I think there are different things for different people. Coding Bootcamps are for some people and probably always will be - just in a smaller and more niche state.
There are a ton of MOOCS and AI leaning platforms and free courses out there that people do as well. And some of those people can get jobs without a bootcamp.
Some people just do open source contributions to major projects for a few years and are able to get a job.
The thing I agree with you on universally is we need to decouple the learning from the job hunt.
Step 1 is you learn and you might pay to learn or not.
Step 2 is you job hunt, make a resume apply, network, prepare for interviews, negotiate, etc...
The common bootcamp that offers both steps has gotten by with very poor Step 1 but people paid the money because enough people got jobs at Step 2 that they attributed it to the bootcamp as a whole. When a fraction o…
Yeah a minor gift is fairly common and I have no problem with it IF DONE PROPERLY.
1. Only one of the people disclosed the "gift". All of them should have.
2. Not everyone appears to have gotten the email. Vast majority of the reviews during April and May mention being placed at some point in the past months to years.
Thought Experiment: If I posted saying any Codesmith grad who didn't get a job, post a review on Course Report and send me a screenshot and I'll Venmo you $50. (THIS IS NOT AN OFFER - IT'S A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT)
Does that sound fair and reasonable? If not, why is it ok the other way around.
🚨BREAKING NEWS: Course Report (bootcamp review website) acquired by Career.io - a job hunting platform and placement service.
Course Report is now owned by a job search conglomerate "Career.io" ending an era of it running as an independent bootcamp review website.
I'm breaking this news and have not reached out yet to Course Report or Career.io for comment on this matter.
DISCLOSURE: This post is my personal opinions and does not reflect the views of my company. I have not heard of Career.io before but their services to overlap with my company (specifically "interview prep services") so I might have a conflict of interest discussing them but as of this post I have no idea who they are an first heard of them in discovering they now own Course Report.
# Background Story - How I discovered this, and the decline of Course Report:
# 1. Codesmith Paying for Reviews
I have been watching…
All of that is true but I think it can work for a small number of edge case people. Like Launch School has pretty good outcomes from what they have reported so far, but to get into Capstone you need to spend months to a year on Core to make sure you are a good candidate who is likely to succeed. And even then it's not 100%, even if it's more likely than not that you'll get a job.
And people's jobs are increasingly engineering adjacent to get a foot in the door.
I personally recommend caution as well but a complete blanket advice to not go would prevent that 1 in 50 person from going who it would actually work for.
I agree with all of this about the industry and appreciate your transparency here! Thanks for sharing.
Number 2 is the biggest problem with the whole bootcamp industry. Codesmith's a good example of becoming desperate because their entire reputation is about six figure outcomes. They loudly published 53 offers accepted in April-May 2024 and even added that stat to their official curriculum docs... That number is already far under pace from their recent CIRR outcomes but June-July 2024 is looking to be half that! If they don't give us an updated June July numbers, and leave up that cherry picked sample set - which is already worse than previous numbers, it's graping at straws and extremely misleading that will push away students who know better.
TLDR: if you bet the house on outcomes and the market is against you, you give up control over your destiny.
Number 3 is a hard one for progra…
I really appreciate you sharing that and thanks.
this is a pretty controversial issue and I tried to preface my comments on that too and it's a little bit like politics where people on both sides might never agree. but I think it's good to try to open-mindedly look at all sides of the situation, not just at Microsoft but industry-wide and try to absorb the best we can.
I'm personally like really trying to keep a pulse on this this across the industry because there's a lot of changes related to recent Court. rulings as well as studies and papers that have come out and lay off trends and things all over the place that are causing some reason to notice in the dei industry.
but I think it's extremely important that all sides are presented and that people get to see it all. so thank you very much for sharing that.
My company doesn't help at all with people with no experience looking for their first job. if you have some kind of software engineering work experience and you're looking for an apprenticeship, we might be able to help, but it would still be quite an edge case and you would have to talk to us in more detail.
so unfortunately we aren't a solution either. but if you DM me with your information and background, I can try to give my opinion on ideas of things you could do if you don't go the Microsoft LEAP route. there's only so much one can do in this market but I'm happy to give my opinion.
other apprenticeship programs though are still running. Pinterest Asana. adobe. they are a little smaller and absurdly competitive. but hopefully this isn't your last hope and that you can keep trying to find something.
