The founder has a lot of experience teaching st bootcamps or entry level coding so I would try to find alumni and talk to them 1-1 about their experiences and see if it's a good fit.
I always recommend finding recruiters for specific companies you are interested in on LinkedIn, ideally ones posting about hiring, and explaining briefly your passion for the company - with specific examples.
Yeah tell me about it. At Formation we were trying to do this and decided to excluded private stock and options that had no primary or secondary market value in our numbers - which obviously lowers them, but in Codesmith's "Where are they now" report (which is not CIRR based) says they include all that in their numbers ("signing/annual bonus, stock options, equity, and relocation expenses") so presumably they have a way.
But I totally agree it's impossible for early stage private equity and options. The outcome is a range of probabilities and maybe they have some consistent way of calculating a mean.
Disclaimer, the following might appear critical of Codesmith, but I want to focus on the HOW IT HAPPENS instead of the WHAT HAPPENS. I also need to reiterate that it's a great program with great outcomes and a heck of a lot of fantastic alumni who are are hard working, professional and gr…
I think that's a good question to ask a bootcamp that isn't. "Why aren't you in CIRR" and if they don't explain something that makes sense or checks out, that would be a flag to me.
One of the big problems with CIRR results are that they don't break down people by prior experience. I think this is really important for people to identify what "someone like them" might do in the program. Some bootcamps target specific backgrounds in specific geographic locations and might have low outcomes compare number to number, but strong outcomes for the bar they are starting with.
A lot of bootcamps went remote during COVID and took in people from all over the country. Salaries in tech are almost always location-based so location is now an important factor. For example, Rithm used to be in person and is now online. They are shifting from people in downtown SF to people all over the country. It's…
This is fantastic! I wish the other people on here would have a proper debate about the pros and cons like that post shares. Would love to have a valuable discussion with people about some of those pros and cons.
For example, I still want to know why the other people left, and why Codesmith nominated someone in May instead of in the past, and what they plan on doing with that seat. All reasonable things to talk about without being yelled at.
Hi, yeah to be very clear, I'm not doubting the CIRR results or the integrity of the CIRR process, nor am I criticizing Codesmith, I'm just think it's something notable to be aware of: that CIRR has pros and cons like anything else.
CIRR is strictly based on base salary only and Codesmith alumni with good jobs have stock and bonuses that are completely excluded so their real numbers are better than CIRR reports.
If I was Codesmith, I would try to get a more wholistic view of TC into CIRR. Which yes might benefit them, but also might make CIRR more accurate. Lots of ways of looking at things!
To answer the question though, I'm interested in it because a lot of people rely on CIRR as the source of truth as there's nothing else to go off of, and I want to help people make the right choice for the right reasons and ultimately help people find their right starting point in their careers.…
I'm here with my real name, my one account, giving people advice day in and day out and I'm sure some of those people will back me up. I'm here consistently being helpful and reasonable in all my discussions about all kinds of topics and not once have a not given genuinely helpful advice to someone.
**On the other hand, you work at Codesmith on the side (or worked recently), do not disclose it, and keep defaming me and my company when I talk about Codesmith in any way that is perceived negatively. EDIT: the person denies they worked/work there and claims this is false.**
Responses to statements for other people reading this:
1. Formation doesn't cost at least $20,000+. I don't know where you are getting that number or if you know how ISA caps work. We have several paths and several payment options. Only one pathway, if paid with an ISA, can exceed $20K and it certainly is not the mini…
If you read this thread I'm defending Codesmith by being REASONABLE and trying to understand where the person is coming from. Not everything is one way or the other, there is a middle ground.
Trying to understand where people are coming from instead of jumping on them and attacking them is not an ugly look. Having a throwaway account that only criticizes people and promotes Codesmith is an ugly look.
I have met a ton of people on here that have a similar mindset about being very reasonable about looking at things and have had great productive discussions, often reinforcing to people that choosing to GO TO CODESMITH is the right move for them.
