Another one bites the dust at Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Losing the AWS account is probably worse, that kind of thing has taken down a handful of companies and they become case studies for engineers to learn from.
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This BS Advertising Needs to STOP. It's Beyond Predatory · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I don't think the BBB is going to stop bootcamps.
The market will and if they don't work, people won't go and they will shut down.
We've seen a lot of bootcamps shutdown in the past two years, good and bad ones.
Another one bites the dust at Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
They pivoted to doing this because the next CIRR report for 2024 students will be out in April 2026 and they want to give some idea of what's going on, but their reports are very problematic to me.
Why?
CIRR reports account for people who graduate in a specific time window. 2023 report means people who graduated in 2023 and got offers.
The reports Codesmith is publishing are offers in a specific time window but from any cohort. Meaning people who got those 102 offers could have graduated in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2021 even.
For all you know many of them are 2022 grads who took 1.5 years to get a job?
I actually like salary lift as a metric but they are confusing things by providing these reports side by side with CIRR reports with completely different definitions.
I used to give more benefit of the doubt, but last year this time they were defending against word of mouth of reports of de…
Is tripleten a scam? · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Yeah that's fair, I'll edit to clarify, because that's out of context and based on the other person's answer.
I was latching on to: "the more people you recruit/refer, the more discounted your tuition is."
my point was that if everyone referred everyone such that their tuition was $0 or negative, then how does the business operate?
more of a theoretical extreme that I will clarify
Another one bites the dust at Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Well they had this domain for a year so it makes sense, because AWS doesn't register .dev domains they had to have it controlled elsewhere.
But yeah it's not a good temp domain because its very hard to spell.
Another one bites the dust at Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
So they cannot control the domain or direct it anywhere else because that is configured under DNS which is under AWS. The domain registrar can point the domain to a new DNS configuration to work around that but the domain registrar in this case is also AWS.
What they should have done on day one reboot become irreplacable, then get a semi peromanent redirector domain like [cs.site](http://cs.site) or something, and then change all of their socials to the new redirector and have that redirect to become irreplacable. Then whenever they get their site back they coulld have it redirect back to [codesmith.io](http://codesmith.io)
This doesn't solve the email problem and the user data problem though. They could re-host CSX but people would have to create new accounts and it might be a mess, but it would be better than notihng.
Email is a huge problem - because a lot of other service will sen…
Another one bites the dust at Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Technically they have a website at become-irreplaceable.dev that was updated 4 days after the outage, but they don't have an AWS account so they don't control and these are down:
1. codesmith.io
2. email to codesmith.io
3. all their user data stored in AWS
4. the CSX platform
Not at all a defense but just giving facts for people to digest on their own.
frontendsimplified has anyone gone through this bootcamp or have anymore info on it? · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Because it's beyond the subreddit itself you have to report that to report and have them sort it out. They have access to all kinds of additional tools to deeply investigate claims.
frontendsimplified has anyone gone through this bootcamp or have anymore info on it? · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
The mods are human and not perfect but we try to impartially evaluate reports following the rules and not based on anecdotal evidence so mass reporting won't influence decisions.
If you have evidence of intimidation you can report it to Reddit directly rather than the mods because they are best equipped to handle such issues.
Beginner Seeking Guidance on DSA Topics & Learning Path · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
If you have already dabbled in programming and pretty comfortable with the basics, CS50 us a good free course to check out to get the basics of DS&A.
I would then go back to practical programming for a bit and then when you feel you are almost employable - then look at NeetCode's roadmap for a free overview of the topics with sample problems on each.
You might want to iterate a couple of times on that - most people don't just pick up DS&A at once and I find it helps to go back and forth between practical coding and DS&A.
The biggest risk of doing too much DS&A on its own is that you subconsciously memorize or pass the Leetcode tests but don't truly understand.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I spend very very little time on Codesmith. It might appear that way but it's all relative. Instead of assuming I'm spending a lot of time on it, try just imagining how much code I'm writing on a daily basis.
Like other than a couple of threads that blew up, I'm genuinely not spendong s lot of time here relatively speaking.
I use a lot of voice to text a lot too while causally walking around which is why I have so many typos and edits.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
You realize I recommended people go there until Feb 2024 and they had massive layoffs and cutback their cohorts like 67%. And even then I paused my recommendation and didn't remove it.
Things got bad at the end of 2024 and I removed my recommendation entirely.
There's a lot going on here.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I don't want 'revenge', why do you think that?
I'm pissed off because their leaders have been gaslighting me for years and now that their website/email/AWS is down for like 3 weeks almost and counting, you all can see what kind of garbage was going on behind the scenes too.
I'm frustrated that their leaders don't acknowledge problems or issues and they have been driving their business into the ground and it pains me to see that impact the people who pay $22,500 to go there.
