If they go to someone's LinkedIn and the job has a start start, then they can count that as a placement.
Codesmith's auditor called LinkedIn the "gospel"... which makes me want to flip a table because many Codesmith grads have all kinds of embellished "jobs" listed.
The people I know there tell me there are hardly any placements anymore and it's becoming a ghost town.
Is Codesmith acknowledging this and talking about it?
No, they double down on one off edge case placements from years ago to try to make an illusion that everyone is getting mid level and senior jobs.
The more I dig, the more I see it's an illusion... fake accounts promoting AMAs, etc...
There are incredible alumni who went to Codesmith and they deserve credit for that. But it's like not at all the normal outcome right now and this charade has to end.
I'm waiting with popcorn to see Codesmith's CIRR 2023 outcomes in Feb/March 2025, specifically some of those fields like "did not respond" (but were included because of LinkedIn verification).
It will be a humbling experience for them to face reality instead of trying to convince everyone water isn't wet but water is gold.
I don't think they advertise themselves as "impartial", they are a not a charity but a 'non profit business league' which is AKA a lobbying group promoting the interests of an industry = bootcamps.
I don't think anything about them is impartial... the spec was updated by a former head of marketing at Codesmith lol.
Formation isn't a bootcamp, it's an interview prep platform for experienced engineers, and with how competitive the market is, it directly gives you a leg up over people that don't have guided mentorship.
In terms of general advice, if you have a current job, I would try to contribute some general code, or write some code to build software tools that help you do your job - ideally in the main codebase using the main stack - and getting code review from SWEs. If you do that already then you have an even better shot at transitioning.
Maybe obvious, but do you have the option at your startup to talk to them about transitioning and maybe doing it there over time too and not switching companies?
If your current role was more infrastructure focused I think it's worth at least applying and talked to us in more detail, I'm not going to say it's a sure thing, but it's a possibility and our team will talk though things very transparently to help you figure out if it's worth it or not.
Hi, I'm a co-founder of Formation and can give my opinions from what I've seen.
Your case is borderline and it depends on your Data Engineer experience and your goals. If one of your goals is to be a Data Engineer at Netflix or Meta (where it's a distinct job but very SWE-adjacent/related and compensated the same) and then convert internally at those companies, then I would say MAYBE. We have a handful of people in that bucket and we can help, but we don't do any data-specific interview prep. We have a handful of mentors who are Staff+ Data Engineers at FAANG but we don't have any practice materials for it.
If you strictly want to be a backend engineer, then I have more questions. If you are already getting INTERVIEWS at some solid tech companies on your own and need a boost or help preparing for the interviews then 100% yes.
If you are struggling to get interviews then I would recomm…
CIRR 2025 Standards out - does not close loopholes to force transparency, only change is one that extends the list of reasons to exclude people from the data and increase placement rates on paper - I don't think anyone cares anymore though :(
CIRR Standards for 2025 are out [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zuNf-58OcxVyY1KnTxnfqhfftiNexb6S/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zuNf-58OcxVyY1KnTxnfqhfftiNexb6S/view?usp=drive_link)
In a year where bootcamps are disappearing left right and center and pivoting to AI programs and abandoning SWEs, I would have wanted CIRR to tighten up a number of the loopholes in their standard that schools get to exploit.
Here is a list of issues I pointed out last year: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bug0lv/linebyline\_critique\_of\_cirr\_standard\_document/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bug0lv/li…
Hi, we work with people with salaries in that range yeah. If you are making over $200K a year, at a top tier tech, you have to look at performance bonuses and stock as well. For example the typical mid level Meta engineer offer is around $330K right now but the base is like $185K and the rest is stock and bonuses At the senior level, the bases are into the $200Ks and TC around $450 to $500K.
We don't guarantee your outcome or any specific base salary but the performance based pricing is $5K upfront and the rest is $0 to $15K extra depending on the INCREASE in BASE salary so some people with high bases coming in choose that option because they don't expect to increase their salary enough to hit the $10K tier and if they do then they made so much money they'll happily pay more.
These numbers are based on bigger cities and many top companies require you to move right now. If you get a re…
Why exactly does my identity revolve around FAANG? Where did I say that anywhere?
It's a fact that if Mark Zuckerberg or Tim Cook or Sundar make statements about the industry that those statements impact others.
Meta's stance on DEI has flipped tables at a number of other companies already.
There's much more to life than FAANG, we agree on that.
Bootcamp grads almost all have non traditional backgrounds - it's rare for a CS grad to go to a bootcamp
DEI = diversity, equity, and inclusion - and in terms of recruiting - that means finding talent from more diverse backgrounds (i.e. non traditional) and giving people who have the skills for a job but aren't getting into the pipelines because of their non CS degree or lack of degree requirement)
Unfortunately, bootcamp grads weren't meeting the skill requirement and don't perform as well on interviews compared to CS grads (overall, not case by case) so you could argue that DEI doesn't really apply because the people weren't qualified anyways for those roles, but because of the diversity aspect DEI recruiters were the main ones looking at bootcamps at all before. If those people lose their jobs or are reassigned, I don't think anyone else will even look.
