fall into the bucket you describe. We are also backlogged right now so you might not even be able to get in... but it's worth taking a look and considering the full spectrum of your options.
Another thing you can try is applying to top tier apprenticeships, like Dropbox Ignite and Asana Up and LinkedIn Reach. They have high DSA bars and might be a path to accelerate.
There are many. Statsig is a hot company right now. Rockset is another one. Vanta.
You want to look for funding series B, C and 5+ year ex-FAANG engineerings amongst the founders and have top tier investors
Trusted connections and referrals help for companies like this.
I partially agree with another commenter on here that referrals at FAANG mean you are putting your own reputation on the line.If you consistently refer good people, your referrals are trusted more and if you don't they are not trusted. That said, here are three counter points.
1. Some FAANG companies have different pathways for people without experience, like apprenticeship or internships. Having inside connections can help refer you to the right program and maybe get you noticed, as these pathways are every competitive.
2. There are smaller companies run by ex-FAANG engineers that are super strong and have similar interview processes. These might be more approachable for someone with less experience if they have the resources to ramp you up. It can be hard to hire great people at the less known awesome companies and they are sometimes willing to invest a bit in ramping up someone with…
Sorry if my language wasn't clear but I meant a guarantee that only a job in tech is considered.
I agree that it might be possible to structure a program around that gaurantee as well, nothings impossible, it's just not really reasonable for most bootcamps.
The ISA providers put that in there to have the power to do go very deep in collecting if needed, but the program itself can choose to not require tax reconciliation and can choose which types of income to consider. Your agreement/contract with your program, not the ISA itself, should specify clearly what income is considered and you can hold the program accountable to that.
That sounds like a very stressful situation, but it also sounds like a Lambda School problem.
Some ISAs (like Pathrise and Formation) explicitly only look at BASE salary on a new job to prevent this kind of thing from happening because its awful.... especially to take the money without any heads-up or warning. As you said, because there is no regulation, an ISA is just a contract between two people, and some people can be trusted more than others, and you are ultimately banking on your trust with the specific program.
Sorry this happened to you :(
Your account is 8 days old and some of the things you reference reminds me of several accounts from alleged Codesmith students/alumni that have attacked me in the past and then been eventually deleted from Reddit. So I will be choosing to not engage. Sorry if I'm completely off the mark here I just don't have time to for this to keep going on if that is the case.
Anyone reading this, please read my comment history, it's public, and decide for yourself what you think of my advice and my disclosures.
I accept the feedback that I need to be very careful about disclosures and it will continue to be top of mind in my comments in this subreddit and across similar subreddits.
EDIT: and I'm blocked... the classic "last word" long text + block strategy I was alluding to in the patterns above happening yet again. I use my real name here to be transparent. If I wanted to have a secret campaig…
I co-founded a technology company called Formation.dev but we are building a technology platform to train engineers that's nothing at all like a school.
We offer ISAs as a choice to engineers who train on our platform to pay for that training, yes, but it's fairly irrelevant, it's a choice people wanted and we are indifferent. As long as you put in the work, we work with you for as long as it takes to get a new job you love, so people like the ISA model to wait until that transition to pay.
I disagree that you need to get a job in tech in order for an ISA to apply, but with a little bit of nuance. Here's why:
1. First off, you shouldn't expect to have a tech job guarantee in an ISA. The best bootcamps have like an 80% placement rate (from people signing up -> getting a job 6 months after graduating). A school offering a tech job guarantee is wayyyyy more sketchy than a school NOT offering one, because it's very unlikely that even the best bootcamps can guarantee that.
2. If you get legitimate training (i.e. it's not a scam) and the school paid their staff, content creators, instructors, etc... then you should be paying something for that training. Maybe you shouldn't be paying the ENTIRE amount if you don't get a tech job, but you got SOMETHING out of the training, even if you didn't get that job.
3. You should see an ISA as an alternative to paying upfront, but be ment…
If you tell them explicitly to stop and they don't, that's harassment and it's not normal, so I would try telling them to stop (even if it's by email instead of call).
Question: is it the bootcamp itself, or a 3rd party sourcer like Career Karma? If it's the bootcamp itself, I would probably cross them off the list because that sounds too desperate to get you to join to be honest and that's not a good sign in my opinon.
I mean I don't know if Leif has a special arrangement with them to operate automatically on their behalf, but someone from the program should have access to your contract in Leif to check things out and to also prevent it from having "legal problems" while you sort it out.
Regarding disputing the contract. If the program did try to teach out and wasn't a giant scam, then you should pay something for the time and effort... one of the problems with ISAs is that some programs make it seem like you only have to pay it if you get a good job in tech, but that's wrong, and you should think of an ISA as a way to pay for the training you received, not the outcome you expected. If the training itself was subpar to what you expected, talk to the program about reducing your ISA to a reasonable amount of money that you think you feel is appropriate.
Hi, I can give you advice from the program side.
1. Contact the program itself, hopefully you are on good enough terms to do so.
2. Make partial payments for the "correct" amounts you think you owe to show good intentions, while Leif/program are sorting things out.
3. If you don't pay by the due date at all, I think they just carry forward your balance and you have to not pay for 6 months to go to collections or something. Double check if you have late fees though.
4. The program has to direct Leif to pursue collections. You won't have "legal problems" per se from Leif.
5. I would recommend documenting your stuff on your own in a spreadsheet so if something does happen, you should you were on top of things and organized.
To me this doesn't sound so much like a bad cohort, but just a competitive bootcamp. One of the reasons I'm in this sub is to try to give balanced advice from the perspective of someone with a ton of industry experience, to people seeking out bootcamps and graduating from bootcamps because this sub has a lot of people hyping up certain ones without talking about the day to day.
Feel free to DM me if you want more personal advice to try to work through this.
I've worked with a lot of (10+) Codesmith alumni who come to Formation and can comment on some trends where I think the DS&A bar is at.
Most have a good starting DS&A, not quite at the top tier bar. Most get through the basics relatively quickly compared to other bootcamp grads but most people need some reinforcement/relearning in one or more areas. They then spend a similar amount of time as everyone else on the intermediate (and advanced) concepts that are needed to consistently be at the FAANG bar.
In general, bootcamps are not the best environment for teaching DS&A because of the fixed timeframe and fixed curriculum structure. These aren't just problems to pass an interview, but it SHOULD be about learning abstract concepts and patterns that be applied to solve complex real world problems. People learn these at different paces and have different degrees of and areas of interest. S…
No problem. Sorry I don't have time right now to write more but feel free to ping me if you are narrowing down options. I always recommend cold outreach to alumni on LinkedIn to ask how the day to day was (ignoring the fluff) to see what is a good fit for you.
Hi, welcome! There are no bootcamp that prepare you for true top-tier mid-level positions, they all prepare you for entry level positions. If you want to work really hard I would consider Codesmith yeah. I worked at FB for 8 years, interviewed hundreds of people, observed hiring committees, help train interviewers, etc... and Codesmith's definition of "mid level" isn't consistent with the top tier bar. Case and point: a "mid level" FAANG engineer has a base salary of at least $150K and most are \~$170K and 80% of Codesmith's outcomes - according to their CIRR data - are under $140K base salaries.
Codesmith grads with no experience who get top tier jobs, get entry level top tier jobs, not mid-level. People can get fairly high paying "mid-level" jobs at smaller companies or non-tech focused companies and the titles get mixed up with the salaries in their marketing.
So TLDR; don't rule t…