CIRR changed the standard to go from 180 day reporting to 360 day reporting.
So there are H1 2022 numbers published from the old standard and full year 2022 numbers from the new standard.
I did the simple math to estimate H2 2022 numbers based on those two reports.
The fact that they tanked in H2 and we had to wait 6 months longer than usual to get the results is my biggest complaint about the process.
That and Codesmith said a couple times now they had an H2 2022 report six months ago they didn't share because of these last minute changes.
It's marketing.
There is no standard to publish that no. I think an increase in compensation is a really good metric though because it puts a dollar value on before and after to compare to the cost of the program.
Calculating it is hard. There isn't just one way to do it. The two options are 1. someone comes up with a reasonable way and then makes a standard that others agree on and use. 2. You calculate it however you want and then explain very clearly exactly how so people aren't misled.
I would LOVE to just share raw results per person, but you have to find a way to do it without people being able to figure out a person's identity.
I mean facts are facts, and upvoting and downvoting doesn't change them. People can follow me and downvote all my comments, doesn't make then false.
People in the bootcamp industry need honesty and transparency. They do not need the next level of manipulation: using transparency as a marketing tool, they need straight up open communication from the source.
This Codesmith AMA blog is no where near open communication from the source and no one is engaging in tough questions. The moderator told me not to reply to anything.
Nothing is perfect but if Codesmith doesn't confront it's imperfections it's going to fall apart, they seem to be intentionally spewing out user and student information, source code, and content all over the place and are upset AT ME for reading it and make me out to be some creepy person spying on them. They need to get their stuff together instead of putting lipstick…
I don't have explicit list of who is paying how much, but this is what I have:
1. They are on the "featured schools" list: "Schools may compensate Course Report for featured placement."
2. The mention sponsorship tiers here: [https://www.coursereport.com/connect](https://www.coursereport.com/connect)
3. I follow their Youtube and they release videos there (and on their blog) from the same list of bootcamps, that they also publish "weekly events" for on their socials. And all of them are "featured schools" on their website.
I wish they were more transparent about all this, it's not easy to tell.
I did report a review on there from an alumni who listed their name, so I found their LinkedIn and that they worked at the school they reviewed and didn't disclose that in the review. Course Report said it was totally fine and didn't remove it.
Yeah they pay to sponsor them and Course Report doesn't disclose sponsorship in videos and Twitter posts etc... which I've also complained about.
I dunno, I guess I'm the loser hall monitor who tattles on everyone but people are playing such fast and loose with the truth I don't really care.
The marketing team was all laid off, correct. They hired a former student to write blogs and post in CSX Slack.
But this has always been their marketing strategy - they don't pay anything on display ads anywhere. The closest thing is sponsoring Course Report.
I think this kind of marketing is fantastic use of money and it's also more organic than seeing blatant ads like we do.
But it IS marketing, correct, and the person who ran it is a career long director of marketing. So if people think it's all fun and great community - it both is great community AND it's marketing, but anyone who thinks it's purely one or the other is choosing sides.
Yeah I don't know much and don't want to mislead you with wrong advice. I know in general PE cares fairly equally about infrastructure as infra SWE roles, but they also care more about nitty gritty unix commands and networking tools/debugging and such. But nothing specific I can advise you on.
I mean if you look at what we do and IK does and Pathrise does, it's a really completely different way of operating.
Bootcamps are human-centric business. Codesmith has almost no actual code, the engineers work on their Main website and CSX website.
Pathrise, IK, and Formation are all platforms with a bunch of proprietary technology to help people prepare for interviews and job hunts.
It would be like a small fine dining restaurant changing to selling food in the grocery store.
It's possible, but it's not as obvious as it sounds.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
(Reposting my answer to the question because my previous one was removed and I'm not sure why)
/u/[annie-ama](https://www.reddit.com/user/annie-ama/): I talk on Reddit a decent amount about data, and I'm a fan of all data with scientifically reproducible methodologies so people can tell where it came from and evaluate it. CIRR's standard is full of ambiguous or not well defined sourcing requirements as well. Still a decent standard and I like that it requires enough info so people can calculate certain important things on their own.
I mean Codesmith website wrongfully says that $127,500 is the "Software Engineering Immersive Grads Median Annual Base Salary" without any asterix or adjacent explanation of that term.
The actual number is the "median annual base salary of graduates that placed and reported salaries" not of all graduates.
