I agree bootcamp grads are in trouble for far larger reasons and my point is they are being impeded on every possible angle and DEI is in the mix now too.
If many of my customers are bootcamp grads who come to us later in their careers for help, why would I try to shut down bootcamps and cutoff a great source of customers. 🤔
Bald and old with integrity yes. I guess you are someone who prefers making fun of people's age and appearance over discussing content, that attitude will hold you back my friend and limit yourself. Even if you think you are successful you would be much more successful not resorting to mocking people's appearance.
I can clarify - if you are looking at CS vs Bootcamp or choosing between CS schools, it's a hands down clear winner to go to a top 20 CS school.
Maybe it sounds obvious but I can give a definitive answer to that, whereas I can't for other scenarios.
I've been on the other side and was a repeat top performer at Meta, and I will state as fact that no top performers are ever laid off - they are moved internally.
I also want to make it clear that even lower performers might be high performers somewhere else.
The point I'm making is that whatever it is at FAANG that makes a specific company special is built and maintained by the high performers and others leaving and going elsewhere don't bring the talent or the experience with them. Maybe they will build something BETTER somewhere else, but they won't level up a non-tech company just because of their FAANG experience. Heck even when a top performer is poached to lead a non-tech company they struggle to bring that level of execution to the new company.
I'm not saying I know more than y'all, I'm here to learn from you. I'm saying that I have a unique perspective in this subreddit that is worth listening too, just like y'all have unique perspectives worth listening to.
Name dropping doesn't look good, I get that, but doesn't change the fact that I'm friends with these people and I have a lot of access and insight into the industry. I'm not perfect, but you really should listen to what I have to say instead of dismissing it through bullying or insults. You do so at your own peril.
I'm friends with Mark Zuckerberg and I think you need to get to know some similar people before telling me to touch grass. While that's one name, I have hundreds of friends and acquaintances you've never heard of leading all of the top companies, from OpenAI to Databricks to Google to Amazon.
Could I be wrong? Yes.
But I don't need to touch grass thank you very much.
I agree the jobs are there, it's just harder! If you go to like University of Wisconsin for example (around 20th or so) then you have friends and upperclass people who work at top companies, and recruiters on campus dedicated to you etc...
It's a heck of a lot easier.
Meta didn't recruit at my school and I fought my way in exactly with your advice - amazing project that stood out as the number #1 project of the school. Whereas people at the University next door had dedicated Meta pipelines and almost a guaranteed interview if you had a high GPA or referral.
If you are extremely smart, a natural with leetcode, and very ambitious, you could probably go to to a top 100 school and get a job.... just statistically lower chance.
I've heard this narrative at Codesmith a few times: traditionally non tech companies need to become tech companies so they are hiring tons of engineers.
1. These companies are not hiring the best of the best (because their business doesn't have high enough margins to pay what FAANG pays), so if you want to be a best of the best engineering, you need to go to a top company and learn from the best. Even if there are more jobs here, you might be slowing down your career by taking them, especially if you are ambitious.
2. A lot of these non-tech companies outsource to top companies by buying their products and integrating them. They want to buy the best software from DataBricks because they can't remotely hire the same talent as DataBricks to build similar software in house. They also outsource more development to contracting firms abroad. So the growth in need for programming doesn't nece…
People who want to run programs essentially themselves, do hands on teaching and mentorship, and personally help people get jobs, will survive 2025 and beyond and they will never get any larger than the 10,20 people that this person can take on.
And this type of program is excluded from my statements.
At the same time, some programs masquerade as having a fleet of world reknowned experts - or a founder that's missing in action and no one every sees as you get handed off people with no experience, and these programs might not make it despite being small.
Entry level talent has become more naturally demographically diverse as demographics in college CS programs change. The diversity we're talking about is trying to open the top of funnel to non-traditional talent - like bootcamp grads and people who grew up in places where considering CS as a career was not even a thought, and they want to do CS and have a talent for it, but no means to catch up.
I agree internships are surging, but they came back after the FAANG layoffs, and at FAANG the conversion rate is as high as they can make it - the fall recruiting season is really to fill in slots remaining after interns get first crack.
It's just rational - you get to work with someone for 3 months and know exactly if they should convert or not, whereas a new grad without that you are taking a risk based only on the interview process and their resume... it's rational to do as much new grad hea…
If you have a degree, internships is #1. If you didn't do any internships a bootcamp might be able to help, but you would be better off just making a group of 5 people and making a startup on your own and taking it as far as you can. Codesmith is a bootcamp that has like 7 weeks of lectures and the rest is projects with others, and you are paying $22K to go there... you could just find the equally talented people in the Slack who are admitted to Codesmith, and leave and do a startup with them for 4 months, put it in your resume, etc... and put the $100K total combined tuition cost towards founding the startup, ads, cloud infra etc...
