I would also point out that my team (but not me) does cold outreach (searching LinkedIn and using various tools and sources to find potential fits). Even when we required less experience, as far as I know, we have always trying to target bootcamp GRADS not people earlier in their journey.
If we haven't been able to reach out to every PLACED bootcamp grad from all bootcamps, including all placed Codesmith grads, at this point then we aren't doing a good job in our outreach and connecting with our target market.
We did have a few problems with having to train new recruiters on our team specifically to identify Codesmith OSP projects NOT as "placed bootcamp grads" because there were a number cases of mistakes. This is actually one of the reasons Codesmith even got on my radar to begin with, it was messing with out funnel because a few dozen people were applying and interviewing saying the…
I'm going to ask Brian how he heard about us, it wasn't me reaching out and it will sure be embarrassing if it was Codesmith alumni or employee that recommended it haha. I would strongly guess it was a peer who realized Brian had already self taught to Codesmith grad level and wanted interview prep.
I don't discuss people's individual cases but I'm general, if someone is joining and Formation is not 100% good fit, we'll have that conversation. These are extremely case by case and some people join for different reasons and some people will not join for different reasons.
I didn't mention that in my response but we do work with a lot of bootcamp grads later in their careers. Not on the record (my best recollection) was that Hack Reaction, Fullstack Academy, and Codesmith where roughly equal in numbers as the original bootcamp people went to.
People regularly recommend (or maybe don't recommend if they didn't like it) Formation to their friends and cohort mates from their bootcamps.
The bootcamp market has been TERRIBLE in the past two years. Codesmith's main competitor Rithm School shut down, and their other competitors like App Academy and Hack Reactor have had major changes.
I'll keep saying it, but I would like to have a call with the Codesmith team to try to understand more where each other is coming from, there's a massive misalignment right now both ways it seems.
I'm happy to answer this factually on the record, I don't know where this is coming from but keep asking and I'll keep giving the answers.
I would like to know more specific examples of this to clarify because I don't know what you are talking about from your post.
1. I was in Codesmith's CSX Slack until I was banned and I have respected that ban since and not stepped foot in it and have not stepped foot in a Codesmith event since.
2. I have never messaged, promoted, or mentioned Formation to my recollection in CSX Slack ever. My interactions that I recall were limited to:
a) Messaging one or two OSP groups that their projects were leaking passwords publicly
b) Answered a couple of technical questions, like 5 maybe?
c) Helping the Codesmith Team understand what happened when a different Codesmith posted job postings improperly affiliated with Codesmith LLC and they thought it was…
I use it a lot for things I would have looked up on stack overflow, like regex for matching an email address or something.
This is consistent with Stack Overflow traffic going way down since ChatGPT came out :D
A word of warning using too much ChatGPT... conversations with my long time industry friends have had a lot of mentions of "junior engineers who copy paste ChatGPT and don't understand the code"... don't be that person!
You are being treated exactly the same as all other users. Your post was flagged for numerous concerns about your account being a potential bad actor.
If you are using multiple accounts on the same computer or IP, etc... to previously manipulate discussion then your entire account would be blocked and I don't override that filter when I see it if you want to be treated fairly.
If whoever this is has engaged in bad behaviors in the past resulting in these specific filters being triggered, this is an issue beyond the content of the post that we don't have insight into and you have to live with those decisions.
The above post was flagged for by two different Reddit filters and is pending a discussion with all the moderators. I don't feel comfortable overriding both of these independent filters, given that I PERSONALLY agree with one of the filters, if I were to treat you like everyone else I would remove it - that's the default for the many posts with these flags that end up in the queue.
So I'm waiting for another moderator to take action and have alerted them.
Yeah that wouldn't surprise me that recruiters look for AI as a sign you are staying up with the times, passionate about the latest and greatest, able to learn fast.
I believe that can be demonstrated in more ways than just AI skills but it's a good point to mention. Like if it helps you stand out to a recruiter and is irrelevant to the interviews themselves then maybe it's worth it as a top of funnel strategy.
Since posting, the outcomes are the same overall, but there is some really good discussion I'll try to summarize if I get the chance.
The concensus is that an engineer needs to be a problem solver and not having strong general skills will not be compensated for by AI skills, which is the argument I was making as well - taking it a step farther that in a time limited learning environment, one would apply this by focusing more on general skills and minimally on AI (maybe for resu…
I think there is an argument to make that AI stuff will have some kind of impact on the industry. The first person to figure "it' out and if "it" is large enough market, will have an advantage in the post AI world.