CIRR board member shakeup, four people out, Codesmith in, anyone know anything?
Hi all, I keep tabs on CIRR as it's a very interesting organization trying to standardize bootcamp outcomes. It's a 501c6 business league that was founded by Ascent Funding (who provided student loans for bootcamps) and it is made up of bootcamp representatives who have been trying to standardize outcomes in the industry.
It has it's pros and cons, which I've talked about extensively and aren't part of this post, but someone pointed out to me that in the past month or so the following board members **left CIRR**:
* Erin Frazier, Senior Director of Operations & Marketing, The Software Guild
* Joseph Kozusko, Chief Growth Officer, Ascent Funding
* Lesia Harhaj, Director of Career Success, Fullstack Academy
* Sharon Wienbar, Independent Director, former coding bootcamp CEO
And the following board members **w…
Oh wow you're right the whole board just changed! There were a lot of other people on it before and now there are only four now and Codesmith indeed has a representative now whereas a few weeks ago they didn't. Thank you for pointing that out!
Codesmith is not a board member but yeah CIRR is a business league/lobbying group. Nothing wrong with that, but people have gone on giant rants about how CIRR is the only thing that can be trusted and it's cult-like misdirection. It's reliable but you need to understand how it works, like any other source of information you rely on.
There aren't any secret conspiracies, but yeah the "standards" are created by bootcamp leaders and they are designed to help bootcamps highlight their strengths. They hide the results by adding levels of data - so first they fork off people who graduated and then they fork off people who have jobs - and then they show all their salary data.
For example, at Codesmith somewhere around 85% +/- 5% of people graduate on time and get jobs within six months, but their 125K median is only of THOSE PEOPLE and does not factor in the people who didn't get jobs or did…
Hi, I don't like quoting one-off results as proof or evidence because everyone has a unique job hunt with different goals. Like maybe that person's goals were different and that was the 2nd best outcome even if their compensation sounds impressive on paper.
Overall 81% of placements are at top tier companies (FAANG, big tech, top tier startups, decacorns, etc...).
We also don't have enough "direct from bootcamp" results to be significant either, but I can give some general common groups of people that have bootcamp backgrounds:
1. Bootcamp, foot in the door job (or better) for anywhere from six months to a few years, Formation, job. This is the most common case, vast majority, and people generally have good practical skills and need to work on fundamental CS concepts like data structures and algorithms.
2. No bootcamp, self study, direct to Formation. The average base salary i…
Great question. So we have a deep bench on staff. I was 8 years FB E7, we have two other ex-FB E7+ engineers, two senior/staff ex-FB/MSFT engineers, an ex-Oracle/Amazon senior engineers, ex-FB 10 year recruiter, and two other ex-FAANG \~5 year each recruiters. We also have top tier investors who have a pulse on the industry behind the scenes too. So through all of these connections and network (and obviously how Fellows are doing on the job hunt) we have a pulse on how things are moving.
We lean very very ex-FB heavy, and while we've been at FB so long we know people all over the place now at pretty much every company, we do have a Facebook-leaning network.
I love that you mentioned probabilities. Some people come to us thinking that they do Formation to "pay for referrals" or asking us to "guarantee they pass their Stripe interview" and that's not how the industry works. Every intervi…
>As the husband of a current CodeSmith student, and a lead engineer, I agree with this description of the program. The tactics can be very surface-level. A tech talk and an open source project (that is made to look like a company on LinkedIn) can make a candidate appear much more senior than they actually are, on the surface, and give someone with no production engineering experience the false impression that they have more experience than they really do. And that is the secret sauce of CodeSmith.
The problem is: Everything is taught so quickly that it's impossible for most students to absorb it, and there is very variable quality beneath the sauce. (For example, a whole semester worth of data structures in an undergraduate course is taught in 2 days during the first week of the program). There's no possible way to do that deeply and well. Furthermore, classes are taught on powerpoint…
We check the email addresses against a spam list, but it's fairly aggressive and might have misflagged you.