I have no inside information here but just that this program was aimed at helping nurture diverse talent from non traditional sources and the department of people who were pushing for diversity and equity may have been let go.
It's not optimistic but I really hope the program stays.
I do not agree with this but this might impact Leap unfortunately.
I wish this wasn't the way it is but it is and I will keep doing what I can to help
https://nypost.com/2024/07/17/business/microsoft-fires-dei-team-becoming-latest-company-to-ditch-woke-policy-report/
Yeah I left them all out intentionally haha. 2U is currently worth less than $12M (market cap) down from $3.5B so I don't want to kick them when they are down.
I think I saw you building this like 6 months or a year ago and might have even joined the discord to remember.
I think something like this is a great thing for bootcamp grads or self taught people to do, to actually build something out and hustle to get people to use it. it's a fantastic strategy!
This is true but there are some caveats.
1. not a single boot camp has demonstrated the ability to scale. the best boot camps that try to scale have grown by multiplying out their staff and have hit big problems. generally what worked when they were smaller. oftentimes where a founder was personally really involved and carrying a lot of the program, and then that doesn't scale in the program starts doing things like lowering the entrance bar as more people drop out etc.
so if boot camps are consolidated, I don't know if that would necessarily be a good thing. it might be an industry that just needs a lot of small players that each take like 10 to 20 students at a time.
2. I think that there's a possibility that not even the best will survive. Codesmith - one of the previous best bootcamps - when they announce downsizing 4 months ago, they said that they're going to be making changes…
You could do a bootcamp still yeah, just make sure to spend a lot of time finding the one that works for you personally, not the one with the loudest CEO or best reviews and expect to spend 1 to 2 years post bootcamp before getting a job.
i.e. treat it as a stepping stone and not one step.
People can yell loudly on Reddit and it doesn't make them right.
Numbers are numbers and I plan on evaluating for what they are when they come out. Launch School has been pretty transparent about their cohorts. They are small cohorts and they explain what happened to each person, so there usually isn't much to say, but if they continue to be transparent then I would +1 to that publicly.
The doom and gloom is real = the overall bad vibes are not just bad vibes, the facts are clear that bootcamps shorting down left right and center
This is not a doom and gloom post = this is not me talking about my feelings and railing on the industry, it's sourced facts about the industry.
If I wrote an opinion piece then I wouldn't have said that.
It's tough because bootcamps are great for some people, just a smaller number and narrower range of backgrounds than in the past.
You could be that person.
But statistically, you aren't :(
A master's isn't a bad idea while working. I also recommend to take a job that is at a tech focused company in an adjacent role and try to learn on the job and eventually transition there (this is not an easy or guaranteed path, but it's something to consider trying.
My general advice is to not drop everything to do a 12-16 week bootcamp right now and try cheap and slow approaches. I like Launch School's self-paced Core that you can do over months and then do the Capstone IF you make it that far AND you feel confident it's for you because you've been doing Core already for so long.
That way you strike when the iron's hot instead of crossing your fingers and diving off a cliff into the unknown.
Bu…
All of the "Stay Tuned" locations appear to be operating but have no upcoming cohorts. I have to dig more but I clarified for now. I don't have time to do it tonight :(
Yeah completely agree, I don't want to get hate for this but it's worth considering if you can just negotiate the cost down, pay it, and forget about it.
Outco is/was a direct to my company so I can't speak much about them without getting review the way I talk about bootcamps haha.
But as a completely personal opinion as a human, I don't think it's cool to sue people if unless you try with good intentions to resolve something and meet in the middle. If they offered their services in good intentions and are trying to resolve the situation with good intentions, a lawsuit only seems necessary if a customer is coming back with genuinely bad intentions. I'm sure that's the case sometimes, but I'm talking to people like OP who never received notice of their "strike" and whatever the contract says, if I were Outco, I would take some responsibility for not running things perfectly on my side.…
I have been contacted by someone in this situation and my understanding is they have sued a number of people and it's not just a threat.