But I don't think people going to bootcamps and paying $10K to $25K to get a job soon should be impaced by companies trying to be first.
Well scratch that, I think it's up to the indivdual to acknowledge the risks that this approach might be "it" or might not be, and then decide to do it anyways.
"Snake oil" to me is selling the bootcamp as if they have figured "it" out already and not acknowledging the risk.
People can be whoever they want on Reddit, there are pros and cons about being anonymous and about being non-anonymous. Regardless of choice, you can have integrity or not. I'm trying to reach out to Codesmith to talk, because there are two-way misunderstandings about intentions that would benefit not just both of us, but the whole community, to try to sort out.
This post was also flagged by Reddit's filters. Given the other conversation I'm going to contact the other moderators to decide what to do with it.
On a personal note, I don't want a crazy back and forth either. I'm not sure who this is but I was talking to Eric Kirsten a few months ago and planned on meeting in person to chat and that died off when he no longer planned on travelling to San Francisco and the thread died off after I very clearly articulated Formation's vision to him about how we are not competitors - and there appears to be two-way misunderstanding. While I feel you are wrong about where I am coming from and making wrong conclusions and assumptions as a result, you feel I'm wrong in how I characterize Codesmith and discuss it. And it would be a good step to clear the intentions piece. I expect us to strongly disagree on our interpretations of the facts, but I think unde…
Based on feedback from the Codesmith Team, I unstickied this comment. It was intended as an official personal response and to stand out from other others, but I agree with them that it's more fair that the comment be ranked based on Reddits algorithms.
The log shows that Reddit flagged it, like it does a bunch of posts for which I am not notified of, and I don't review them in real time, and check periodically.
The log shows I removed it a midnight Saturday night, when I reviewed the queues and it was at that point a duplicate of a post already in the sub.
I'm not sure why it showed up in the queue again today, where the log shows I removed it again and tried to explain that it was a duplicate with a comment this time so it would be clearer.
Your post was blocked by Reddit's filters not by a moderator. That's what the moderator log says.
This happens to 3 to 10 posts a day and is a common occurrence and I was just clearing out the log and filtering duplicates.
If someone else didn't share your post already, I would have overridden and approved it because it's now irrelevant as a duplicate.
O\_O that's a ref flag to me if they are offering you discounts to fill a cohort. At least they are honest about it, but that's not a good sign in my opinion.
Exclusive ex-Meta Engineering poll results: Almost no one is considering AI skills when hiring software engineers at their companies! Bootcamps pivoting to AI might be marketing a fictional gold rush so that they can sell you an expensive shovel that you don't need right now.
DISCLAIMER: I'm a moderator of the sub and co-founder of a mentorship program for experienced SWEs (2+ YOE currently) to help them prepare for interviews. I don't believe I have any conflicts of interest but I am bias by the fact that my corner of the market is top tier big tech (including top tier small tech startups) and not the long tail of companies hiring engineers right now. The below analysis is my personal interpretation of the poll and reflects my personal opinions and insights on the raw numbers presented.
Note: I might update poll numbers as more votes come in.
I ran a poll with a group a few thousand…
I agree. Emotions aside from being publicly attacked in a place where I can't respond and am being name called by people in their community, their response is objectively terrible and doesn't refute anything.
It's why so many people are calling it embarrassing and desperate and it's a really bad sign for Codesmith.
1. Personal income means I haven't made a penny in any way from Formation to date, no secondary sales, no profit sharing, no income, no dividend, big fat $0. I own a large amount of shares in it, and if it sold some day or IPOd I would make money, but I do not make money from any of the operations.
2. That's fair our perceive my message that way. Like I said it's rare, and I connect to a ton of people just to learn more about them and network like anyone else. I don't recall pushing Formation on anyone in DMs. If you felt that way, that's fair feedback and I'm happy we talked about it.
3. There are other mods who can make decisions too, not just me! I haven't changed my behaviors since becoming a mod and I feel like I had a bit influence in here BEFORE then too. I appreciate a reminder to be aware of potential conflicts, this is the kind of fair discourse I want to have. I'm not trying…
1. I don't make a personal income and haven't for 5 years
2. About a third or so people at Formation did a bootcamp in the past, it's far from the majority right now.
3. Are you able to prove that I DM'd you and promoted Formation and told you to go there? I've done it very rarely - like 2 or 3 times, while I've had 100s of conversations telling people to go to bootcamps like Codesmith (which I no longer do), Launch School, Rithm, grad school, Tech Elevator, etc... based on their circumstances. If I DM'd you from my account and out of the blue told you that you need Formation, then that was a one off that rarely happens, was probably a very legitmate reason to do so, and I probably mentioned other options too like Interview Kickstart rather than just saying "go to Formation", it was probably like "you should consider interview prep programs because you have a lot of experience alrea…
From my experience. There are a bunch of people who want to give back and mentoring yes.