If you give me a group of 20 people who are paying $22K, I'll take their $500K and run a company for them that they own 1/20th of and they will be much better off.
Yeah, getting into top tech companies. If you can get into a top 20 CS school you are good. Even if you have a hard time getting a job, your network is there, your degree matters and you're a step ahead.
If you go to like a top 50 or mid tier CS school you can still get a job, but it's kind of like the bootcamp world - you hear one off stories about success, no consistent paths, etc... I might still do it, just like I might still do a bootcamp for various reasons, but it's not broad advice like going to a top 20 school is.
If I disregard AI then I would say that nothing at all would change and it's the new normal. And it's likely the new normal from "traditional SWE" roles.
I think schools like Launch School that are very small and take a very long time to get into will produce exceptions to the norm and that's about it.
I'm more optimistic in AI creating a ton of new jobs that are tech-adjacent but not tech jobs. And that people will need to transition from their non-tech job into these roles. E.g. accountant -> AI enabled accountant. Kind of like how accountants BEFORE Microsoft Excel had to learn Excel and now it's just a given. A ton of accountants will have to learn AI-enabled tools and it will be a given.
Now SWE bootcamps might be done and over with, but maybe AI bootcamps that **VERY CLEARLY IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AS TRAINING YOU FOR ADJACENT JOBS AND NOT SWE JOBS** might be able to help people ge…
Meta and Amazon abruptly shut down diversity initiatives, indicating a market shift that's terrible for bootcampers and could be the final straw :(
It's no secret 2023 was a terrible hiring year for all engineers and while experienced engineer hiring bounced back in 2024, entry level engineer hiring did not.
In terms of entry level hiring, In 2024 we saw big companies resume internship programs and return to the top college campuses. Those interns then gobbled up all the entry level spots if they perform well and get return offers.
We saw some entry level apprenticeships resume in very restricted numbers, such as the Pinterest Apprenticeship, receiving like ten thousand applications for ten spots. Amazon's glorious apprenticeship of the past did not return sadly.
**Unfortunately Meta just** [**"rolled back DEI"**](https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees-trump) **…
This is somewhat similar to what Codesmith (their competitor for "top bootcamp") does as well, called the "Where are they now report".
I don't see the complete methodology, but these kinds of reports can be extremely bias. I haven't seen them audit and track the number of people who did NOT reply, so all the people who failed out, gave up, changed jobs don't reply and they take an average of people who DID reply.
Just like any other reports, like CIRR, just because it looks legit it doesn't mean you shouldn't think critically and try to understand the words being used. Just like CIRR was created as a marketing group for bootcamps to promote bootcamps, and Course Report gets paid by bootcamps to send people to them (and wouldn't exist without bootcamps), thinking critically is extremely important in understanding the way things are.
Things to watch out for:
1. Not showing how many pe…
I'm recommending grads you enroll in a masters program and try to do an internship in between and hope that converts and that you can withdraw from the masters.
Lots of Python recs but I don't think you are doing it wrong learning JavaScript either.
The key is to learn JavaScript in the context of fundamental programming concepts like functions, logic and loops, and not learning web development that uses JavaScript or using stack other than to run single file scripts.
Same advice for learning Python.
I made a lot of money and you don't want to play this game. In this industry, someone always makes more than you.
People who are rich derive their sense of worth from their impact and not their bank account.
This. It's possible to do it non traditionally but you are an exemption and not the norm.
Too many people who are edge cases and succeed make their situation seem like the typical bootcamp outcome and mislead tons of people off the cliff.
Drive up and down frequently. M+S tires with AWD + some experience in ice and snow is perfectly sufficient for almost all road restrictions (other than the road being closed).
There are indeed checkpoints for restrictions but they won't actually pull you if you give them the thumbs up unless you have like a Lamborghini or something.
I would highly recommend shifting around your schedule to avoid snow over Donner Pass. Chains or no chains, it's dangerous and a lot of people lie about their cars and slide all over the place making it even more dangerous.
The technical side of data collection and data cleaning and reporting will be less and less, and the job will about turning that data into actionable insights (which is less of a technical programming-adjacent skill and more of higher level strategy/thinking skill).
