Sorry, to clarify, they do extensive due diligence, background checks, private investigators, and they have auditing requirements on the company (not on these outcomes, but on the operations of the company), we're talking 5 and 6 digit legal bills to review all of this stuff before they make an investment.
We're still small and have to make choices about what to invest in and investing in audited outcomes might be a good choice! I'm not disagreeing here. We just have to weigh that over like more mentorship, another engineer, etc... and project the impact the investment will have on more Fellows joining, versus Fellows having better outcomes etc.... so it's not just flipping a switch.
It's definitely on the radar though as a I said, and really appreciate this discussion!
Thanks, point taken and thanks for the feedback, very much appreciated!
I normally just tell people to do their homework and talk to people about Formation (both for experiences, but also because you need to know what you are getting into). Sometimes people are even still concerned because they haven't heard any red flags and generally hear anything from good to amazing things. To make that list I literally just went to an internal chat channel and typed out the last 20 logged accepts, very simple, no report, not audited.
So we are doing ourselves a major disservice if we can't communicate the outcomes properly so that people believe them.
Once again thanks u/RobSteinsVoice the feedback!
EDIT: regarding the cost of an audit. We are a company backed by one of the top investors in the world, Andreessen Horowitz, and we have fairly expensive lawyers, accountants, etc... so it's not a fe…
u/RobSteinsVoice thanks for sharing that well written response! I definitely agree comparing on CIRR Codesmith is by far the best results and at a slightly larger scale.
Good question about Formation. We might in the future actually! The problem is we aren't a school or bootcamp and we work with people for wildly different amounts of time (I've seen anywhere from 1 month to 12 months) and people all do different things. So there isn't a single experience we can summarize.
But the outcomes are extremely strong and we want to figure out how to communicate that better because people assume we cherry pick the best results.
Here the last 20ish offers accepted, in order, no filtering or editing: Bloomberg, Paperclip, Front, Workday, Neato, Microsoft, Bitgo, Amazon, Jelly Fish, GitHub, Microsoft, Toast, Quantcast, Meta, CloudTrucks, Plaid, 1Password, Microsoft, Google, Meta.
Cool! I just commented on another post about CIRR let me reporst here later instead of that spam top level post.
Separately, salaries have gone up in 2021, but going remote means people are more likely to not finish, and people might have more jobs in less highly paying markets, curious to see results for them.
This is also an in person bootcamp in Punjab which is a specific market for a group that's primarily US based bootcamps.
I think we're on the same page here about Code Camp, but would love to chat about CIRR audited results seperately because I've seen you post a few time about how important audited results are. The TLDR: it was founded and is run by primarily bootcamp executives and while it's fantastic to have at least some audited data it was also crafted to make you need to do a little extra work to read between the lines. Like Codesmith's report says the median salary for NY on 2020 is 120K. Now if you actually crunch the numbers in the report itself based on graduation rates, number of people who supplies information, and number of people employed, it's not the median salary. It's the median salary of people who graduated, people who got jobs, and people who reported their salarie…
While there are freezes and reported slowdowns. We're still seeing Fellows at Formation.dev getting extremely strong offers at top companies, stronger than ever compensation-wise. There are a lot of very good, growing companies out there.
u/Royal-Mongoose9015 do you know why it was announced at a company wide gathering?
Also curious if they will be splitting off remote from NYC and LA since both campuses were closed for 2021.
I might get some negative responses on this but I would consider a computer science degree. BloomTech is constantly talking about it as an alternative for College, but not everyone going to college wants to get a job right away and college provides a safe place to learn things for the sake of learning.
Bootcamps across the board don't train people with the fundamentals because they make job guarantees and everything they do is focused on getting a job so I disagree with the comments about how you can do what you want to do at a bootcamp and learn what you want to learn.
A lot of bootcamps are taught but recent grads and not people who deeply understand theoretical computer science. Even the ones with great practical instruction, like Codesmith. Although maybe I'm over pivoting to theory and history and you are somewhere in the middle.
I googled and this was the first result, no idea if this is a legit source: [https://www.classcentral.com/report/edx-2021-review/](https://www.classcentral.com/report/edx-2021-review/)
"EdX isn’t a non-profit anymore, lost its co-CEO, shut down a microcredential (Executive Education), and we saw the first signs of its integration with 2U: it started promoting courses and bootcamps from other 2U acquisitions."
So would recommend researching extensively, again without judgement.