Can you DM me your email address and I can try look into it?
Interesting, thanks! Yeah I do know one person who also felt Codesmith was too slow as well and joined Formation (disclosure for anyone that doesn't know, I'm a co-founder and want to be transparent) after meeting the bar and being a better fit. I suspect anyone with work experience already or who is at a "leetcode medium" level Formation is probably better depending on their goals. But I honestly thought this was a small number of people... if it's a larger number this is really useful and explain some of the negative personal comments Codesmith employees and alumni have made about me haha.
I'm glad to hear they are trying hard to support someone falling behind. Despite these personal attacks I wish we could work better together and I think they really do have good intentions and care about each student. We have some fantastic Codesmith alumni at Formation who are highly motivated and…
Hi, we typically work with people with 1 - 3 years of work experience. We aren't a bootcamp or school and don't "teach" like a school does, but rather more like having a personal trainer to get your skills into shape for interviews and everyone needs different things to work on. If you don't have any experience you'll have to have self-taught fairly strong data structures and algorithms for our training to be effective.
You can try a couple of things:
1. Study Guide for interviews. You need to be able to get through maybe the first few sections: [https://formation.dev/join/](https://formation.dev/join/)
2. Benchmark assessment. You can try this to see how "FAANG-ready" your DS&A skills are at: [https://formation.dev/join/assessment](https://formation.dev/join/assessment)
3. 21 day coding challenge. If you want a problem a day to work on and see comfortable you feel. [https://formation.…
Codesmith opened up applications today for their in-person NYC Cohort in October. I would check that out! A lot of the people here who are current or recent Codesmith alums weren't around when it was in-person... and it was much smaller back then, but a lot of the tight community and "family feeling" that it has came from that time.
Very curious to see how this rebounds. Spending 11 hours a day M-F and 6 hours S with the same people feels super weird post COVID haha. And I wonder if the staff will still want to go in for those hours, or if they will want to be remote. Like a lot of staff live all over the country now and Fellows (which is a relatively new concept) are also all over the country.
Anyways, I would check it out!
Hey, the job market is changing a bit right now yeah. For top tier big tech, Facebook is frozen but for the past few months Randstad recruiters on behalf of Google have been talking to thousands of bootcamp grads and they were really ramping up. Amazon was also very approachable for bootcamp grads and their compensation increased significantly since end of last year. Google has a temp hiring freeze to "readjust priorities" and Amazon is slowing down hiring on some teams, but still chugging along.
A degree won't matter that much if you can get your foot in the door for an interview.
A lot of Codesmith alumni get their first jobs at a smaller company, or agencies, or banks, a very wide range out of options. They have an engaged network of alumni to help refer you to different places. And even if the economy gets worse, they will be around to help until you get a job.
The only time a deg…
I agree with this. The average person is probably making more cash.
The closest comparable in tech is Epic Games, but they are not paying that much haha.
They don't give any stock or equity like FAANG do and the bonuses are highly correlated to performance. You make similar comp at FAANG if you do well too based on performance.
It's not great to include your referral code in there and can come across scammy. I know they opened that up this week and it's a way to get a free program, but you are sharing it all over the place and saying random things and it actually makes NuCamp look sketchier as a result.
Uhh so this one is kind of funny but it is part of it. They obviously ask to confirm salaries and offer letters but they do check LinkedIn.
This is direct from the 2020 LA CIRR Report for Codesmith:
>Direct request of confirmation from Graduates regarding Employment outcomes and observation of LinkedIn profiles (the population was divided based on reported Salary quartiles, parameters were linked to stats which make up the report and students with salaries falling in a range determined to significantly affect stats whether directly or indirectly were included in sample).