The problem is they don't want to quit their jobs and run your program reliably for 6 months. They want to do casual mentorship.
If I'm making $1M a year as a principal eng at Meta, I need you do do a ton of coordinating around my life for me to do mentorship even if I WANT TO. You have to setup effective mentees for the person. It's not about the money but the opportunity cost.
A person like this wants to maximize their impact as a mentor and not waste time.
Who is going to manage all of this? It's completely different process and skillset to manage this than running a bootcamp.
If those developers are making $500K a year and true senior top tier engineers, they won't just randomly want to teach a bootcamp and they won't do so consistently for 6 months.
Several have tried this and it's failed.
What you end up with is unemployed bootcamps grads who were laid off and doing it to make money, which is marginally better than a bootcamp instructor who has never worked in industry.
The free market in the USA makes it almost impossible to have the best engineers teach consistently like that.
Meta and Google both PAY their own engineers FULL SALARIES to do 6 month sabaticalls and teach courses at colleges.
People who would be interested in the above would much rather just get a job at Meta and do it via them.
I can't give official advice, but I can say that I wouldn't assume Leif or Meritas didn't make any mistakes in the transition of providers so I would question it and push back.
Oof this is complicated. I do know a lot about this stuff in general but I don't know the specifics of Lambda School's implementation.
So first off, just a note - it wasn't a court ruling, but a settlement agreement Lambda School came to with the government. Small detail but important to note for the record for future people, that a court didn't rule on this.
Leif has some ISAs that it manages for programs but the program ultimately owns the contracts. My understanding, WHICH MIGHT BE WRONG, is that only those contracts are invalidated in this because the settlement states that the effective interest was not clearly communicated upfront and people need to be given the option of paying interest free instead as an alternative option.
Leif also has ISAs that it finances and 'owns' where the school gets a loan upfront for some of the upfront equivalent cost and gets a portion of the month…
My opinions is that they don't have anyone qualified to do it.
I've reported a couple of major security problems in projects and no one seems to know what to do about it.
For example, they checked in passwords for some 3rd party charity into source code. They then claimed they removed them from the repo. But alas, they didn't wipe the Git history and the passwords were still there in past commits.
I pointed this out and was told I was wrong.
I sent a link to the password directly, publicly on GitHub.
It took far too much effort to explain this if I was talking to "mid level and senior engineers".
Just a note for others reading, Launch School's Capstone projects are one level better than Codesmith's OSPs and follow a similar idea of building a developer tool.
I love the spirit of the OSP but they went about it all wrong. They responded to my criticism about OSLabs being a fake entity by establishing a charity only recently.
The director of the charity is now 'on leave' and it's my understanding from her that Annie and Phil run the day to day of the projects
Like instead of building a fake charity that's practically run by Codesmith people, put effort into making the OSPs better. Less effort on appearing legit and more effort on being legit.
Launch School is leveling up their projects by having paid mentors work on large open source projects like Firefox and mentoring students to work on those projects without distracting the core contributors (who otherwise don't have the time…
I think the default advice was if someone asks a question you don't know to redirect it back to them and say 'well what do you think the answer might be' to stimulate a discussion around it without saying 'I don't know'. I don't remember exactly so don't quote me on that. I'll try to watch them again and see if it comes up.
This might be TMI, but someone sent me some completely public but unlisted instructor training videos with no message or commentary that they were secret so I have to assumeI have permission to see (but given they are unlisted I don't think are intended to be searchable publicly)
They were from like 8 years ago, but I was informed upon asking that recent instructors saw these videos. The training was developed by Will Sentance and an instructor who used to be an actor in LA with no SWE experience.
Most of the training was about how to manage people in lectures, like how to get people to put cameras on, introduce themselves, make a comment about each person by name, and then how to handle not knowing the answers to questions you are asked.
Really enlightening. I don't even know if I have the links anymore, this was like a long time ago that I saw them.
But they are/were trained on how…
I think being transparent about the failure states is sufficient and a program doesn't only have to be value positive for everyone necessarily. People tolerate difference amounts of risk and they might want to take a risk that the bootcamp will work out for them, knowing the reasonable range of outcomes and what happens in all cases.