EDX was acquired by 2U, which runs Trilogy, which runs many white labeled bootcamps for top universities, which have pretty mediocre reviews. Sounds like a conspiracy haha. But look into it. Not making any judgements, everyone should research for themselves.
Hey, +1 it's been tough for bootcamp grads to get jobs. It's frustrating to me that bootcamps convince people that anyone can get a Google-like job and it's not true. But at the same time, writing code is a very valuable skill and it might take a little longer than you expected but it's a good multi year investment if you can get by in the mean time.
I wouldn't over index on the headlines. I'm an insider in the industry and there is definitely a lot of stress, but definitely a lot of demand for engineers. We've had several six figure starting with a 2 offers this week at Formation at top tier companies that are not in the headlines and going strong. So don't give up.
That said, don't quit your job and go all on, be smart about it, but the world needs a lot more engineers.
Everyone's path is different so I can't give blanket advice. I usually recommend to start self taught before going to a bootcamp or doing any formal education though.
Maybe. The biggest risk is the person getting a job and abandoning you part way through the course.
People who just went through a program and really understand the student experience might actually be better teachers than someone with 10 years of experience who is a bad teacher.
That sad there are also amazing teachers who also have 10 years of experience.
So TLDR: not a deal breaker but really case by case.
Hey thanks for the thoughtful reply.
regarding GitHub, I’m speaking specifically about the fake work experience project contributions. People also often have separate "open source" experience with 3 other projects. I have all the raw data carefully logged and can share with you but it's specifically the fake company experience listed on LinkedIn and contributions to those specific projects.
That said I do agree with you about the ends justify the means argument. Like I said, I work with some awesome Codesmith alum that I love and support dearly (AND HIRED ONE MYSELF). The people are performing well then is it really so wrong?
I do have anectodal evidence that people have challenge Codesmith leadership about it being implied, but not directly told, to fake the experience, as well as to pass background checks. Not going to mention who, but I'm sure Codesmith alumni reading this know a…
I'm not sure in interviews actually. I had interviewed E6s and M2, D1, but never E7s. Back when I was there there were very E7s and most rose from within. At the time, some of the E7+ that were hired in, left after no too long. Part of the problem was that this level is paid so highly at other FAANG and the people have a lot of respect and influence, so it was incredibly hard to get them to leave their companies. Not sure if that changed since 2017... a lot has haha.
So for me, they created coding machine for me and I pushed on my side to have that impact recognized. I have friends who had more naturally recognized superpowers. One person wrote very few lines of code but when he did, it saved tens of millions of dollars. Another was just brilliant. The most straightforward path was archetecting infrastructure that was industry leading (in terms of performance or feature set at scale)
A…
Hey, E6 -> E7 is a very large jump. Approximately 15% of the company is E6 and under 2% is E7. At Facebook they have these "archetypes" which kick in at E7, so you have to be solid all around and like exceptional in one of the areas. For me, I was the "coding machine" because I cranked out ungodly amounts of code and motivated others in the process.
I can't comment about Twitter's process, but in Facebook speak, you might be doing great at everything, but you need to now build momentum around your superpower. Are you solving problems no one else can solve? Are you cranking out tons of code? Are you saving millions of dollars via elegant solutions no one else can think of? If you can keep doing what you're doing and then triple down on your superpower that might be the difference.
Yeah they are. I work with a lot of alumni get their 2nd, 3rd, jobs etc... and I've heard things like that leadership tell people they work '12 to 16 hour days so their work counts as months of experience'. I've also heard sketchy things about background checks too.
I didn't want to include anecdotes in that write up because I think there's two sides to every story and I wanted to present things objectively. But yeah that pisses me off too on a personal level.
u/Cheese12345678901 Yeah I find this sketchy too. I pulled LinkedIn experience and GitHub histories for 200 Codesmith alumni on their flagship projects and diligently made a big table. The vast majority claim 6 to 18 months of experience and actually commits in GitHub over 2 to 6 weeks, most 3 weeks. Speaking with alums it sounds like the project is a 6 week unit and that their leadership actively encourage people to exaggerate this experience because they are "putting in 12 to 16 hour days" so it "counts as months of experience". The more people I talk to, the most frustrated I get, so I stopped haha.
I would add that their negotiation advice is "Just ask for $150K right off the bat and let them call your bluff". The crazy thing that when combined with the fake work experience problem, they occasionally get that, or somewhere close, but it doesn't meant the roles are top tier, or that the people perform well in those roles.
