I think you're trolling me so I'm going to link to my recent answer about this too: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bm94be/comment/kwdvx3n/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bm94be/comment/kwdvx3n/)
And my most recent post before the CIRR one today was about Launch School: [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 did what Launch School did in that AMA and presentation, then there wouldn't be a discussion because it was just all super clear and transparent about what was going on in the market cohort to cohort and month to month.
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)
CIRR finally published 2022 outcomes! They aren't as bad as expected at first glance, but I'm not a fan of the change to 360 day reporting period. Three schools reported, one of them had only 15 graduates in all of 2022, another published H2 2022 outcomes instead of full year 2022 outcomes.
So I reversed engineered some of the the H2 2022 outcomes for Codesmith.
DISCLAIMERS:
1. See Methodology for how to reproduce what I did yourself.
2. This may contain errors or misunderstandings, please check the numbers yourself and point out corrections and I will update anything incorrect.
3. These are illustrative examples based on the **reports and the me…
I'm on Reddit representing myself.
RE: Formation, I've explained here fairly recently why CIRR or CIRR-like reports don't make sense in advancing open and transparent understanding of what Formation does. Maybe some other standard would but until we get to a point where Pathrise, Interview Kickstart and us need a standard, we publish information on our blog about outcomes: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bhvmzf/comment/kvi0wyz](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bhvmzf/comment/kvi0wyz)
I was going to yeah, but Hactiv8 already published H2 2022 reports and the Code Platoon only has 15 graduates in ALL of 2022 so it doesn't seem worth it.
Q: Why didn't schools publish H2 2022 outcomes like normal 6 months ago, followed by "new" 2022 full year outcomes six months later?
I'm working on a quick analysis of some of the 2022 year outcomes because one can reverse engineer H2 2022 given H1 2022 and full year 2022, and H2 shows some very concerning trends that are masked by 2022 full year outcomes.
Followup: Given these trends why not make schools publish H2 2022 outcomes as we transition to this new standard?
Q: Why didn't schools publish H2 2022 outcomes like normal 6 months ago, followed by "new" 2022 full year outcomes six months later?
I'm working on a quick analysis of some of the 2022 year outcomes because one can reverse engineer H2 2022 given H1 2022 and full year 2022, and H2 shows some very concerning trends that are masked by 2022 full year outcomes.
Followup: Given these trends why not make schools publish H2 2022 outcomes as we transition to this new standard?
Well 100% I would agree not to take those jobs too.
Some companies have transition options or you can re-interview for SWE pretty easily. Other companies you are pigeon holed into that tangential role forever and the longer you are there, the harder it is you get out.
Hi, despite the layoff the critical step in the first job was the jump from solution engineer -> SWE in 3 months.
Not all solutions engineer roles have the ability to convert and this was probably the key move for you to get that foot in the door, crush it and then get promoted twice.
I also recommend trying to find paths like this for all bootcamp grads. The hard part is finding paths to SWE because at some companies you can be isolated for years, and it's not the easiest to make the jump via another company.
RE: current role, yeah title inflation but it's still growing in the right direction, congrats!
If you have that much experience than you should standout for E5 senior roles.
I would do a combination of:
1. Apply online to appropriate level roles
2. Message Meta sourcers on LinkedIn (ideally ones that appear to be in the technical area of the role and geographic region you applied to) after you apply with a brief message saying you are interested in a specific role and feel like you are a good fit.
Preparing for the interviews themselves is another topic, I wouldn't put too much pressure on yourself though to perform in a specific interview, because there's a lot outside your control and you can just show up and give the best performance you can.
I see this post getting downvoted so I'll just add that I had nothing to do with this post, had no idea it was coming and got a push notification like anyone else, but I do know who this person is based on the trajectory.