I can't give legal advice here, but you might want to talk to a lawyer about your situation.
NEWS: Rithm School is shutting down - the doom and gloom is real - and it pains me to say so 😢. An update on bootcamp closures as of July 2024.
An update on recent closures, layoffs, and pauses.
This is not a doom and gloom post but a wake up call to realize that things are not running smoothly right now and to be cautious about dropping $20K on a bootcamp because they told you things are great.
Marketing might be slick, CEO's might promise a rebounding market, but the fact of the matter is that clearly bootcamps are not doing well. Course Report can no longer be trusted - doesn't want to do anything about evidence of reviews being paid for.
Those that are surviving are questioning if it's the thing they want to do with their lives. The Codesmith CEO's dream is to become a [Lego Youtuber](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O8XsX7YCbM) for example. The long item App Academy founder an…
Well big fan of using free resources yeah. The problem with free communities is most people don't last. A lot of people drop off despite how active they appear short term. But if you can find a dedicated crew of people it can be very effective.
NEWS: BloomTech pauses enrollment in primary "Full Stack Web Development" course, leaving it with NO ACTIVE CONSUMER PROGRAMS as of this time. Plans on re-launching with AI updated content and is collecting a waitlist of people.
BloomTech (formerly Lambda School0) joins the growing list of bootcamps that have shutdown or paused indefinitely in the past year.
Earlier this year, BloomTech and it's CEO settled [a matter ](https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/actions/bloomtech-inc-and-austen-allred/)with the CFPB and it really had ripple effects. It not only severely impacted the tone of the industry, but also was a ding to their reputation.
They shutdown their UX track and Data track quietly as well and removed them from their website, leaving just the Full Stack program and their B2B AI upskilling program.
As you can see on their [website](https://www.bloomtech.com/courses/full-…
Hi!
MODERATOR: can you remove the last part about discount/referral links? the rest is fine haha. We don't allow those because you get get paid $500 for each signup and we don't want the sub used for people to make money off it through driving traffic to it. Other subs might allow it and you can share in DMs if people talk you, but not allowed in the sub itself.
NON-MODERATOR:
I have some questions!
1. How were the externships?
2. Can you explain the "career acceleration program" more and is that cost extra? Or it's just a post-graduation phase?
2a. Can you elaborate on the "freelance gigs"? Are those setup by Triple Ten or just encourage by them during this phase?
3. How many people seemed to drop off from start to end?
4. What would you improve, you on'y mentioned positive things?
5. Can you explain the job guarantee? You mentioned pausing for a while, why not leave and get y…
Not App Academy student and no information right now, but this wouldn't surprise me whatsoever.
The CEO stepped down [four months ago in March](https://www.appacademy.io/blog/mari-nazary-joins-app-academy)
To me this was a signal that the promises the CEO made needed to be reset, and a new new 'business-focused' CEO was needed.
Mari, the new CEO, comes from BloomTech. Her LinkedIn, as of 7/13/2024 says the following for Bloomtech:
>Revolutionized the product and learning experience by introducing a proprietary platform and digitizing all learning materials and touchpoints, resulting in a significant reduction of the cost per learner from $15K to $1K.
So I presume that was a reason she was hired by App Academy - if she can reduce the cost per student from $15K to $1K all over again!
How do you reduce costs? Well people are the number one cost of most bootcamps so you have to remo…
Codesmith had about 60 to 70 graduates in March and about 4 months post grad, I see 5 to 8 offers? Would you agree that's a reasonable estimate or disagree?
My main argument below is that for those handful of people, Codesmith was probably a very good decision. If we could identify those people beforehand and try to get them to to a tiny specialized Codesmith program, that would be amazing.
For a random person reading this subreddit though, they need more insight into what's going on, and if the bootcamps don't provide it and aren't here to engage and talk about it, then I feel the need to help you all.
Codesmith published a report and included it in their official curriculum docs showing 53 offers accepted in "April-May 2024".
So they clearly have more data insights into the struggles people are having they aren't sharing.
A coupke of people who work/worked there and have agreed,…
Ah ok, yeah I take it as feedback and see what you are saying.