[https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/eb6e615ccddf47e9a891a9c69f223025/1/Codesmith%20Los%20Angeles%20Full-Stack%20Software%20Development%20Audited-AUP%20H2%202020.pdf](https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/eb6e615ccddf47e9a891a9c69f223025/1/Codesmith%20Los%20A…
I don't know much about Coding Temple, other than I've heard of the name but more importantly for anyone offer a money back guarantee, you have to read the fine print and make sure you think you can reasonably do that.
For example, anecdotally, one program required you to BCC all you recruiter correspondence and screenshot job applications and if you didn't prove you did a certain amount, then the guarantee was removed (support continued though).
So read through this with a fine tooth combed: [https://codingtemple.com/mbg/](https://codingtemple.com/mbg/)
Then try to talk to alumni and ask them how their experience was, that will enlighten how strictly they enforce that policy and also just give you some insight into the day to day!
\+1 to the 1-3 month out thing comment, you need to wait for six months and not hearing anything for 1-3 months means nothing. They can collect data throughout though and not just at the 6 month mark, and there is a process for documenting this data. I believe Codesmith has an internal spreadsheet to properly log the information that is easily auditable.
I'm curious if you know anything about the "if you fail the test you can be excluded". I'm trying to defend Codesmith in this thread that this is probably some misunderstanding, and even if it was done, that it wouldn't be a big impact but it would be sketchy, but since you work at Codesmith, do you have a response or more information about that or don't know what this is about?
Lamba School renamed itself because of of a trademark lawsuit and not because of their brand. The even acquired a company in Florida called Red Lambda as a last ditch effort to bolster their case to keep the name. It was fun to follow along when it was happening and you can read the documents here: [https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/4:2019cv04060/344815](https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/4:2019cv04060/344815)
I just took a peek at these sections of the CIRR standards and even if they can't "contact someone" (and they have to try FOUR TIMES to classify as non-responsive) then they can't be removed from the report, they just count as not contactable. So people who are not asked to fill out the surveys should still be included in the report.
The school has to submit a list of students on day 3 to the auditors to avoid students being removed from the lists later on.
So if this is is happening, my hunch is these people are just considered "not graduated". One of the weaknesses of CIRR is that the salaries are based on PEOPLE WHO ARE EMPLOYED. So the median of $125K is of the people who reported and are employed. The 20% of other people at $0 salaries who either didn't graduate OR didn't get a job, are not included in that stat.
So my hunch is there isn't something fraudulent going on and that t…
Yeah sounds like Codesmith or Rithm or another top bootcamps could be a good fit. If you can do full time, do full time... it will be intense for a few months but you'll get a job much faster than 9 plus 3-6 months.
If the workload and hours are just so bad that it would be detrimental to your personal life, then yeah look at full time with better WLB, like Rithm is a great one.
Hi, what is your background and current programming experience, what is your current job and are you working, and what kinds of companies are you aiming for?
I can give better advice based on that. If you have the time to do full time and just don't know about the workload, I would definitely look for a different bootcamp that is still full time but less workload.
I also recommend Codesmith to a lot of people (not as the ONLY option but as an option to consider, I think Rithm school is probably the most ethical bootcamp and the founders are just such great people) and I get a lot of flak from the "army of Codesmith supporters" anytime I say anything that could be interpreted negatively. Some of the people are actually undisclosed Codesmith employees too and I ignore it haha... that's what Reddit's all about! But anyways I'll be around with my real name and pros-and-cons points of view.
This is 100% anecdotal at this point while it's not just one people that has said this, no has offered any proof or evidence, so I wouldn't change your recommendation unless there is something concrete and systemic.
Do you have any idea of how many people "weren't asked"? Like are we talking a couple of friends, or like something more like 10% of a cohort?
The reports do show people who have graduated and don't have jobs so do you have any ideas why they would ask some jobless people to do the reports and others they wouldn't? Or are the people being asked employed and just low salaries? Or is literally people who do not pass some tests?
For example, if someone makes $150K but failed the tests, they would or wouldn't get asked?