I'm much more concerned about that than our number…
There's a campaign against me right now since I criticized CIRR yeah. It happens every time I criticize CIRR.
That's why I'm here day in day out for 2+ years now and have a strong long term reputation.
There are some alumni that REALLY love Codesmith and some that REALLY DON'T love Codesmith, and it is what it is.... on both sides, anonymous people who have very little history making rude, angry, or personal comments.
I have nothing against Codesmith overall and up until their recent changes recommended a lot of people go there (and might again once things stabilize).
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy· edited★ FEATURED
/u/[annie-ama](https://www.reddit.com/user/annie-ama/): I talk on Reddit a decent amount about data, and I'm a fan of all data with scientifically reproducible methodologies so people can tell where it came from and evaluate it. CIRR's standard is full of ambiguous or not well defined sourcing requirements as well. Still a decent standard and I like that it requires enough info so people can calculate certain important things on their own.
I mean Codesmith website wrongfully says that $127,500 is the "Software Engineering Immersive Grads Median Annual Base Salary"
The actual number is the "median annual base salary of graduates that placed and reported salaries" not of all graduates.
I'm much more concerned about that than our numbers, because we explain in paragraphs of fine print how the numbers are calculated so no one is mislead.
RE: highest total compensation - I don't think it'…
1. Why was there such an increase in people not reporting salaries between H1 and H2 2022 data? It jumped about 14%, meaning that 14% more of the outcomes in H2 2022 did not have a reported salary (e.g. were verified by LinkedIn) compared to H1 2022.
2. How does the "Where Are They Now" data normalize for people who don't respond or cannot be reached? For example, CIRR requires you to verify the outcome of EACH graduate, whereas this data appears to be based on whoever replies to the survey. CIRR requires EACH graduate to be verified so that people who don't do as well, maybe leave the industry, etc... are counted, but in the "Where Are They Now" if people didn't do well and disengaged from the community, how are they accounted for?
3. Can you give preliminary six month placement rates for H1 2023 full time grads? Based on the CIRR reporting process, there should be a preliminary estim…
I told you repeatedly that I don't spend much time on Reddit and you and other Codesmith alumni keep saying otherwise. I can PROVE how much time I spend on Reddit relatively to work so I'm giving you warning to back off and stop lying about it.
You can talk about how you "perceive" me to spend all my time, but you can't make a factual statement like that that is not true, this is your warning, and I will consider further cases harassment.
The CIRR spec isn't consistent with this. cc u/StephenScript, u/CIRR_Board
1. "If a student has held multiple positions, you may report on the position acquired at your discretion. However, you must use the salary of the position that matches the student’s offer or start date."
This sounds like you can use offer you want, as long as the the start date corresponds to the salary.
2. "Documentation for all job outcomes must: Indicate that the offer was accepted."
So only an accepted offer can count in CIRR data and not just offers received.
My opinion is crowd control is doing it's job. If you want a larger voice in the community, join and have positive contributions over a long period of time. This isn't a place for new and/or sketchy accounts to troll.
This is a feature Reddit built, it doesn't have dials and knobs to manipulate for specific users and I plan on activating it on any most where there is offtopic personal conversations involving new user accounts, so it can do it's job.
I asked the other mods if they agree with this is or not and if they don't then I'll follow what we collectively decide.
I turned on "crowd control" on several controversial posts. Do you know what "crowd control" does?
"Collapse comments from people who haven’t joined your community, new Reddit users, and people with negative karma in your community"
So it's very clear why you all are being collapsed, and complain to Reddit, not me.
Yeah I can't share much because people send me stuff in confidence, and since I can't share the evidence, you can't value that statement either, so I understand.
I don't know what's happened since the CIRR stuff came out but lots of accounts came out of nowhere that were a lot meaner.
Until the recent changes Codesmith underwent, I recommended it to a lot of people 1-1 for whom it was a good fit, and I'm pretty sure that some of their leaders know that. I still talk to those students while they are in Codesmith and then afterwards.
It's not so cut and dry, and I wish the people jumping straight to attacks would give me more wiggle room to present both sides. I'm not perfect, but I'm very fair. I was invited to be a moderator because I'm seen as a disciplined, high integrity person who is very responsive.
You can give me feedback in a nicer or more direct way instead of being passive aggressive on a thread about Codesmith involving other people personally attacking me who are affiliated with Codesmith.