I gave the advice somewhere else but staying at one company and showing numerous promotions is a simple way to pass the 20 second resume reviews.
Interview performance, I use a personal trainer analogy. You are asking how to get into shape. You can get a cheap gym membership and do it yourself (Neetcode or Algo Expert membership), you can get a personal trainer (1-1 mentor), you can join a premium gym like Equinox that has classes and trainers and a lot of options but is expensive (Formation), you can learn on your own through books and youtube videos about how to get into shape (which works if you have discipline but might take a lot longer)
You can pay month to month like a gym membership (this is typically senior engineers who have interviews lined up already and a short timeframe as it's very costly if you did month to month for a long time) or a $5K upfront and variable fee based on how much you increase your base salary from your last job when placed ($0 to $15K extra).
We haven't taken fresh bootcamp grads with no experience since 2023 and earlier (with a a single digit handful of except cases).
I really wish I wasn't doom and gloom but we (not just me but my entire team) have robust networks, and it's insanely hard for bootcamp grads right now.
So it's good for Formation because bootcamp grads have to take whatever job they can get right now, and then in a few years they have various gaps that we are perfect to help fill in gaps they need for really great tech job they wanted but couldn't get initially.
Not everyo…
If you have 2 years or more of legit SWE work experience on your resume then you are in good shape to consider Formation. We can't change your experience, so if you have the experience then we help you 1) practice the computer science fundamentals all hyper-focused on getting you to pass top tier technical interviews and on, 2) figuring out what parts of your experience are most impressive to top tier tech and practicing framing those with top tier engineers or hiring managers (both technically and behavioral)
It's not open source, it was called internSHARE and it rwas an internship review website. The thing that stood out was that we used the Facebook APIs the second they came out to incorporate people's profile info and work history into their reviews.
It might sound obvious now, but no one else was doing that at the time and they were really impressed by that.
Formation isn't a bootcamp that helps people change careers into these jobs. We help level the playing field for the interviews themselves by helping experienced engineers practice and prepare, regardless of if they know what to expect or not.
I'm arguing that going to a top school is better but not that going to a worse school is bad. People from worse schools have amazing careers too, I'm just talking about the statistics and strategizing if I was looking at colleges today.
Regarding performance, yeah at Meta bootcamp grads needed so much extra support and so few even passed the interviews that they generally stopped recruiting from them. I've heard the same thing from many others. At the same time all these same people know amazing individual bootcamp grads that are awesome, it's just not SYSTEMATIC and a lot because of the unique abilities of the person and not something magical the bootcamp did. Did the bootcamp help? maybe and maybe it's worth part of the cost to go to it. but when I see some of the top boot camps right now charging $22,500 for 12 weeks and only a handful of people each cohort being those people, it's n…
I mean ultimately it is. When you get to the bottom of the barrel (which is still exceptionally high at the top companies) then companies fan out to 2nd and 3rd tier colleges, bootcamps, more international schools that are costly to recruit from but have good people.
And then they return and build pipelines for the ones that work.
Failure of bootcamp grads to systematically perform well at companies is why no bootcamps has reliable FAANG pipelines... the typical grad hired just didn't perform well.... saw that first hand at Meta.
Which is one of the many reasons I'm here. It's crazy when people talk about the top bootcamps as if they are these ivy league schools, but in reality they are the lowest priority to recruit from.
The inconsistency tells me the industry is broken and hence why I'm here to try to connect the dots for people.
In reality they recruited from the top 20 schools yeah and because of the numbers you share, they compete intensely with each other for people, which is why if you go to one of these schools you have recruiters all over the place wine-ing and dining you even if you are average at the school.
It was a fun time revisiting a time at Facebook that I cherished and I hope I share some useful info about how the company worked when it was smaller, and people can learn from my progression.
I learned from a Netflix leader that when talking publicly to large groups to not try to project your journey onto others, so I try to share what worked for me and occasionally some general advice for Meta interviews, but largely just try to share a story that hopefully people find interesting.
There are a few funny things in there, like I how I befriended Mark Zuckerberg and sleuthed out the hiring committee meetings.,
Yeah it's reasonable. It's a rigorous program at a good name school. I don't know how much it would help you version say getting a different data job at a supportive company and learning the stuff on the job with the same amount of extra effort after hours, but I don't think it's a bad call to do it given you have degrees and a bootcamp already.
Yeah I'll accept that criticism, I have my own perspectives and journey that biases my views and my perspectives skew top tier tech. Just like those who came from bootcamps with no exposure to tech and just got a job at FAANG three years ago after working at non tech first, will have their own journey and own biases, but valid perspective too.