I feel like they are fairly similar to Hack Reactor and was trying to show a breadth of styles of bootcamps that might be good for different people. I would also look into them too along with the above.
Hi! Sorry which figures are you referring to?
The numbers I mentioned above are for Formation, which isn't a bootcamp and is a personal trainer/career accelerator (in the same bucket as Interview Kickstart, Outco, Pathrise, Scalar). But it was meant as an example to show how much experience matters.
So I can speak for Formation that we work with people aiming for truly top tier companies that compensate very highly. [Levels.fyi](https://Levels.fyi) has some examples, and most people we work with are at the E3/E4/E5 level for FB/Google ([https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook&track=Software%20Engineer](https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook&track=Software%20Engineer)).
I don't think that's a complete answer necessarily but happy to explain more!
The numbers I mentioned for Codesmith are available here: https://cirr.org/data
Specifically:
https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328…
hey! so this gets way too complicated to comment on Reddit, you can pull things out of context but this is like the topic of a multi hour long seminary or something. Let me throw a couple of things in here:
1. Having a good fit in your job and being at a very strong company will have more impact on your career than getting paid more in your first job. If you are choosing between a 2nd tier and 3rd tier job and one pays more, that difference in company is less important than going to a top tier company.
2. So once people are in a job there's a lot more going on that can impact trajectory, more training, more programs, more friends, etc.... so you can get the data, but it doesn't mean much. I haven't seen career tracking data other than Codesmith published a report of "where are they now" that has salary data from like 60 or something people from 3 to 5 years ago. The methodology didn'…
We don't have a curriculum but you get personal weekly training from us until you start your new job (or sign the offer to start that job). Afterwards you get access to chat, your past activity, and invited to some future one-off events. If you want to get another job in the future, you have to start again from scratch based on your new goals and new starting point.
You can apply if you authorized to work in the USA, Canada, Australia currently, including H1B and OPT (if you have 2+ years left). If you don't have an H1B we can't support you at this time.
There is no best or second best bootcamps objectively. You should talk to people at the bootcamps to figure out what is the best fit for you and how people of similar backgrounds do.
1. Codesmith. Great for ambitious people who work hard. People come in at a high bar. Alumni network is strong and supportive.
2. Rithm. Great intimate experience where the founders and leadership strongly believe in directly teaching students rather than scaling and growing.
3. Launch School. Self paced month to month and aiming to get into the Capstone path, which is more intense with strong outcomes.
4. Hack Reactor. Strong all around. Very strong alumni network of people a few years down the road.
5. Hackbright and Ada Academy: these focus on specific demographics. Tech is fairly male-dominated and some people might learn better in a more diverse environment.
Now separate topic, CIRR results because it…
People can and do study on their own yeah, there isn't one solution for everyone.
So I can only speak for Formation which is even unique amongst those competitors. But the reasons it adds value are:
1. Every week we create a schedule of 3-5 person or 1-1 sessions and tasks (pulled from thousands we have created) that is all based on your progress and what you need to work on that week. We asses you with tests, mentor feedback, self-reporting, etc... and create a new plan every week. Most of our people who get jobs at Google don't cram LC and study very efficiently.
2. Extremely strong mentors. You get to work directly several times a week, in 3-5 sessions or 1-1 sessions with staff engineers at Airbnb, principal engineers at Reddit, and dozens of people like this. Most of the competitors have recorded videos and sessions with 150 people that are not intimate at all.
3. Network, referr…
We are not focused on TC and don't really care about it as a primary driver. But we did update our stats this week if you want to see TC results, our AVERAGE person with 1-2 years experiences has an AVERAGE TC of $180K (which even excludes private stock and options which we do estimate in individual offers to help people make decisions but not in our published stats so they can be bulletproof). If TC is your driver and you are making 150TC it might still be useful to level up to above the average in the $200K/$300Ks but it depends on your and your goals.