So that might be where what you heard "career services" told them
I'm pretty sure this is Codesmith and a posted a very long summary below. They do have an audited median salary in NYC from 2 years ago of 120K, but they also muddle that up with "mid level" titles. No one can go from zero experience to mid level FAANG. I worked at Facebook for 8 years and it's impossible there. So they are combining people who get $150K CONTRACTOR jobs at Facebook (not SWE, and not "mid level") with people who go to startups and get mid level titles but are compensated less... but 1 + 1 does not equal 2 here.
The mid level titles at smaller companies is a result of a bit of a sketchy behavior and you can read about that in a long post I did here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/un1cyf/is\_there\_a\_good\_bootcamp\_besides\_codesmith/i85flg0/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/un1cyf/is_there_a_good_bootcamp_besides_codesmith/i85flg0/)
This is probably Codesmith because they make these promises.
I did a deep dive on 200 Codesmith students/alumni that I will repost here. The summary is that 120K is their median salary in NYC from 2 years ago, and that is legit, but that they also mislead people into thinking they can get mid level roles right out of the bootcamp. They base these claim on salary and it’s impossible to get a mid level FAANG role out of a bootcamp with no experience.
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I'm not affiliated with any bootcamps but I work with a lot of people who have gone to bootcamps in the past. I was also an E7 level principal engineer at Facebook, where I worked from 2009 to 2017, and interviewed hundreds of people. I run coaching and training for experienced engineers to help them level, but I've heard a lot of problems with bootcamps from people I work with and started hangout in this subreddit. I can give my asses…
I just meant a strong engineer, or engineering team. The reason for this is I always want engineers to join companies where engineering and tech is most important and drives the company.
There are some yeah! But it's subjective because you can look at investors in different ways:
* Size of funds. This is strictly based on how much money an investor has received from its investors. In theory, people with money want to give their money to investors that have the best returns. So the raw amount of money raised by an investor is one signal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_venture\_capital\_firms
* Returns. Some funds are small and scrappy but their people have a great eye for startups and have a great track record for returns.
* Specific partners. Some investment firms have notable partners in specific areas of specialization and seeing those names on a cap table might be impressive. e.g. [https://www.forbes.com/midas/](https://www.forbes.com/midas/)
Some names that come up frequently in silicon valley are: Sequoia, A16Z, Benchmark, Greylock, Accel.
Hi, I'm from Toronto but have been in SF for about 13 years now. I know the founder of Rithm and did an investigation in Codesmith because of some concerns that I heard about their students lying about work experience.
First, Codesmith is LA/NY based and has very few ties to SF.
I can help the best I can here:
1. For remote, both work for EST to PST so you'll be fine.
2. I have zero credibility on this one, but Toronto comp is so much lower than SF in general. An entry level decent but low end SF junior engineer is paid more in CAD than a mid level engineer in Toronto. So I wouldn't extrapolate anything from the outcomes of these bootcamps in the US.
3. I could totally be wrong but I can't imagine employers in Toronto knowing about Codesmith and Rithm, or knowing enough to hold them to a higher bar. If you obsess over bootcamps you would know of both, they both have generally positive…
I mean if you don't trust the people you talk to it might not be a good fit. Runway is based on projections so I would expect some wobbliness in answers but for them all to be generally consistent. Depending on how experienced you are, and what leverage you have you can try to get the most information possible, down to bank account balance.
For general startup advice:
1. What series and how much have they raised. This impacts their momentum and their valuation (i.e. your stock upside).
2. Investors. Look for top tier investors yeah. Investors do a lot of due diligence, so top tier investors means someone else vetted the founders and business model and it at least has a shot.
3. Founders. For engineers, look for tech-heavy founders, at least one of them, and top tier experience over many years. Running a company is hard, and 2 years at Google doesn't cut it. You want a top 1% engineer…
Feel free to DM me the company and I can give a quick analysis. (Ex-FB 8 year, E7 principal eng, A16Z backed startup now) - or share here if you are comfortable.
1. Ask them about runway. A company in great shape right now will have > 24 months of runway - which is unlikely.
2. If the runway less than a year, find out if they are actually making revenue, or if they are just burning through cash with no path to making money.
3. Look at their investors. If they are top tier investors, it might give them more options to keep the ship running if things get worse and absolutely they will have access to good advice regardless.
If it's a dollar value, it normally gets converted to a number of stock in a fair way (like based on the average price during some period before the start). I would check the fine print.
Typically yes. There are some companies, a little more in the consulting/agency/contracting space that use the work Associate instead of Engineer. e.g. Senior Associate, Principal Associate. But at the beginning yet.