The bootcamp they are talking about indeed doesn't exist but was around in 2017 to 2019. It was Sophie's company where she single handedly ran an in person iOS bootcamp for 0 to 1. It was free and had an expensive office in downtown SF and was intended to be a small business that broke even. I worked on the learning platform (which is now a toy project some Fellows work on at Formation to practice SWE skills) and the back office stuff.
VC funding presented itself and she considered it so she could hire a team but we had to focus on a larger market than bootcamps. So we decided to pick up where bootcamps leave off, and that's what Formation is. While there are a ton of…
I think there was a misunderstanding, or maybe I misunderstood what you meant, but I didn't mean to blame you for anything at all! Sorry!
I typo'd SHOULD instead of SHOULDN'T, hopefully it makes more sense now
I think Codesmith is responsible for 1. letting these people in in the first place. 2. making sure they are progressing and doing what they are supposed to.
You as a random alumni probably should be unofficially responsible for helping people do their work... they are paying almost $22K for 13 weeks - $1700 a week.
It does depend on the company too and the interviewer.
At Meta, interview results come with the experience and history of the interviewer too, and calibrated trusted interviewers have more weight.
More junior interviewers I do see what you are saying, a more cut and dry DS&A, "what's theO()... linear... correct, next..." kind of vibe.
I'm trying to present the motivation for where it came from and where the process is aspiring to be and I stand by that part, even if in practice it's not always lived up to.
Yeah! It's just the DS&A coding interviews + brief background/project/past internship discussion.
Generally the recruiter does the work to see if your background is a good fit and coding is critical. Having a unique or impressive project or previous internship can help you pass in a borderline case.
1. "Last year, 18 percent of Stanford University seniors graduated with a degree in computer science, [more than double](https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/25/stanford-in-the-2010s-trends-in-undergrad-majors-visualized/) the proportion of just a decade earlier. Over the same period at MIT, that rate went up from [23 percent](https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/degrees-awarded/2012-2013) to [42 percent](https://registrar.mit.edu/stats-reports/degrees-awarded)." [source](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/computing-college-cs-majors/677792/)
So not a ton of people but people are catching on.... because they are in such high demand
2. Since about the Google days but much longer
I mean, it's not rocket science. I know a ton of Stanford students from my Meta days that I was friends with and hung out with on campus and not only are the people brilliant, but they spent…
+1 this - the fundamental problem with VC funding was that VCs saw high margin transaction - $15K, 12 weeks, massive value creation when people get high paying jobs - and invested in bootcamps to try to scale to thousands of people.
Lambda School/BloomTech is probably the extreme case of this that raised over $100M and scaled to thousands of students in like a year.
The problem was that to meet the VC growth expectations, these schools just hired more humans to scale to meet their targets instead of building the technology to scale that VC normally invest in.
And being a human focused business, these bootcamps failed to recruit the top tier tech talent needed to build that technology who want to work on leading edge stuff, and they failed to multiply the original super dedicated intense founder.
Which brings us to today, where the best bootcamps are smaller, founder-driven programs.
We have a private chat server yeah, no public ones. We have a small numbr of public events but not many.
I always recommend people do the free TIRA benchmark because it gives you an idea of where you are at, and we'll also notify you of upcoming sessions and events and get you in the system.
We also have a 21 day coding challenge you can sign up for on our website.
But that's about it at this time.
I believe Netflix is still reviewing all of the interview results. It took a while to interview everyone and they don't want to communicate outcomes until they carefully consider everyone. So stay tuned! I would say no news is good news for now.
+1 to number 2. Stanford and Berkeley did a lot of work to vet and evaluate people at a high bar for 4 years, and if a company hires those grads and those grads tend to do really well at the company, it creates a cycle of reinforcement.
FOLLOWUP: **Why don't bootcamp grads have that reputation**? Like if people hire HR or Codesmith grads and they out perform Stanford grads, wouldn't that want to make the company go back and hire more HR grad? From my observations at Meta the Stanford grads just flat out outperformed on the job and it took bootcamp grads a lot longer to settle in and find their place. It's why apprenticeships became a thing.