Anyone here tried Bashiri Smith’s JavaScript SWE mentorship? Looking for honest reviews · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · DELETED · archived copy ★ FEATURED
Codesmith's problems are a leadership skill issue, not a student or alumni issue.
I criticized for years while simultaneously recommending specific people go there.
For a handful of people it's the right place. For statistically the vast majority of people reading this it is not.
But that was before the 20ish day outage and counting.
Leadership skill gap caught up with them and took down the company and there are zero people that should go there right now.
Le Wagon Melbourne is a scam · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Course Report is a bootcamp propaganda machine in my opinion.
Le Wagon Melbourne is a scam · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I completely agree but still a further caveat. Like a very good engineer who can't teach might still have insights to share, even if they would fail at running a classroom.
A student that just graduated and immediately becomes an instructor leading a cohort has no insights and no extensive training on how to teach and also no insights or judgment about the industry to share either.
You would be better off with an AI robot teacher reading the same slides and probably better at answering questions too.
The human value is taste and judgment - whether it's in a little to teach or insights into the industry.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I told Codesmith's CEO I would let it go if they apologized publicly and I said I would apologize for my tone publicly. They declined.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
This is what I do all day. I spend ridiculously little time on Codesmith: [https://github.com/mnovati](https://github.com/mnovati)
I explained everything to their new CEO in a video call a few months ago and told her face to face the full truth from my mouth.
Their founder keeps going around perpetuating false narratives, paying people to post on Reddit, encouraging people to mock my appearance, some fake LinkedIn account is now in on the game.
Like I'm angry but I'm right and even though I'm just me, I'm not going to tolerate any bullying from the "team" as they call it.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
There are a few days of DS&A. I'm possibly one of the industry experts in DS&A and it's laughable to call that sufficient. It's the equivalent of a "sneak peak" without even really getting started.
The idea of hack hours is great, but they are a waste of time because it's you and recent alumni going over problems and no true expert guidance.
So you are wasting your time.
People who have a natural affinity for DS&A don't need this and would be much better off NOT paying $22,500 and learning on their own.
I really wish I could articulate this more - so many things at Codesmith are about putting on the appearance of something legit and I get where their DS&A motivations come from they have to acknowledge how much it sucks.
Instead they celebrate it as the reason people get great jobs.
I've spent SO MANY YEARS really studying all aspects of Codesmith - I know more about it than their c…
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Nope, I've been telling them about problems publicly and privately for years. They have problems with their platform, whenever it comes back, that a credible org would never allow to be live and they shouldn't turn it back on even if they get their domain back.
I can't speak to what happens inside Codesmith, but people who have worked there have told me they have complained about it. They had a code freeze for a year or something because they had no competent engineering leader so none of the "engineers" that worked at Codesmith during that time actually did anything.
Some of the issues I pointed out it took them several attempts to fix after repeatedly telling me they were fixed each time.
I know my tone is extremely offensive to them so I see why they act defensively instead of open minded to it, but seriously, I got this way because the sheer incompetence breeding incompetence bree…
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
1. Well a lot of the more tenured teachers resigned or were laid off recently. They then promoted newer people and filed out the rest with people who just graduated.
2. Well Codesmith is saying they are getting access back soon and that seems to be at least 24 hours ago now... so... these people clearly have no idea what they are doing and what's going on. It's kind of sad that I've been calling them "delusional" for years and they are showing that to the entire public about getting their AWS account back - they don't understand the magnitude of what happened.
To me Codesmith is dead and it's because they haven't APOLOGIZED ONCE for this. No responsibility.
I'm shocked anyone calling themselves an engineer would support their behavior right now.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
I received a tip that Codesmith claims that they are making progress and expect access very soon.
My understanding is that they successfully removed the 8 year old phone number from the account, however they can't login or recover it yet and have to proceed with account recovery.
No matter what they tell you - keep in my that this is not normal.
If you have an account properly in your name and company, you should be able to recover it in fewer steps with proper identification.
My suspicion os the account is not setup properly and they cannot restore access based on the name/ownership and they are trying to get back in via creative approaches.
For example, by proving they pay the bills and that the two factor phone number is invalid and getting it removed, it removes one of the hurdles, but if they can't get access to the email address on the account, and someone else's name is on th…
Are Bootcamps officially dead? · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I think its url is codesmith.geocities.com?
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
1. Alina is CEO
2. Phil left almost a year ago
3. Eric K is still there as an advisor
4. Will is doing a visiting fellow program at Oxford so he's still involved but not in the same way as before.
5. There are only 4 full time admin team left: admissions person, program manager, events person, outcomes person + Alina
6. All of the instructors are recent Codesmith grads, most within months, and one about a year. No more head instructors or senior lead engineers to head of engineering or CTO etc..
I did criticize them a year ago that they had like 6 directors and needed 1, but I didn't expect them to go down to 0.
