Hi! Yeah I'm surprised there isn't as much commentary around Hack Reactor given that it's historically one of the top bootcamps. All of this is my personal opinion, but I would put them in a bucket with App Academy right now.
Sorry this is a bit rambly, I don't really have strong opinions now. My views come from what people tell me, and I don't proactively seek out that much (unless following up on something someone tells me), and I talk a LOT of specific programs that people talk to me about. No one talks to me about HR!
Both are historically "top bootcamps", that have scaled pretty well and helped a lot of people. But both have evolved from there as well. App Academy recently had their founder step down and a more corporate business-y person came in to manage it. Hack Reactor sold to Galvanize in 2018. Since then, they have stopped offering in person, merged with Galvanize's back off…
I don't want to throw OSPs under a bus at all, I want to be reasonable about describing what they are and what they aren't
But question: I try to be quite vocal about that, but why did you think they were so good before Codesmith? Was something misleading about their explanation? Did alumni misrepresent them? Did they just seem impressive and you didn't know any better?
Thanks for sharing.
Based on my broad experience with Codesmith I would +1 the recommendations there on who should go.
I like how you also broke up successful people into two buckets: those who needed Codesmith to get there and those who would have done well anyways. This is a key thing to directing what a program offers. It's something at Formation we think about all the time - what would people do without out and what value are they getting, and we constantly need to give people VALUE to justify our existence. We're not perfect but we spend all of our time trying to do this to and will keep doing so. And we've seen incredible results in a hard time as a result. If you aren't generating true value, then you get hammered in a tough market.
RE: OSP reviews. It's sad to me to hear you still aren't getting reviews. A few months ago right around the layoffs a number of groups asked me t…
That bootcamp is outsourced to a corporation :(. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but it's important to note how this works.
CMU offers some of the teaching and mentors and TalentSpring offers the career services side of things and tries to place you at their companies for placement fees.
Again, this could be a really nice win win model, but it's important to understand how it works before spewing out everywhere that this is like going to CMU directly.
Scam is a blurry word haha. You can argue that any kind of "marketing" is trying to sell you on the program so it's at a minimum biased, but whether it's a scam is a higher bar.
Nucamp isn't fantastic but it's cheap. The materials are similar to much cheaper courses, but you have live instructors and code reviewers to get feedback and that's very useful.
Coding Dojo is a classic bootcamp and most of them have been struggling in this market. I don't recommend going to any classic coding bootcamps right now and would recommend going as cheap as possible, then re-evaluating. If you have a natural ability and you are 100% committed to becoming a SWE no matter how long it takes, then a top bootcamp (generally the $20K+ ones like Codesmith, Rithm, Launch School Capstone, etc...) could be justified. It's still quite hard to get a job even at those programs, which is why it's important to comm…
FWIW I love this attitude in general and I completely agree. In terms of Coding bootcamps though, we have far too many founders starting coding bootcamps with this attitude and that's not okay. Fake it til you make it is not appropriate when people are entrusting you to guide them and paying you $20K.
Hi, I would recommend starting with free resources, like FreeCodeCamp, and then some cheap or free Udemy courses. A bootcamp can be good for accountability, but a lot of what you do as an engineer is self-teaching and debugging and in my opinion, you need to be able to get to a decent state on your own before considering a bootcamp.
I mean the standards were created to help bootcamp's market. CIRR has an obligation to support its members and their success and its members are the bootcamps not students
I consume a lot of content, I think it's important for me personally to consume content from an extremely wide range of sources on an extremely wide range of topics, from official direct sources to bloggers and influencers to trashy reality TV consuming. consuming all of this gives me a more well-rounded picture of what's going on in the world.
note that I did not say generally if I agree or disagree but I was presenting the arguments that Don was presenting for bootcamps as there's been a lot of arguments against them lately.
+1, that's my argument.
That's why at Codesmith for example, YOU are the product and the community is the product. You are paying for a community and they are using your money to build a "cult-like" (for lack of better term" following in their community. Really smart people make fake accounts to promote Codesmith, get all the accounts suspended, and then still feel in the right and that I'm a terrible person for reporting all this to Reddit and making up a narrative that I'm breaking the rules and getting away with it... the product you paid.
Startup founders always say they are doing well.
It's relative. My friend started Tome for example. Tome isn't doing well despite being hot. Vanta, not doing well.
By definition 90% of seed companies fail, so if most of your friends are doing well, they are lying or it's an anomaly and you should go on Lenny's Podcast and talk about how you found such a unique network of startups that are all doing well.
This. Huge AI deals ske butw data. Most of my friends that did startups shut them down and acqi-hired by big tech, like Whisper (Meta), Thread (Shopify), Primer (Shopify), Rockset (OpenAI).