I have pretty strong opinion on this being on the other side of the table, interviewing hundreds of people and establishing the interview processes.
I'll tell you why Meta does it the way they do and then I'll give advice for how to think about these things.
WHY DS&A:
1. There are hundreds of frameworks and thousands of stacks you could learn and DS&A normalize these things to a level playing field that anyone can practice in any framework or language.
2. Meta has tends of thousands of engineers and wants to keep a very high bar. So DS&A interviews allow for extreme calibration, consistency, and comparisons between candidates. Obviously this isn't perfect, but it's much better than if each team hired their own way with their own process like at Apple say.
3. All of that said, there is a bit of an academic lens because most of the engineers came from top computer science schools. So…
Lots of questions but how about this to start on
1. Why are you no longer a believer in the bootcamp model?
2. Given your role in hiring and team building, can you give insight into why you think companies are doubling down on top tier computer science grads in this market and shutting out bootcamp grads? (Feel free to challenge the premise here if you aren't seeing that trend, not meant to be a loaded question)
3. Expanding on 2, do you see trajectory differences in bootcamp grads vs computer science grads and do you think there is an actual skill gap that impacts people later in their careers? Or once you have a job for a few years, the credentials are irrelevant?
Yeah sure always happy to chat with people and give my 2 cents. You can't make "big tech" jumps overnight and there's a lot you can do on the job now to set yourself up for the future too and would love if I had some good advice to help with that.
A couple of Codesmith alumni are constantly on my case and claiming that I'm trying to put down Codesmith and get people to go to Formation instead. Now I don't really want to talk about Formation but I'm going to try to use this as an example of my constant points about this and I hope this doesn't seem like an advertisement.
(Apologies to the commenter that I used this comment as an example)
But this trajectory is not that uncommon and in fact it can be improved beyond this for those that want to prioritize work and want to work at big tech, and that's what FORMATION does. We help at that 2021/2022 mark in this trajectory to get to the E4 mid-level $300K job at top tier tech companies. We are NOT designed to help with the 2020 first job like Codesmith does.
Now not everyone wants to do that, but for people that do, you pay around $10K to Formation to hopefully make that 2023 jump to…
Personal opinion but the amount you are posting on this subreddit comes across that you are a well established bootcamp and if you just started a month ago and are "testing the market" you won't get a lot of support from prospective students here... they are tired of businesses coming into the bootcamp industry and marketing to them.
I run a business so I know it's a chicken and egg problem, but programs typically start small and discounted and as they work, prices go up and if it's really good the early people share their stories and attract more people, and then the ball is rolling.
About a year ago there was a program called Build A Dev that looked great and promised such an amazing experience but then the instructor ended up cancelling and they shut down, tried again and the new instructor would miss classes and eventually shut it down again. A lot of people were upset.
The probl…
Yeah attending workshops and full ahead of time counts in my theory haha.
End of 2023 people were being let in like 2 days before and one in particular was absolutely not a good fit and it was not good for them or Codesmith that they got in.
Now that they shrunk down do like 25% of their peak capacity hopefully they will stabilize at a 30 person solid cohort filled up a few weeks ahead of time.
The people I know who work there say that leadership is terrible at forecasting and appears to make changes every few weeks at all hands meetings that are reacting to the current state of things. Like they paid bonuses to admissions people who filled cohorts - which resulted in people getting pushed to their 2nd and 3rd interviews days apart to rush them to get in.
Their website is full of so much randomness now: career accelerator courses, paths to prepare for Codesmith, future code for NYC re…
My theory for this is that I see ebbs and flows with how much demand there is to get in. When demand is low and cohorts are open until the last minute, they let in people who more recently got into the community and are less engaged. When there is a backlog, they have people clamoring for months to get in and they let in the most "Codesmith"-y people who will perpetuate the culture and spread the good word.
Did you graduate in 2023? It sounds like some cohorts were super engaged and close and others completely ghosted and disappeared.