No catch, just some very easy to follow steps for any motivated individual: [https://www.tiktok.com/@comedycentral/video/7018617892316908806?lang=en](https://www.tiktok.com/@comedycentral/video/7018617892316908806?lang=en)
Business Intelligence is a legit job and fairly broadly applicable. It's a job that AI will enhance and replace but if you are passionate about it and progress rapidly in your career you'll be fine.
Is Triple Ten legit? I don't know enough either way but they have exceptional marketing and not nearly as many visible outcomes to match the marketing (almost everyone here who talks about it is one month in, loves it, has a discount to offer to get $500, and then disappears). Doesn't mean it's not good, but I need more info.
Feel free to DM me more details if you want .more specific advice based on your exact background but this could be a tricky situation.
The market is too competitive right now that if you don't have at least a year at your company, you will get overlooked at a lot of the top companies, even if you were awesome and a layoff wasn't your fault.... just too many other people that don't have either on their resume.
A negative pattern I've seen over and over and the bootcamp grads that job hops every 8 months for 2-3 years, maybe you end up with a higher title, and then have a crazy hard time making the next jump.
A tiny number of people go through this and get amazing jobs after and go against the trend. Most do not, and it's psychologically intense for them having to rebuild their identities and some just quit the industry.
I'm not trying to create fear and I'm not selling you anything, j…
In general, I highly recommend holding your job for 2+ years before job hunting and then you'll be good, especially if you are promoted during that time as well.
Almost all of the banks supporting these loans backed out in 2023/2024 so I don't think anyone had a real job guarantee in writing anytime recently, and if they did, I expect the bootcamp will go bankrupts pretty soon.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks for sharing. In my opinion, this is the key sentence: "I don't think any of them can live up to their promises reliably"
Who is to say those people, e.g. who worked on wall street, couldn't have gotten jobs on their own or for far cheaper?
Bootcamps that cost like $22K for 13 weeks is crazy expensive, if the correlative factor to getting a job is luck + background. Maybe paying for a network increases your luck, and when it works, is worth $100K, but $22K just averages that out across 5 people - one of whom gets lucky and the rest are ripped off.
The AI programs rolling out, like the one at Codesmith is $4600 for ONE MONTH at 15 hours a week! Even more expensive per hour...
**Anyways, my point is that the bootcamp model is broken and doesn't work anymore because most don't deliver fundamental value for their cost.**
If you take all the harvard grads who want to switch to SWE,…
Hey, yeah CIRR is business league responsible to supporting the businesses of it's bootcamp members - it's not impartial.
1. CIRR has only 3 reporting companies left, one of which had like 15 grads in 2022, one is in Indonesia and didn't report FY 2022 properly, so **Codesmith IS CIRR at this point**.
2. CIRR changing the standards last year to report 360 day outcomes instead of 180 day outcomes was a massive coverup to conceal terrible H2 2022 outcomes. Since Codesmith filed H1 2022 and FY 2022 outcomes, you can calculate the H2 2022 outcomes from that data and they did indeed tank really bad.
3. Not only is a Codesmith Advisor on the board, but she brought in other board members who are friendly with her
4. A former Codesmith grad was temporarily working for CIRR to rebuild their new website after they got locked out and lost all their old website stuff.
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I…
I think this says it all: "Think Stanford-level AI education meets Survivor – where technical excellence, innovation, and execution speed determine who advances and who falls behind."
No matter how good you are, there's a competition aspect and only the best will survive?
If you don't have another job currently I would do it. It's only 12 weeks and there's nothing to lose. If you currently have a job that you would have to quit to do it, I would ask far more questions about how it works to know the likelyhood of getting a $200K job AND keeping it for 1+ years.
Do you have two jobs at top companies? You might have recruiters reaching out to you but passing a Google interview is different from talking to a recruiter.
That said, sounds like you are doing well regardless and your experience will keep accumulating to make up the gap of not having a degree and you'll fit right in.
McDonalds sells hamburgers and STK sells hamburgers but it doesn't mean all hamburgers are the same.
Covering a topic so nuanced as DS&A doesn't mean anything.
At Formation, we do Interview prep and we don't teach anything so it's not a direct comparison, but people tend to spend months just on data structures and algorithms alone to get to a top-tier company bar. So a bootcamp that has a module that is even a week doesn't mean that you're checking off the box that you are good to go for a data structures and algorithms.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I replied with direct numbers to backup my claims from CIRR reports and I don't appreciate you trying to gaslight me in public and ignoring that data.