VC money wants to go to AI but AI is being funded by big tech by paying people over $1M a year to work on it.
Rough time for startups indeed unless you worked at Google on AI for 10 years and want to do an AI startup.
I heard that comment twice myself about his son.
I spend all my time with silicon valley people and he comes across like a lot of founders.
Everything is always going great, fake it til you make it.
Problem is this isn't a game of a photo app... we're talking about people's lives and we're talking $22K tuition and people need to have better.
Thanks for the update.
1. Do you still get a refund if you drop out?
2. Do people feel misled by the 86% placement rate or do they understand that it's not a placement rate, but rather a "percentage of people who got jobs, that got them within six months instead of longer" rate?
Yeah I think Eric is good intentioned, he just doesn't have the top tier, best of best experience he portrays in public sessions. He has good negotiation advice, but it's off the shelf stuff that is the basics in the top tier tech industry. From the people I've worked with navigating more complex offers, he hasn't had strong advice.
One of his alumni had an offer pulled because they negotiated a non-negotiable offer. I don't know everything myself but I have enough industry experience to gently steer people through these conversations and try to help people not just negotiate an offer now, but make a plan for the next few years.
RE: "selling his company to Disney". That is correct, he didn't sell it and shouldn't be portraying it that way. He in fact helped the final engineer transfer out his prized asset Coolspotters to a 3rd party that wasn't Disney and he's well aware Disney had no…
I don't know why the website went down, but I know some people who were part of it and it's kind of a fundamentally flawed idea.
They would hire alumni to work on projects. the only project I've heard spoken about is some kind of negotiation bot possibly in relationship with a team at Harvard and possibly with the data science and machine learning initiative.
The fundamental flaw though is that these alumni have busy jobs and their jobs are their priority. many of them just started their jobs and they want to do well. so spending some of their free time on contract projects. they're just not going to do their best work on those projects as good work as they're doing on their job. and if you're going to hire a team, you want to hire a really good team to work on a project. not like a bunch of people who are doing this on the side.
Second really strong tech companies. don't let you moo…
My first rule of thumb is to try to transition back at your current job. So for example, if you're like a customer support person, then trying to become a support engineer at your current job is good. if you're an accountant trying to become a data analyst at your current job, the step in the right direction. It's always great to transition in an environment where you already understand so much context. it makes it easier.
when I read the fine print it was actually 86% of all the people who were placed and responded to a survey. got a job within 6 months and 14% took more than 6 months.
but what I'm hearing the influencers say in YouTube videos is just an 86% placement rate without any caveat or notes or anything and it's playing with fire. I think because it was already a bit of a stretch
I can give my 2 cents. I know a lot about both programs. Very different options.
I'm currently not recommending Codesmith (in my personal opinion/capacity - I need to mention this because it's in my company's interest for more people to go there) for three reasons, but you might feel differently:
1. They had large layoffs and promised coworking spaces, more curriculum and more three months ago and haven't done any of that, other than add 5 ML lectures (of which only 2 I think have been done)
2. They have a subreddit that is full of propaganda. I asked Reddit Corporate to look at our subreddit here and theres, and roughly 10 prominent accounts + 1 moderator were suspended from Reddit. I don't know if this was just one person or a coordinated effort but those people were working with Codesmith for "official AMAs" so whatever was going on it, Codesmith has visibility of this behavior jus…
Yeah I have referenced the layoffs before, but do you have some kind of primary link for that? I couldn't find one but I searched off my personal notes database (which is large haha) and googled for best sources, and didn't have a primary one for that
Don The Developer: "Coding Bootcamps ARE Still Viable in 2024".... with caveats 😉
Don released this video today with a realistic take on Coding Bootcamps. Despite the title coming across as "pro bootcamp", it's a balanced take on bootcamps in 2024.
[VIDEO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIFd5nuhvhs)
Would love to discuss in the comment!
SUMMARY OF DON'S ARGUMENTS:
1. **Coding Bootcamps' Viability**: Don believes coding bootcamps are still a viable option in 2024, despite their mixed reputation. They can effectively prepare individuals for entry level developer jobs, provided that students have the right preparation (many months) and timeframe expectations (\~2 years).
**2. Misleading Marketing**: Don believes many coding bootcamps have a bad reputation due right now due to continued misleading marketing that promises unrealistic outcomes and makes it seem like you will get a job…
Career Cup is Gayle McDowell's project (author of Cracking the Coding Interview). My understanding (I know met Gayle 10+ years ago and haven't been in touch since) is that she is focused on consulting and solo work and not building out a big scale company or platform, but I'm not sure!