Yeah also agree with that. Many super high performing people have non traditional backgrounds and rocket ship trajectories.
The problem is that the statistics at a zoomed out level just show that if you have a strategy to hire 100 people efficiently, you go to Stanford and MIT.
I've been on both sides of this and I understand both sides, there isn't just one way of looking at it and each person is a unique individual with agency over their own career.
1. Were they all hired directly our of school? Or from other companies first?
2. How long did they people spend at other companies before being hired?
My point here is a job at FAANG straight out of school accelerates your career, not that there are no other paths to FAANG.
I'm not making any political statements for or against anyone, but from what I've seen through my industry lens and network is that entry level non-traditional pathways (that typically had more demographically diverse talent) are being shutdown entirely, rather they widening the funnel to give everyone easier access to those jobs.
We'll see what happens! It might be easier for an extremely ambitious "white guy" to hustle into a job, but probably not the "average white guy", the average "anything-person" probably will struggle more than before.
Transitioning to SWE at your current company is a great idea instead of trying to change outside. I would ask your company for resources and support.
If you are trying to fill in general skills before asking them, I would do a cheap online course (like $500 or less, maybe even free if possible).
I totally agree and I think my argument wasn't clear. You can go to Northrop for 3 years and then transition to Pathways program at Meta and then E4, or you can get a job as a CS grad as an E3 at Meta and be promoted in a year to E4.
My argument was that going straight to top tech generally accelerates your career, not that all other options are hopeless.
I gave the facts about the industry and people don't believe me, but yeah name dropping was a bad idea, should have just said leaders in general, live and learn and won't name drop people again.
What am selling exactly? I don't offer any bootcamp, bootcamp alternative, CS degree. The more bootcamp grads the better for my business, so is it reverse psychology or something?? I don't see the angle.
I agree that the topic of DEI is much more complicated than a short post about it and I didn't elaborate. I very much agree that bootcamps !== DEI.
For example Bootcamps are NOT super diverse because to do a 12 hour day 5 days a week + saturdays and have enough savings to do it, typically means you had a successful past career and are not a primary caretaker of children, or you have an environment and circumstances that have childcare.
My Reddit interaction is almost all about bootcamps yeah, I have a life outside of Reddit... and yes someone should make a Codesmith documentary, a company that has made tens of millions of dollars and is extremely polarizing (good and bad)... much more boring documentaries out there.
Do you mean DIRECTLY from a bootcamp or eventually getting to FAANG?
Directly from a bootcamp, I know a few people yeah but it was in 2021/2022 and the pipelines that got them there don't exist anymore. The only path right now could be apprenticeships if a company offers them.
You might be able to get a contract role but at FAANG those are not SWE roles and they very very rarely convert.
Now if you are talking later on in your career, absolutely, a ton of people. And this is my advice:
1. Stay at once company longer and get promoted fast instead of jumping around companies
2. Try to work on big scale systems or very large problems so you have some "system design" experience that is often lacking from bootcamp grads that work at less strong companies first.
3. Learn DS&A/computer science fundamentals on the side maybe taking some free or cheap courses and doing leetcode.
Those don't talk about engineering levels.
AI isn't replacing jobs but it's changing the landscape and perception in ways no one can predict right now.
I know some exceptional bootcamp grads that through lots of ups and downs are doing amazing things and wouldn't be there if they didn't make a career change.
The problem is that those people didn't need a bootcamp to succeed, even if they credit their bootcamp as the reason for their success. The people probably could have switched through self-teaching and the right transition role. Maybe the bootcamp was even worth the cost to help, but given than they let in all of these people that never had a chance, it's hard to say the bootcamps did anything.
I think the tiny programs that help like 10 people at a time might still make sense to help these exceptional people transition, but I don't see a world where the bootcamp model as a big business will work ever again for canonical Software Engineers.
It might sound controversial but I do actually think that joining anything other than a 'top tier tech company' (which doesn't have to be FAANG or even a big company and can be a top tier startup too) you will progress slower than if you joined the right one of those companies first.
I'm not saying it's not the end of your career or hopeless, but I see bootcamp grads on a daily basis who joined non-tech small companies with not super legit engineering, and they are having a really hard time leveling up to a solid tech company.
Ironically even if we disagree on this, my drive comes from trying to help increase diversity in tech and help people move into jobs they will have the most impact in.
I mean find 10 people who were going to pay $25K for a bootcamp and seed a company for $250K of funding and if it fails, put it on your resume and use it to get a job.
Which comments are you referring to? Reddit removed some that violated the ToS and I removed two that were factually incorrect and bullying.
If you want a platform where you can insult people's appearance, age, friends and bully them, probably you want to go somewhere else. We don't stand for that here.
I clarified in another comment - if you can get into a top 20 then it's a no brainer and you are good. But that doesn't mean you can't get a job outside of the top 20