Any thoughts on this? I wonder if it's a scaling issue or certain instructors.
The topics and questions aren't a secret and you can find them by just Googling. It's good to watch a bunch of practice interviews, but it takes a lot of practice to get really ready for SD and don't try to just prepare answers for specific problems.
If that's what you want, you didn't read my advice :D
Yeah, SD is a challenging interview at Meta, my 3 common tips are:
1. Start by asking a lot of questions, collecting requirements, and drawing a block diagram
2. For each piece you dive into, always discussion at least 2 options and their pros and cons, even if one is much better than the others
3. A good interview is a natural conversation back and forth. Don't just present a monologue.
FWIW, at canonical FAANG (Meta specifically I can speak to with 95% confidence) this person would likely be an E4 mid-level. Titles don't mean much.
But it's a very good progression - doing really well at this level for a couple (2-3) years and that might pattern match to a canonical E5 senior.
(I see this kind of background often and I'm very calibrated on this)
Awesome, thanks for sharing your trajectory! This is a super reasonable trajectory for a ambitious bootcamp grad working their way up from entry level SWE To senior SWE (generally speaking, not title-wise) in 3 years.
Some questions:
1. Curious if you changed companies anywhere in there or if you stayed at the same company and got promoted.
2. I've also heard from a lot of people that Codesmith wasn't happy with them considering a < $100K job. But your trajectory really worked out so well and maybe even better, so I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. Any more thoughts on this?
3. The market is super different right now, so do you think someone with a similar background to you should start Codesmith today?
I would recommend applying, complete the post application benchmark, and then ping me so I can then follow up and help make sure our team looks at your application.
Whole range, canonical E4 (FAANG mid)/E5 (FAANG senior) is the most common, skewing E4. The most senior placement was a FAANG staff level. In the current market the majority of people who have joined in the past few months are high mid or senior as well.
This is an example of a more senior person and hopefully we'll have some public examples soon (a couple of people right in that 6 to 8 year bucket who got senior Meta roles): [https://formation.dev/blog/success-story-mike-clarke/](https://formation.dev/blog/success-story-mike-clarke/)
The mentors range as well. We have those super senior managers and principal engineers - generally for specific 1-1 mocks. And we have more mid level mentors that run small groups sessions who are really good at coaching or specific technical topics.
In comparing to [Interviewing.io](http://Interviewing.io) - we want the equivalent of those "expensive"…
Very different things. I think we are somewhat competitive but we're more directly competitive with Interview Kickstart than Interviewing.io.
**Interviewing.io:**
- Good to do one or two interviews if you have an upcoming interview and have no idea if you are prepared
- Good for benchmarking - you know how close to the bar you are.
- Okay/but less good at levelling up - you can buy interview packages and get 1-1 feedback, but it's limited to coaching sessions and there isn't day to day or broader job hunting support
- Not good if you need 5+ mocks with senior people as the cost will be closer to Formation cost and Formation gives you a ton more value.
**Formation:**
- Ultimate goal - get you the highest chance of passing top tier interviews and identifying and getting you whatever mentorship and practice you need to get there
- Very broad coverage - DS&A, SD, technical behavioral…
My common 3 tips are:
1. Practice whiteboard style - Don't rely on executing the code to test it. you have to be able to explain why the code works and what its performance is just by walking through it.
2. practice talking out loud - ideally with other people around to go feedback but you can also record yourself.
3. follow some kind of problem solving method. I shared one somewhere else on this thread but this isn't rocket science. the hard part is just diligently under pressure following a method that forces you to consistently complete problems. So when you're nervous and there's lots of pressure, maybe there's a twist on the problem we haven't seen before. if you can take a deep breath and follow a consistent problem solving method, there's a much higher chance that you'll pass and a much lower chance that you'll completely bomb the interview.
Sorry, was also not implying you said that either and didn't fully explain what I was talking about.