Millions of people buy lottery tickets after all! But not because they mislead about the odds of winning, but because they want to take the risk.
Thank you so much for bringing a reasonable reflection to the sub. Most of my conversations with grads go like this and it's where most of much nuanced critique - good and bad - comes from.
As a moderator, thanks you for bringing good discussion here and hopefully the comments stay good too.
I'm loud here and I monopolize conversations at times (certainty fair from most conversations as you can see)
That has nothing to do with my intentions of being here or the fact that I have a company.
You don't have to like me or my personality or who I am to respect me and treat me fairly.
This is a common concern I hear. People think they will get Frontend Masters level lectures every day and instead they get a recent alumni who became an instructor pulling up some slides and walking through them as written.
In all fairness their instructors are fairly consistent and there is a hierarchy, like a pyramid, of instructors. Fellow -> Mentor -> Instructor -> Lead Instructor -> Head Instructor.
And they have consistency in moving someone up the later. An instructor leaves? They pull the best mentor up.
This is fair and the nature of Reddit, but by not disclosing people shouldn't assume you have to bias.or conflicts of interest either.
Not disclosing anything is within your right but doesn't absolve one of those concerns.
Yeah no worries and I appreciate being challenged respectfully and with good intentions, even if the challenges are hard.
I'm not perfect and I can't be fair and reasonable without acknowledging and talking about my weaknesses too.
I'm frustrated that while I have tons of documentation from tons of people in making my arguments about Codesmith and other bootcamps that the company is trying to gaslight me and silence me with a post that presents facts about me and my intentions without any evidence.
It's awful.
I'm very fair about potential conflicts of interest. In my opinion, the conflict of interest is that about a third of people at Formation did botocamps in the past, so it's a good chunk of people who come to us in the future. And no, these aren't recent grads who can't get jobs but people with real work experience post bootcamp. I think I disclose.and manage this well and that it's a relativrly minor conflict.
You know what's worse, anonymous accounts that could be run by bootcamps, manipulating discussions, and they shouldn't get a free pass just because they are anonymous. I shouldn't be villainized because I'm not anonymous.
There is a happy medium.
I don't own this sub and there are two other mods with different views.
I was made a moderator after demonstrating for two years that I could manage my biases well and be fair and reasonable.
Reddit permanently suspended about a dozen…
If you suddenly want to be a medical doctor, it's extremely hard to change your mind and go to medical school later in life. Only a small number of people who have the time, support and savings can.
The path that works is a top tier 4 year CS degree (top 10 schools) and for people who decided early only, like medical school, that CS was for them.
Bootcamps can help the late bloomers in adjacent areas find s path on a case by case basis.
While medical doctors are one thing, being a receptionist at a doctors office isn't or being a lab assistant, or a medical clerk, or x ray technician.
AI is going to create a plethora of new jobs at tech companies that are the "x ray techncian" of the SWE world.
Jobs that pay okay but not SWE level salaries, need a few months long certificate or bootcamp, and don't have the ssme prestige.
Codesmith's narrative of the modern engineer fits in this vai…
You never know with pro Codesmith people. A dozen accounts and two moderators were permanently suspended from Reddit
I treat everyone equally regardless since you don't know and assuming creates a us vs them mentality that is harmful to constructive discourse.
Bootcamps work for a specific slice of people.
Launch School is the only program I know that systematically tries to find those people though a multi step, months long process of getting through to Capstone.
And surprise, it works better! But you don't know if it will work for you until you try getting through, and you might be capable of getting a job through a bootcamp, just not through Launch School.
Launch School has like under 100 capstone students a year.
The problem with bootcamps, which particularly hit Codesmith hard and they haven't fully recovered is that they scaled from 100 students a year to over a 1000, thinking that if it worked for so many of their students when they are small, it would work for everyone who passes the bar.
While Launch School has maintained a relatively high placement rates. Unofficially reported Codesmith placement rates have gone down drasticall…
Why do you think it's a conflict of interest?
Codesmith's unhinged post is libelous as I have officially informed their leadership about this in the past and have the records to prove it and they decided to intentionally lie to mislead the public.
I have always made it extraordinarily clear my commentary is my personal opinion and nothing to do with my company.
I stated that there are a handful of unique edge case people that could go to either Formation or Codesmith but that our records show it's a very small number and not our target demographic.
They decide to lie anyways with zero evidence presented to support their claim.
An institution that behaves like this is rotten at the core and won't survive, just don't get caught up in it.