While a lot of what I state is a personal opinion, I clearly labelled my CIRR analysis as fact and if I made a mistake in my analysis, it was unintentional and I'm open to correcting, but I feel like those facts are clear that H2 2022 outcomes tanked from H1 2022.
And I have strong evidence tying someone named "Will S." to paying for someone on Upwork to comment on Reddit who said negative things about me/my company on Reddit under the same account name. I would call those facts too, other than proving "Will S." is Will Sentance the Codesmith CEO and not another Will S, and I do not have evidence of who "Will S." is on Upwork.
I would try to negotiate it down based on what you did and make a case that they have made so many changes that you don't think it's fair to charge the full amount.
Group pressure can help, call them out, get people together to get a lawyer to try to negotiate something (not suing but negotiating).
Uhhhhh.... BloomTech launched "Gauntlet AI" - free 12 week bootcamp, paid to live in Austin, TX, 100 hours a week, guaranteed $200K job if you finish??? Popcorn ready.
SOURCE: [https://www.gauntletai.com/](https://www.gauntletai.com/)
>Gauntlet AI is an extremely intensive 12-week AI training to turn engineers into the most sought-after builders and entrepreneurs on the planet.
4 weeks remote, 8 weeks all-expenses-paid in Austin, Texas. 80-100 hours/week.
Participation is 100% free.
**Anyone who completes The Gauntlet receives an automatic $200k/yr job as an AI Engineer in Austin, TX**.
The next cohort starts January 6, 2025
What do people think?
Sounds like they might not have learned their lessons from Lambda School's marketing as these are some BOLD claims.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I see 78.6% placed in 180 days in H1 2022 (301 grads) and 70.1% in FY 2022 (732 graduates). So that means that about a 62% placement rate in H2 2022.
79% -> 62% is a tanking placement rate. And that was a relatively better 2022 grads.
Anecdotally and based on numbers I can find - which are not official and not necessarily accurate, show 2023 grads 180 day placements with something below 50%. And since this number should have been known internally since June 2024 (with at least an estimate) they are free to clear this up for the record. Even if they don't have all the data in yet because they are delayed, if they even have 50% in 180 days already they can let us know that.
I really won't listen to any marketing spins on this that make it sound good and anyone trying to do that needs an integrity check.
Codesmith can go to town saying how they are doing better than OTHER BOOTCAMPS but…
Can you clarify if you are saying H2 2022 outcomes did not tank from H1 2022 outcomes?
Because Codesmith published an official H1 2022 CIRR report and a FY 2022 CIRR reports it's simple math to deduce the H2 2022 outcomes and they decreased no? Are you saying I'm wrong and need to correct that and made a mistake?
Showing a large increase in people ghosting post placement for H2 who were confirmed via LinkedIn as appearing to get a job and their salaries weren't included?
Anyways, in a market where App Academy has paused, Turing plans on shutting down in 2025, Launch Academy paused, BloomTech paused, Launch School has lower enrollment but surviving and discussing its challenges openly, Code Up shut down, Epicodus shut down, Hack Reactor has massive layoffs and is unrecognizable.
Codesmith is the only one that keeps delusionally telling people everything is okay and people aren't fall…
Things can be retroactively flagged if an account becomes suspicious. The bad actors I've found nurture accounts for months or years before using them to create fake content.
It doesn't mean the discussion was bad in those cases though.
Codesmith's 2023 CIRR report showed tanking H2 2022 results (but they were averaged into a full year) so I expect their 2024 report to be equally tanking, unless CIRR changes the rules again.
Their 180 placement rate absolutely tanked and people post 360 days are excluded from the reports.
Codesmith randomly shared outcomes from a carefully chosen window of April 2024 to August 2024 in violation of CIRR and haven't updated that, and even those were really bad, so I can't imagine the outcomes are good right now.
Now they are adding in alumni's future jobs in their Slack reporting making some of those jobs look like first jobs to boost morale as the number of people getting first jobs within 6 months is very poor.
Thanks for the transparency and it's sad to hear, but also extremely good to hear that you are super realistic about the state of things and planning for multiple outcomes.
It would be even more devasting if you made more cuts, had poor instruction from lower cost staff just to keep the ship running, and trying to mislead people that everything is going great. Or grasping at straws with 'AI courses'.
I think it's an honorable outcome if Turing was incredibly impactful during the right time in the market and left when it no longer was in a changing world. Maybe in the future something new could emerge from all the work on a good note in a new world, with a product that could be equally impactful in the future in the new world.