Tech is still largely dominated by men and it was even worse back then. The big tech IPOs attracted a demographic that previously went to wall Street out of school.
Mothers are statistically the primary care giver in the USA and doing a 11 hour a day bootcamp - in person back then - was not at all inclusive. We still see this today in intensives like Codesmith which have been majority men as well (prior to all the recent changes, don't know anymore).
In person bootcamps were - perhaps unintentionally - made for unattached people who could move to SF or NYC and do 11 hours days in person for 3 months and then hustle their way to a job.
Things were way different 8 years ago.
Doom and gloom from people spending more time on Reddit than job hunting is one thing.
But stats are clear. End of 2023 outcomes were absolutely terrible and people need to exercise extreme caution trusting anyone or anything trying to sell them a bootcamp right now.
You need to go for the right reasons after careful consideration and not get wood by glitz and glamor.
Finally, engineering has become more diverse since then. A bunch of aggro single guys "competing" for FAANG jobs is very much past us and bootcamps are now a place supportive of people from different backgrounds expressing themselves and feeling supported to do things the way they want to do them.
I mean my day job is helping people get FAANG offers and we have a very high Meta placement rate right now. There are a ton of nuances beyond what I can quickly comment in a post but I stand by "clean solution" is the ultimate complement in a Meta interview.
You can join via subscription and we'll consider it case by case depending on your experience and job prospects. There isn't a strict reason but we only want to accept that people we are confident we can help and give you a return on investment.
Feel free to ping me your LinkedIn and I can give more personalized advice.
I mean it depends on your interviewer. Really seasoned and calibrated interviewers have ways to identify this. It's pattern matching.
Less calibrated interviewers might be less good at this.
Interviewer experience is taken into account in the packet review.
For the past year we don't accept anyone without a year of SWE experience, and literally a handful of people who appeal to come in with say 6 months of experience but are clear on their goals and aligned, so no one recently does them back to back.
We've had way more people come back to Formation twice and pay us twice (or three times) than we have people who have done Formation immediately after graduating Codesmith.
The fact that people come back to Formation multiple times and pay us each time is a very clear indication we are not remotely anything similar to Codesmith. We don't teach anything.
The personal trainer analogy is much stronger. Hire a personal trainer, get into shape, good for a few years, have new training goal, get into better shape again, good for a few more years. Have a kid, need to make routine changes, get into shape again.
\`I think it is very difficult to obje…
Launch School's 2023 Capstone Outcomes (Commentary)
Source: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKHZYX8D78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKHZYX8D78)
The CEO of Launch School walks through their 2023 outcomes very transparently in the video. Starting with each of the 3 cohorts who were job hunting in 2023 and walking through the number of people enrolled in each cohort and what happened to them.
**OVERALL:** Honestly the CEO walks through like month by month and cohort by cohort so I don't really need to read between the lines here, he puts it out how it is. Lays out the good and bad very clearly.
**SUMMARY:**
End of 2022 Cohort: 36 enrolled, 30 accepted offers within 6 months, 23 were USA based and median salary of USA offers $104K. Mean job hunt: 10.5 weeks.
Early 2023 Cohort: 23 enrolled, 22 accepted offers within 6 months, 14 were USA based and median salary of USA offers $122…
Talking out loud and whiteboarding-style prep are two big ones to practice, that is very different from crushing through LC problems in your room alone.
This is very bias and not meant to be an ad at all, but I highly recommend following a "problem solving process" rather than just trying to solve a problem based on ones you've seen before. This is the one I helped create: [https://formation.dev/blog/the-engineering-method/](https://formation.dev/blog/the-engineering-method/) <- I'm commenting here as an individual and not on behalf of my company
There's always a chance you'll get a new problem and you don't want to fail the interview because you spent 6 months memorizing a list. Not only that Meta doesn't want those people, they want people who can solve problems. The same approach works with Google interviews as well.
Finally, SD and the technical behavioral round are also important…