You think that's great behavior, and my constant reasonable, fact-based comments and thoughtful opinions are toxic...
Do you have the bandwidth to do both? Take a tech lighterweight adjacent job, - maybe even part time, and ideally at a top tech company (e.g. IT support for Meta) and do a little freelancing on the side. If freelancing picks up, lower hours or drop the IT job and go all in?
Not sure I advise this but something to think about.
Codesmith people think this sub has become "toxic" becuase it's not full of positive posts about Codesmith.
The CIRR results finally showed the cause of this and it's that there is an unprecedented drop in placement rates - and we haven't seen 2023 data yet - and a unprecedented spike in ghosting.
The market is bad.
Do you think all those people not getting placed and dropping out of the community are positive supporters? Or do you think they anonymously go to Reddit and complain or generally have a sour attitude.
I push people to present evidence and facts and thoughtful opinions. You can agree and disagree but it doesn't have to be done through anonymous accounts, insults and flippant personal attacks.
Anything I say on here I would say directly to Will and Eric K to their faces.
Y'all using anonymous accounts to attack me and people using anonymous accounts to attack Codesmith a…
There is an organized effort with staff and alumni to change the tone on this subreddit about Codemsith out of concern that it's not as positive as it was before and is inspiring enrollment.
So it could be, but no idea who is involved with that and who is a regular user.
Was bullied my whole childhood, and had major confidence issues. I had to build self confidence by acknowledging the things I'm good and bad at based on facts and not what's in my head, and then not feeling bad acknowledging to myself that I'm good at something. In fact, this whole process is why I have such strong views on facts and imposter syndrome that I talk about a lot.
Some of the most powerful people in the world entrusted me as the most reliable go to person for general responsiveness and I am extremely good at it and you mocking me for it makes me feel sorry for you and has zero impact on me.
Yeah interviewing.io is great for doing 1 to 3 mock interviews.
There are a few newer competitors that you can look into like hellointerview.com
I'm the cofounder of Formation, we don't officially support the UK, but we do on a one off basis, and our competitors are Interview Kickstart and Pathrise and you can look into those as well. All of these options are the many thousands of dollars range of cost but more consistently fill in the the last 20%, but are way more time commitment and way more expensive than just a few mock interviews.
All these options are worth looking into to see if something feels like a good match for what you think you need.
Practicing LeetCode and solving unseen Medium problems easily is 80% of the way there. But we're talking Meta and the bar is high. To get that last 20% it's a different set of skills that's hard to put in words.
It takes genuine practice and a clear problem solving method.
Everything is about probabilities. If you solve 1800 Leetcode problems you might have a chance of passing but to increase your chances beyond that you need the above.
Hi, the first interview is just DS&A, but the onsite will have SD yeah.
First you can choose to have a Product Architecture (i.e. "full stack system design") or a System Design ("infrastructure system design")
Both are both haha, start of HLD and then you'll dive into different pieces and get lower level. For example you might write psudocode for a ranking algorithm, the API for a news feed, or a SQL schema, etc... but for specific parts of the overall system.,
Several\_Top is no longer a mod of r/Codesmith as of today.
Another moderator said this announcing the sub: "Hey everyone! My name is \[A\] and I am a CSX student. I work full-time as a remote analyst. I discovered Codesmith through Reddit and also through a friend who has gone through the program. We saw that there wasn’t a subreddit for Codesmith so myself and a few others have started r/codesmith. We want to invite everyone to join, especially those who are new to Codesmith like me!"
And stated that it's not affiliated with Codesmith at all.
Several\_Top stated that they were an alumni of Codesmith and has shared inside information about Codesmith in the past (leaked screenshot from an [Alumni presentation](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1apcrg5/83_of_job_offers_from_codesmith_in_2023_were/) - , so being a founding moderator of the sub would look bad and go again…
It's extremely condescending for you to think you know who I am better than me and what my company does better than me. It's fair game to ask me questions and challenge my answers, but not to personally attack me and who I am.
If you think I spend a lot of time on Reddit, then you should see how much I get done at Formation, it's 100X more. Just imagine what an engineer that prolific can accomplish. If you don't believe me, that's on you, you've seen my GitHub and comments about how responsive I am 24/7 to Formation Fellows as the priority over Reddit and other people.
I'm exceptionally good at what I do. I was THE number ONE code producer at the ENTIRE COMPANY of Meta. I left 7 years ago and I'm still in the top 30 or something - that's how far ahead I was even when I left.