Those are all good. There are two types of apprenticeships:
1. Expect no experience with program, teach you basics, don't expect full time job at the company (e.g. Google Apprenticeships and Multiverse)
2. Expect you to have a lot of programming experience and possibly some past experience. These are like long internships expected to convert, e.g. Asana Up, Dropbox Ignite, Pinterest, Intuit
If you don't have programming experience #1 is what you want and not #2 is way too competitive (like < 0.1% chance of being chosen)
If people were getting jobs then bootcamps wouldn't be shutting down/laying people off
1. [Launch Academy ](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/)(indefinite pause)
2. [Epicodus](https://www.epicodus.com/blog/epicodus) (shutdown)
3. [CodeUp](https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2024/01/09/codeup-shuts-down-suddenly-leaving-students-staff-frustrated/) (shutdown)
4. App Academy ([layoffs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmIBwP6tBh4), [ceo step down](https://www.appacademy.io/blog/mari-nazary-joins-app-academ))
5. Codesmith ([shrinking](https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech) - left out was 1/3 layoffs and reducing from 4+1 cohorts to 1+1 cohorts since 2023)
6. Tech Elevator ([merge](https://www.galvanize.com/blog/galvanize-and-tech-elevator-announce-operational-conso…
Your time is valuable. If you could do something else with that time that would result in more impact or a better outcome, then even if you were paid to do it you might want to reconsider.
All of the above haha:
1. It's not just the market but if the market was still amazing for entry level, bootcamps would benefit too and sentiment wouldn't be so negative.
2. They won't become valuable again in their current form anytime soon. If the market improves they may return to some of their previous reputations. But there is far too large of a over supply of bootcamp grads and new grads to be corrected over night even if the market warns. Bootcamps have scaled back A LOT, so they will produce fewer bootcamp grads. As the over supply either get jobs or go leave the industry, then we might see it be a viable pathway for a small number of people in the future.
3. I have yet to see a curriculum that is worth the cost. I haven't seen a bootcamp curriculum that isn't better than a Udemy course. What you DO GET, is HUMANS to help you - keeping you accountable and helping explain and a…
[➕Moderator Note] Promoting High Integrity: explanation of moderation tools and how we support high integrity interactions in this subreddit.
Hi, all. I'm one of the moderators here. I wanted to explain how moderation works, openly and transparently as a result of a recent increase in Reddit-flagged 'bad actors' posting in this subreddit - ironically a number of them questioning the moderation itself. You won't see a lot of content that gets flagged as users, but we see it on the moderator side.
Integrity is number one here and we fight for open, authentic, and transparent discussion. The Coding Bootcamp industry is hard to navigate - responsible for both life changing experiences and massive lawsuits for fraud. So I feel it's important to have this conversation about integrity. We are not here to steer sentiment or apply out own opinioins to the discussion - the job market was amazing…
We got H2 2022 results by subtracting out H1 2022 outcomes from full year 2022 outcomes.
The 6 month results were not good compared to H1 2022, with the 6 month placement rate going from 80% -> 60% and with a surge in people who ghosted and were counted as a placement because it looked like they had a job on LinkedIn (20% of the outcomes were this case in H2 vs 6% in H1)
I see this account was suspended so I suppose the point is moot. But warning to all, yelling loudly doesn't make misinformation true.
One or two placements are unique edge cases, and not a reason to go or not to go. Even the "best" bootcamp has a 1 year placement rate for H12023 grads unofficially estimated by me at a coin flip (50/50, and possibly less) so I'd you are considering a bootcamp if: 1.should not expect a job and anyone making it seem guaranteed in a certain timeframe is misleading you, 2. you have advantages in your background (SWE adjacent work, STEM degree, etc....)
Congrats. The negative sentiment (which I've been accused of "causing") is directed towards the bootcamps and not the individual. Each person has a unique story, network, and raw aptitude and the trends don't apply to them. You have no idea what your journey will be but if you are rationally considering if s bootcamp is for you right now, the outcomes are he aily staclrd ahaonst you and it's not something you should choose because of pure optimism.
Once you're in, you're in. Maybe in retrospect you wouldn't have done it given the current sentiment, but you still did it and might as well give it your best shot your way.
Apprenticeships are an amazing idea.
In the United States we to expand the tax credits under the federal apprenticeship program and this would be incredible.
Imagine Google getting more tax credits than it costs to run apprenticeships so that people can go to a free (or you get paid) Google Apprenticeship.
No guaranteed job at all, but the training would be a lot better and you have Goolge on your resume, and then bootcamps could be like interview prep only services to help those apprentices place at other companies (Google can't hire them all but would never help these people place at other companies because it's a conflict of interest)
I can expand on this but if I had political clout with the two Presidential campaigns I would push on this.