We are primarily focused on getting peoples skills up to a top tier bar and helping them find the right companies for them that launch and accelerate their careers. We don't really care what your TC is now, because if you find the right place your impact on the company will be crazy and your TC will just happen to be astronomical as a r…
The ones I mentioned are all similar in that they tend to work with people who have jobs (or are "employable" already) and help them get better jobs.
Whether it is needed or not is a personal decision based on your goals and motivations and what works for you. For many it's not needed.
I don't know Scalar specifically and how they work internally, so maybe it's not as good as Formation, but I feel like Formation is very valuable if you need the services we offer. I use the "personal trainer" analogy a lot for fitness and getting in shape. For some people it's useful and some it's not. At Formation, we're building out a platform and methodology that we think will work for a very wide range of people, and eventually different price points. If we can't deliver value to people, our company shouldn't exist.
To give an example. LA H1 2020, 87 graduates included right. Like if they had 2 cohorts, it would be 64 to 72 right. If they had 3 cohorts it would be 102 to 108 right. So 87 graduates sounds like it could be more like 102 to 108 started and 15 people are missing. TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT, THERE ARE TOO MANY THING THAT COULD FACTOR IN. But given the above I was just curious if that strategy of excluding people was impacting this or not.
Hey, there is a required data point for "count not be contacted". For the past few years, like 8 or so reports, only one had ONE PERSON that could not be contacted according to CIRR.
Oh sorry the 34-36 per cohort thing. Like I was under the impression that every cohort is full and that it's 34-36 people per cohort. But in CIRR reports the number of "graduates included in the report" is never a multiple of 34/35/36. But it's a very reasonable number reported so I can't imagine a ton of people being secretly not included and not showing up anywhere in complaints or forums.
Oh to me this is a more of a paperwork/marketing type discussion, individual results vary and Codesmith is one of the top bootcamps undisputedly so you shouldn't freak out. You should always talk to people who did and are doing the program and make sure the day to day is a good fit and that your goals are aligned.
Like Codesmith people get jobs and they get good jobs compared to the other bootcamp options, like I cannot fathom that a significant number of people are excluded from CIRR and that there is a big secret coverup.
I just want to know the mechanics of this because I love diving into CIRR and working the numbers. I'm a person who memorized cereal box nutritional labels and baseball card stats and stuff as a kid :D
Wait so they can choose to "not ask you to fill our their CIRR", as in they like "accidentally forget to email you" wink-wink?
I mean to be completely transparent, I've heard of some sketchy things that OTHER BOOTCAMPS do, but the threats, personal insults, and backchannel badmouthing I've gotten from Codesmith employees, alumni, and students when I even talking about the pros and cons of the CIRR results is pretty crazy if this is the case and it's systematic.
Are you sure this isn't a one-off or anecdotal? Or if you have any proof or evidence can you DM me? Or report it to CIRR possibly would be a better action.
Can you explain the CIRR thing a bit more? I've heard this thing about Codesmith excluding people from CIRR for failing tests from three people now but the people didn't fully explain or know the details. CIRR doesn't have provisions for excluding people for not passing tests). I did notice that their "graduates included in reports" on CIRR is lower than number of cohorts graduating times 35 (I don't know enough about their logistics and could be wrong here but people have said every cohort is full and waitlisted) but it did seem like people are missing, but they could also be people dropping out right or not choosing to answer the CIRR questionnaire?
Yeah the Twitter Apprenticeship Program, Dropbox Ignite, Asana Up, Twilio Apprenticeship, Twitch Apprenticeship, and some more are fairly "top tier" and you get paid around $90Kish +/- so it's like a real legit job. And they are all aimed for very early career and bootcamp grads.
You want to watch out for non-top tier apprenticeships that might be more like contracting firms that are making a large profit off of you by underpaying you.
The discover PE program pays like $150K to $200K (with bonuses) and is a tad more advanced and I think they are looking for a tad more experience - even if it's tangential to programming. It can never hurt to apply to everything, you don't want to hold yourself back and things might have changed in the past year.