You have absolutely no right to judge me and what I do just because your imagination is limited to what you can…
Consistency and integrity always triumph over trolling so I'll keep doing my thing.
My priority is Formation's Fellows. We are approaching 10 Meta offers in 2024 and a few of them were in the 7 figures with their stock, so trolls be trolls and I'm busy with more impactful things and trying my hardest to make a difference in people's lives, not warming the heart of a Reddit troll. All I have is my integrity and I stand up for my integrity.
Codesmith's Unofficial/Reverse Engineered H2 2022 CIRR Report - NOTABLE OPINIONS: concerning increase in number of ghosters on salaries (that still counted as job obtainers !!), 180 day placement rate of 63% (a little higher than expected)
I don't think they will change much. Maybe new companies will change their styles and then become so large that those new styles become more common.
DS&A interviews are extremely fair, calibrated, consistent, at scale and more practical interviews are much harder to scale.
A very calibrated interviewer isn't testing if can solve LeetCode problems but it's testing your problem solving ability and thought process.
Yeah good point. He mentioned that this was more on track to the early 2023 cohort, which is better than the late 2023 one but still nowhere near previous highs.
Mid 2023 looks survivable though, end of 2023 looks not sustainable - too few students and too few placements and it's good insight into why so many larger and less hands on programs shrunk so much at that time.
Don The Developer tries to be a neutral place. He's maybe a little more suspicious of bootcamps and tends to assume something's up until proven otherwise haha, but does a decent job at interviewing grads about pros and cons of bootcamps.
He's so adamant about his neutrality though he will only interview people he reaches out to and not people sent to him as "success stories" so it might not be a great fit but could maybe ask him.
Yeah +1 to that the reason I heard about this was that instructors felt overloaded already, they hardly EVER write code but though they were signing up as "software engineers" for Codesmith, and they get forced to do this as well.
The complaints were about work load and being forced to do it without it feeling "optional" to help out if they wanted to on their own time.
Yeah typically means you'll get down-leveled to E4. And if you pick things up really fast you can get promoted to E5 VERY fast, like a year.
Now I don't think you necessarily need large-scale experience exclusively, you can have extremely complex smaller-scale problems you've solved, but you need to demonstrate the same patterns and complexity in managing that these large-scale problems always come with.
For example, let's say you worked on a NASA moon lander. There's like 1 or 2 of them, but you had to work on a huge team solving complex problems with a lot of complex API's between systems and complex technical challenges, but scale? Not really.
In April-May is what Will said last week I think or a few weeks ago. My understanding it was going to be paid and not free, and for current residents and alumni, framed as a "minor", like in college.
In the mean time, you can do this completely FREE online course from Stanford and Andrew Ng, an industry expert in AI and teaching AI: [https://www.coursera.org/specializations/machine-learning-introduction](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/machine-learning-introduction)
**Historical Context:**
- They had an entire Data Science and Machine Learning (DSML) track they experimented with, but it initially failed as they needed people with more experience to go through it.
- Then they forked it off as a separate concept aimed at PhD students/grads, https://www.dsmlresearch.org/. They reportedly spent over $1M on this to get a cohort running and when they brought on their new external…
Yeah sorry, I'm replying for everyone who reads this, I got a lot of rando accounts all over my comments on this CIRR stuff and don't know who is who.
It's why my responses are so long and repetitive, but I feel it's what I need to do.
If you want to chat 1-1 DM me and I'm way different way of writing lol
Well CIRR's specification allows any text message sent from a graduate, without any kind of verification, as long as it has the start date, that it was accepted, and the job type (i.e. full time, part time, permanent, contract) to be used as the "gold standard".
There is ZERO specification for how to verify salaries, ZERO. The only rule is the salary has to be base salary and correspond to the job used for the start date, but absolutely ZERO rules for how it has to be collected or verified and auditing doesn't have to verify salaries either.
Are you saying that people should be pressuring schools to join CIRR or pressuring them to be more transparent? Or are you implying that CIRR is the only source of transparency?
Rithm School and Launch School are best of the best bootcamps and both have a similar vision of providing transparent data and choose to not be in CIRR because of they have different views on transparency than CIRR does.
If CIRR is going to put efforts in lobbying to try to brand themselves as the only transparent source of bootcamp data, it's not surprise no one wants to be a CIRR member and don't reply to your emails.... the spec is full of issues and problems.