Note that Google actually does have a formal government approved apprenticeship under expanded Obama/Biden rules. But it's not enough to sol…
I completely agree, I just see bootcamp grads have a harder time than CS grads (specifically through my lends at better tech companies). It's always expected new grads need time (at a loss to the company) to grow into engineers with more impact. At Meta I saw how bootcamp grads took longer - so long that they stopped supporting bootcamps they had experimented with hiring from.
Hi, yeah I also code in my sleeeeeeep 🤢 haha
They are indeed looked upon less favorably than CS grads, and top school CS Grads (US world news top 20-30) are looked upon more favorably than others, and the top 4-8 are looked upon even more favorably (you get wined and dined on campus by recruiters - literally).
I wouldn't recommend a bootcamp if you already have a CS degree.
Some suggestions:
1. Find older grads that you know and talk to them about their jobs and/or try to get referrals
2. Try to find recruiters who focus on your school
3. Consider grad school/masters
4. Consider internships post graduation
Hi, This sub stil has a lot of activity and has grown 5X over the past couple years in membership. BUT the tone is a lot more negative.
First: why no success stories?
The top bootcamps have had lower placements rates for 2023 grads. The odds of getting a job are lower, and the odds of getting a SWE job, rather than a SWE-adjacent job, have gone down as well.
So if you are one of the lucky ones, it's likely you had an arduous journey and it's likely may of your cohort that you found just as talented as you are seriously struggling to get a job, and you aren't going to Reddit to brag about your job.
To make it worse, I've been seeing more layoffs of bootcamp grads down the road, compared to CS grads. So just getting a great job out of a bootcamp isn't the end, but the base of a taller mountain.
... and those a few years out and in good shape, graduated in the boom times and it's hard…
I dont' see any single pattern.
1. Some people leave in the months timeframe (which often is not a good sign)
2. Some stick in the same role for a few years, fail to get promoted, and when layoffs happen they are the first to go.
3. Some do ok and even get promoted, but are still the first to go in layoffs
4. Some don't do so well and jump ship as soon as they can, and then keep jumping until they find a stable position long term, or learn enough on the job that finally find a position that clicks.
How many others were like you and didn't make it too far? I'm super curious because Triple Ten is advertising EVERYWHERE and touts an 86% placement rate, and if most people are like you and don't finish, I'm concerned.
So networking is ultimately about being useful to people. Too many people approach their network like a vacuum and try suck up all the usefulness from everyone else.
Flip that on its head and ask how you can help people.
If you help someone then they will want to work with you more and they might help you.
If you don't get any refund do you think it was worth the cost?
And second, do the other people you worked with get placed? i.e. how do you feel about the marketing about 86% of graduates placed.
I work with a lot of people who are desperate to find really good engineers. so if this is gatekeeping then we should try to explore why? it's so hard for people without CS degrees to get through.
It's easy to say on Reddit that it's unfair and have a pile on, that's not going to help anybody navigate the system.
The reality is that there are far too many bootcamp grads that look the same on paper. Codesmith grads coming out with one year of experience on their 3-week long project that all look the same. some of those people are pulling exceptional and some need more time to get there, but it's impossible for a human resource person, a recruiter, a hiring manager to figure that out.
imagine your hiring manager and you see a thousand resumes in front of you and 600 of them are bootcamp grads and they all look basically the same. there's just no reasonable way to distinguish between t…
No, I did a general engineering program and self taught web programming by doing a startup in college.
I worked with a large number of bootcamp grads now later on in their careers, mostly from Codesmith, Launch School, Rithm, Hack Reactor, Full stack Academy, App Academy, Hackbright, and more, so I see a lot of common challenges bootcamp grads face later on. We generally work with engineers later in their careers so these are people that made it. But a couple years ago we worked with people who just graduated from bootcamps too.
On the hiring side, at Meta we had tried to work with bootcamps to hire and the people just didn't make it. Only a handful made it and their careers were slower than others so it just wasn't a viable pipeline for new grad hiring.
Finally, I talk to a number of bootcamp founders and know a lot about their goals and pedagogies and have a good pulse on that side.
It's both imposter and imposter syndrome. I don't like the word imposter syndrome.
So let's use swimming as an analogy. You never swam as a kid but maybe you are a gifted swimmer and have the ideal body shape for swimming and you quickly become an Olympic level swimmer. You aren't an imposter if you perform at that level in a race. If you never swam and have no natural talent or gifts and want to be an Olympic swimmer, you might just not make it. Maybe you play the game, swim every waking second, focus solely on just ine specific type of swimming, go to obscure competitions to qualify and work the system to get into better races, but you don't have what's needed to swim at the best in the world level and you are going to face a constant uphill battle. You see others just make it and you wonder if you deserve to be there.
Well some people do have a shot and others don't.
SWE is similar…