Coding bootcamp for full-stack development in 2025 · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · DELETED · archived copy
This is Codesmith 3 years ago when I started sounding the alarms on this stuff.
https://preview.redd.it/wyv9hard7igf1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=b0e0ce6521b45ff7f17fa24ddd5167ff5467fee0
Coding bootcamp for full-stack development in 2025 · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I'm a mod
Coding bootcamp for full-stack development in 2025 · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
That's just a list of bootcamps that haven't shut down yet in 2025 sadly. I would start with reading our pinned FAQ.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
[codsmith.com](http://codsmith.com) is available if they want a fish theme
and [cultsmith.com](http://cultsmith.com) if they want to go a different direction.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
If I was Will, I would have posted this on day 1:
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
"Codesmith community. I'm deeply sorry and I let you down. We have been so focused on delivering value to the community we make a rookie mistake with keeping our AWS account up to day, and we lost access. Not only did we lose access, but the our website, email, and all backend services are down as well. We don't know when we will regain access, and we will communicate daily updates.
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
In the meantime, we purchased [codesmith.org](http://codesmith.org) \[it's available for $10K\] and we will be moving our operations there ASAP, keep an out for more about that.
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
Most importantly, we are conducting a thorough activity log of what happened and what we will do to change our engineering team to pr…
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
1. CSX is not there
2. This is not AWS shenanigans whatsoever. Whatever drug your on, where can I get some, I've been having a rough week and need some delusional juice.
It's 100% their fault
1. Using a phone number for 2 fac
2. Not having other 2 fac backup options
3. Losing the phone number 8 years ago
4. Not having a monitored email on the account
5. Not updating a credit card for apparently 8 years because they haven't logged in for 8 years?
6. Not have multiple backup payment options provided (AWS allows for many)
7. Not having proper information on the account to recover it
8. Not separating accounts and systems for separation of concerns.
If they did ANY ONE OF THESE THINGS, they would not lose their account.
That is SHEER INCOMPETENCE and not AWS shenanigans.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
It took them 4 DAYS (which is absolutely absurd) to relaunch their marketing page on their previous temporary domain yeah. It's a .dev which AWS doesn't support so must be registered somewhere else.
But they should have fully moved over to a new domain on day 1, put the issue loud and clear there to explain, and redirect all inbound organic links at their source (or change url redirecting services) to point to the new domain.
I can't state enough how much incompetence is being demonstrated here.
I made a list and it was 15 things they did wrong and I wasn't even done and I gave up because it was just like so ridiculous.
Codesmith is done. Even if they get the domain back there is zero they can do to rebuild credibility now.
I even called them out on DAY ONE and pushed them to make a report of what happend.
The "report" was a set of MARKETING SLIDES that didn't explain at all what h…
Are Bootcamps officially dead? · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I think Jay's content is good but he's also selling his program so it's bias too (like everything - and just something to keep in mind)
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Yes Annie left today. There are no leaders left except the new CEO.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
That person is a troll account that only comments the opposite of the truth for fun.
Codesmith website down for at least 14 days and their Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes is leaving · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
They have not been transparent at all in explaining the problem at all and shame on them. Their founder would rather choose now to call me on LinkedIn instead of doing anything about the problem.
They made a number of failures but the length and escalation of the outage are consistent with the problem being that someone else's identity is on the AWS account and without their cooperation it could be impossible to get it back.
Instead of dealing with this like a real company would, they have had zero mitigation plans. Zero communications in a week after repeatedly saying they will get access back soon.
Zero ownership of the problem.
Icing on the cake is they have this fake account manipulating the arguments I'm having with them on LinkedIn and whoever is responsible will probably get their real LinkedIn suspended too.
It's indeed a disaster at a time when they were already on thin ice…
My TripleTen Experience · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I mean the job market is also just terrible for bootcamp grads. I don't fault the bootcamps for trying to their best, but I do fault them for misleading anyone into thinking the market is anything but terrible.
My TripleTen Experience · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Do you have a sense of the "87% of graduates get a job" thing? I'm poking around and it seems like some people get good jobs but I've been having a hard time finding many. Totally possible they are just flying under the radar, but it's weird because so many people are excited to share discount referral codes and no one is talking about actually getting a job.
CodeSmith is still down lol · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
Codesmith's website is still down and recovery is not guaranteed. But the company claims to be operational and that they will be around forever.
It's been 9-10+ days now and the situation is unacceptable.
Since their reputation is built on engineering excellence and they teach people to be engineers, how can anyone trust anything they say if they can't take responsibility for what happened and be transparent. Like if the founder was like "I'm an idiot and I completely screwed this up. I let down the team, alumni, and everyone and I'm ashamed of myself. This doesn't reflect the contributions of hundreds of engineers and the great things we've done and we need to reflect on what went wrong, leave no stone unturned, and implement a comprehensive 3rd party audited set of changes to our infrastructure. We will let you know when those implementations are complete in two weeks."