I don't even want to help fix those because you aren't open and transparent about how the spec is managed. You said you had a meeting to adopt the spec AND approved the results at the same time? and the new spec was published alongside results instea…
Sorry, I agree devastating blow is my characterization of shrinking from 4 full time cohorts to 1 and laying off 1/3 to 1/2 the staff. I think that's a reasonable characterization but it's indeed an opinion and not fact.
I completely agree and support correcting the time windows for CIRR and also observe a lot of people mistaking them, but it's also true that this period is for the very last graduate on Dec 31st, 2022.
The first graduate who started Codesmith in Sept 2021, graduated in Jan 2022 and wrapped up the job search by Dec 2022 took 1.25 years to show up in public data here.
Rithm School criticized this this morning as well, that the annual reporting cycle causes a 6+ month delay in getting that data from earlier people, even the 360 day data, not just the 6 month one! And they don't like that and do their own standard as a result.
"In this day and age, LinkedIn is almost as gospel as anything else"
Which is fine with me, if people just know this and understand that in interpreting CIRR results, but this obviously introduces weaknesses if people are exaggerating or optimizing their narrative on LinkedIn.
OFFER LETTERS are gospel, not LinkedIn and an auditor speaking with a board member of CIRR, and Codesmith advisor, all agreeing on LinkedIn being gospel... gives me a darn good right to call that out so people are aware, no?
You can argue if you agree or disagree, but calling that out shouldn't warrant attacks and defensiveness. Like I said, I think LinkedIn should be used but want to discuss the documentation mechanisms and details on how so that it's transparent.
No drama when people are boringly transparent and don't have a single thing to read between the lines: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1blhhh0/launch\_schools\_2023\_capstone\_outcomes\_commentary/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1blhhh0/launch_schools_2023_capstone_outcomes_commentary/)
If Codesmith's CEO just says straight up like Launch School's founder did, people had low morale and started ghosting from Codesmith and it was devastating blow to Codesmith's culture and one of the reasons they shrunk down 70% (est. 1000 alumni in 2023 vs on pace for 300 in 2024) so they can re-focus on a tighter and more supportive group of residents, then that's FANTASTIC.
All of the alumni from BEFORE this "ghost era" who had that great culture should cheer on that kind of change instead of misleading prospective students that everything is still fine because Cod…
Yeah no kidding, and and u/CIRR_Board (Fluffy works at Rithm School) didn't answer that question... if they want you guys at Rithm and people like Launch School (who want to be more transparent than CIRR is today) to join CIRR and help it grow, CIRR shouldn't broadcast themselves as the gold standard of transparency trying to get other people to join with an arrogant attitude like this below:
>Schools will care about this if prospective students care about this. The more students who ask a school why they aren't reporting to CIRR or to see their outcomes reports, the more pressure there is on them to participate. We will continue to try to increase participation, but I will put out the bat signal to you all for help.
Some people don't join CIRR because they want it to be more transparent and why face an uphill battle when they can make their own standards more easily on their own.
Tha…
+1 it can go both ways for sure and I didn't comment on salaries at all.
That said, there are always people who ghost salaries every half, and it's generally a smaller number, but it REALLY tanked this half and I think something else is going on. Like combining all of this, 25% of people are ghosting in some way in H2 versus hardly anyone in H1 and the market only got worse in the rest of 2023 for H1 2023 grads.
It should be zero surprise that sentiment on this sub is bad and that enrollment tanked 70% in end of 2023 and it's certainly not me pointing this stuff out that's causing it. Smart engineers making $130K salaries can figure this out by talking to these alumni and hearing about this stuff from them.
Now I have inside info here that end of last year, Instructors were asked to text and reach out to alumni to try to get placement info out of them via whatever means they could to…
From the interview prep company point of view, like Pathrise, Formation, Interview Kickstart, these places aren't schools and aren't 'education' and I can't see why they would join CIRR (personal opinion)
It might end up bing a waste of time to come up with a standard you think will work for these companies by observing from the outside without getting to know how they work first.
I know for Formation, it would be like making a standard for Personal Trainers for how good they are at being a personal trainer based on analyzing all of their clients. Some people are overweight and want to just lose weight. Some people are in good shape and want to get ripped. Some people want to get skinny. Some people want to run a marathon. Some people want to be a sprinter. Some people are recovering form injuries.
Like weight lost, muscle gained all misleading metrics. Some people want to lose weight…