I have not, but I worked at Facebook as an E7 principal engineer, 2009-2017 and currently train people to get into top tier companies, many who did bootcamps, got a job, and are trying to leve upl, so I know what it takes to get to Facebook at least.
So "failing" is not the right word. People who succeed in bootcamps often had experience or 1+ years self taught with a lot of progress. You just need more experience.
I was self taught from age 13 and really hard no idea what I was doing. When I was 16 I did a week long course on Java at a college and had no clue what they heck was going on.
Then by late twenties was the top commiter of all time at Facebook. Checkout my GitHub from after leaving FB, github.com/mnovati... around 20K contributions in the past few years.
Ok, so back to the question. I would do everything and anything to keep yourself coding and practicing. If that includ…
Hey, I don't want to throw off the vibe of the thread, but I'm the co-founder of Formation and can give my take. 1. we only work with people we feel confident will succeed with our training and 2. if you do your part, you have our full arsenal of support (technical and behavioral mentorship, and a shoulder to cry on as well) until you get a job you are happy with. The result is that the vast majority of people genuinely have incredible/great outcomes. A small number have good outcomes that they are happy with but make some tradeoffs.
I would highly recommend contacting any current or former Fellow with a similar background to yourself and find out about their day to day experience, that's the best way to evaluate any program.
The secret: nothing and no one is perfect, there are numerous things we are trying to improve every day, but we have a one-of-a-kind unique program with legitima…
Hey, I'm the co-founder of Formation and stumbled upon here. I don't want to mess with the vibe of the thread because there is a good discussion here about cost and outcomes that I don't want to interfere with, but I wanted to add that that percentage is taken off of your base salary and at top tier companies (where most people end up) you receive equity and bonuses that add on to that. So most people don't have a problem paying. The last time we crunched the numbers people on average INCREASED their compensation by $80K. An example case based on numbers would be someone entering Formation making $110K with no bonus or equity, and leaving they are pushing $140K base + $25K/year equity + 10% annual performance bonus + $20K signing bonus.
Hi, I'm the co-founder of [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) and we don't tell people who succeeded to write a review there, we tell every single person that finished the program the following in an exit survey.
"Would you be open to sharing your experience on Quora? Reviews are hugely impactful to help people who were in your shoes make an informed decision about joining Formation."
I think that's pretty fair and neutral, and open to suggestions if you feel this is biased.
Our team works tirelessly to make sure our Fellows have great outcomes. We do whatever we can to make sure people have a good experience and the vast majority do.
I've worked with a handful of lawyers who have transitioned to tech and it's been pretty good! Law has a lot of abstraction and people have tended to accelerate quickly, specifically contract law.
FWIW free or cheap bootcamp prep courses offered by bootcamps are a way for the bootcamp to try to acquire students full time and is a lot cheaper than other sources for them. It also helps people learn so it’s a win win but just watch out for pressure to join the program full time afterwards.
I wouldn’t trust LinkedIn because it’s self reported. Similarly Codesmith discouraged people from putting it on LinkedIn they are not captured, other programs do similar things making it a bit hard to trust LinkedIn only. Finally, as you can see in here, people’s experience varies wildly before starting bootcamps and mapping outcomes from past experience would be interesting.
Hi all, I wrote a good summary of Codesmith here if you are interested https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/un1cyf/is_there_a_good_bootcamp_besides_codesmith/i85flg0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
I’m not saying it’s not a quality education, but I don’t think any current student of any program can comment on the quality of the education until you look back and reflect later on. If you knew what you didn’t know then you wouldn’t be needing training.
When I work with alumni it’s a challenge to retrain people around the fake work experience because Codesmith taught them the ends justify the means and that their project work should count for more credit because it’s so intense - it is not by top tier standards.
NuCamp is affordable and the CEO is very nice and positive, but they focus on the learning experience for beginners instead of job outcomes. Their reports and outcomes are all based on customer experience (eg. do you feel like you learned) and not jobs. So someone employed already looking to switch tracks it’s not the best fit, IMO. Open to debate.
Hey, you can look at Formation.dev (disclosure, I’m a co-founder). We generally work with people with 1-3 years work experience but occasionally work with people who have other experience or significant self taught experience. Check it out, not sure if it’s a good fit, but it might be. DM me if you have questions or ask here!
EDIT: I re-read and missed the part about scripting experience. I would definitely consider Formation in that case. Otherwise, 100% not a bootcamp, it sounds like you’ll waste your time and money since you have no problem picking up programming languages. I would self teach over bootcamp for sure.