So far their…
DO NOT GO TO CODING TEMPLE BOOTCAMP. THEY ARE A SCAM!! · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Oh wow, ALL OF THE COURSES ARE RUN BY CODING TEMPLE NOW.
Geez I fell for their bullshit acquisition announcement that nothing big is changing and Coding Temple will be able to increase their reach.
What really happened is they gutted it and bought the brand for top of funnel.
Sigh, how are people supposed to navigate this industry anymore. It's full of bullshit.
NOTE: I'm not making a comment good or bad about Coding Temple - I don't know enough about it, but I am criticizing App Academy for the way they communicate this sale.
DO NOT GO TO CODING TEMPLE BOOTCAMP. THEY ARE A SCAM!! · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
They just purchased App Academy btw, which is interesting because while this situation is your personal experience and not necessarily everyone's, it at least doesn't sound super organized at App Academy's bar.
CodeSmith is still down lol · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · DELETED · archived copy ★ FEATURED
Oh so it's Meta then. Yeah Meta doesn't take bullshit, and maybe that's why I'm equally firm about calling out bullshit.
Meta is particularly sensitive about levelling and people who are mis levelled are generally laid off instead of adjusted or supported.
Also most of the people were contractors via 3rd party and those are throwaway at Meta and not a path to full time work.
I wrote a letter to Codesmith about this because one student lied (he apparently APPARENTLY STARTED WORKING AT CODESMITH BEFORE HE EVEN WENT TO CODESMITH on his LinkedIn) and I suspected this was to meet the YOE requirement at Meta.
Codesmith defended it and wrote a blog about him.
CodeSmith is still down lol · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I both agree and disagree. So first off, the highest performers are ALWAYS KEPT. Just think about it. You have a company. You spent a ton of time getting some amazing people. You have to layoff a team. You will keep these top people and move them ANYWHERE. It would be ridiculous to keep (or resume) hiring outside people who are probably worse performers than keeping your top talent.
So people who are laid off might not be the worst but they generally are not the top 10% either.
Now lets say you are a manager and you have to remove 2 engineers out of 10 on your team. Who do you choose?
The lowest performers.
Let's say they ask you to get your budget down to $X instead. You fire the people with the worst pay : performance ratio.
Let's say the entire team is cut. You director/VP of the org will hand pick the top people and move them.
Finally, the term "performance base layoff" is bei…
Started learning web dev this month · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I'm not in the camp that computer science degrees are required to get a job as the only way, but I do agree with people that you should be thinking years not weeks. I also don't recommend going to a boot camp though as a result of this as a corollary because they are advertising weeks and not years either.
The only boot camp that does it is lunch school and his tagline is the slow path to a new career, and it's more of a self-service online course intensive boot camp at the end. and I still would recommend going there only if you're a really good fit and have put in a lot of effort. bigger that out before deciding.
CodeSmith is still down lol · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I know the people that exaggerated their resume to enter as seniors had trouble there. Their titles are non standard but
Associate is FAANG apprentice
Senior Associate is FAANG entry level
Senior Engineer/Principal Associate is FAANG mid level
Lead Engineer is FAANg senior
The people who had trouble were grads with zero experience who got Senior Engineer titles who should have been Senior Associates.
I mean I audited dozens of Codesmith grads to see where there are later on a small majority still has jobs as SWE but a large number did not and many had changed jobs frequently.
Napkin math, illustrative only. Of the 4000 grads, several hundred have been employed by Codesmith in some capacity and I'm excluding all of them.
This analysis supported me writing a letter to Codesmith encouraging them to try to be the Stanford of Bootcamps that produces the top ENTRY LEVEL talent in the ind…
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Well this post was from last year. It ran again this year and we are currently half way through working with people who are looking for 2026 internships. i.e. 2027 grads!
CodeSmith is still down lol · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Or they hired far too many of them?
u/michaelnovati replied ·
This one is for internship candidates only, people seeking internships next summer.
CodeSmith is still down lol · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · DELETED · archived copy
Downvote negativity to oblivion is the Codesmith way of dealing with this instead of being transparent.
CodeSmith is still down lol · r/codingbootcamp
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
1. Agreed. And the fact that they can't recover through an ownership claim leads me to believe the account also isn't setup properly with proper ownership info and such.
2. Their email is also down which is even more crazy because that might be more critical than the website in terms of business impact
3. Someone send me a screenshot that they are telling their community how transparent they're being and what happened and they're absolutely not and I don't want to hear any freaking defense on this, there's an industry standard that top-tier tech companies have for disclosing technical incidents and they are not following that standard. and if you went to codesmith and you worked at a real company then you know this too. e.g.https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-1-1-1-1-incident-on-july-14-2025/