I do need to write shorter responses as well. A number of comments are voice to text where I talk something out for like 15 seconds and then post.
Yeah happy to give answers, these are to the best of my knowledge on the spot here and I didn't ask around to my team, but can if there are followups.
I don't know how closely we monitor Reddit specifically but it falls under "Socials" and isn't notable enough to stand out as its own source as far as I know. And we do not track down to the subreddit in our attribution models that I'm aware of.
Anecdotally, people who found us on Reddit surprisingly came more from the Leetcode sub where people are preparing for interviews and asking for help and they have referred to that as how they found us, or that they saw my official Reddit-sanctioned AMA that is aging now. Anecdotally a couple people have told me that they saw my posts in this sub and those people have been experienced engineers later in their careers, but they didn't mention discovering or being woo'd by them generally. The excep…
I mean I think there is a reality we have to face that bootcamps in their current form are not a viable way for people to change careers en masse in the market right now.
I made another comment about eight or nine programs that have had layoffs shutdowns for pullbacks and it is kind of going in that direction.
This sub isn't a pro bootcamp propaganda sub so I hope it's reflecting reality... and really is the worst it's been for this industry since inception in 2012.
My experience isn't just my own as a leading engineer at Meta for 8 years.
I work or worked with hundreds of people who graduated from about two dozen bootcamps from more recently to long ago, with a good number of people from 10 specific ones.
I genuinely think I have a unique in the world perspective on bootcamps that is useful to people.
Just because I have a unique and useful perspective doesn't mean it's better or worse than others.
We run into problems when people start spreading false statements, or not engaging in discussion that's about the truth and is just conjecture or actually false statements because of emotional responses.
This isn't a place to learn programming. There are tons of giant subreddits like /r/learnprogramming where people should go to get answers to those questions.
I respond quickly and often but look through every single post and see how often I'm first to reply.
It's not every single post, but it's more frequent.
Why don't you yell at /u/metalreflectslime because I think they comment on way more posts than me and are always there before I am.
As I said numerous times. More people who go to bootcamps is better for my company and that is a conflict of interest that I have to manage. The fact that I'm not bullish on bootcamps right now is a personal opinion not reflecting my company but it's the opposite.
I do agree I have a loud voice and I have a lot of experience to back my voice and that that can be intimidating for those without that to contribute. This is something I am aware of and manage. But I do have more experience and someone who just graduated a bootcamp with a few months work experience is welcome to share their advice and stories…
There are absolutely success stories for H1 2024 grads
The problem is that anecdotal success stories should not be used to judge any bootcamp.
I would need to spend some time chatting with someone, reviewing their LinkedIn, resume, and debrief their entire job hunt, to access the role the bootcamp played in the person's success and without that it's meaningless right now.
I'm really sad with the state of things right now. It's not doom and gloom but just reality. Pretending things are good is extremely harmful to those of you looking to put down 20 or 30K. But for the right people bootcamp are still a good choice... the set of people being the "right people" just being very small now.
I did a six month post graduation analysis for November and December 2023 Codesmith grads because I have decent data sources for them.
I'm not going to quote the placement rate I see in my data because…
So the way I see it, again this is my personal opinon and I don't have any formal relationships with any bootcamps, is that the smaller, founder-led programs: Rithm, Launch School, Codesmith, some others, tend to be smaller, higher bar to get in, more expensive, and a lot of positive qualities. App Academy and Hack Reactor fall in the more "big business" bucket of companies that are run like real companies. With that comes some amount of accountability in that they have legit lawyers to review stuff, career professionals doing finance, HR, etc... With that though you lose some of the personal touch of the founders.
I'm currently not recommending Codesmith because they appear to me to be imploding. Bunch of pro-Codesmith accounts, including two moderators of their sub, got suspended from Reddit, a couple more staff left, they are going all in on "the modern engineer" and losing focus. I…
I certainly don't agree with a lot of Don's opinions but I do think think he's relatively reasonable about discussing his opinions. It's fine to have strong opinions and discuss them reasonably to me, even if he hates the subreddit, I feel like he would discuss it reasonably instead of flipping a table and holding a grudge like other people have done in other subreddits haha.