+1 to waitlists, I check the programs page like once a week (or once a day for the past week haha, I was poking around already because they had zero cohorts in February and something didn't add up)
But anyways, about a year ago they had waitlists and cohorts full months ahead of time. Now they have cohorts open until the week before, and they are admitting people who appear on paper to have less qualified backgrounds (subjective judgement opinion, not a fact) who just REALLY want to go to Codesmith for a long time.
And 100% should have seen the writing on the wall. I know I'm hard on them even when the times are good, but it's because I don't ride ups and downs, I try to evaluate objectively and they should have been using the good times to invest in making everything more robust and better. I said this somewhere but even if my criticisms were hard to hear, listening instead of defend…
This is also true. Almost all the mentors at Formation are industry engineers and some are great teachers and some aren't. Fortunately, we aren't a school and we don't teach anything, so being a good teacher isn't a requirement, but a mentor who is doing lightweight mentorship can be very polarizing and we have a whole PATENTED system for managing all the engineer <-> mentor relationships. It's crazy hard problem for a group of 8+ year FAANG product engineers to solve haha. I believe Codesmith has one contract product engineer that I know of and if they want industry "faculty" actually teaching as teachers in a school setting, that's even harder in my opinion.
Yeah +1, my understanding is they want MORE EXPERIENCED alumni and not alumni who just got jobs, etc...
That said, that person was identified as a "Faculty", which has four very important consequences:
1. Since Codesmith is a "school", has important meaning (for regulation) and this person might be more tied now to Codesmith than they think, maybe they are fully aware but I'm curious if all these new "Faculty" will be aware of this.
2. Conflicts of Interest. Companies generally barely allow people to be lightweight mentors and a lot of the top companies block people from being the "Faculty" of a school without disclosure and review for conflicts of interest. I know at Meta this was a major thing and there was a very non-fun conflict review process that blocked a lot of things. So I'm hoping if someone is an alumni and wants to be a "Faculty" or is going to be identified as one, that t…
Those were independent events. The CTRI lead left in the middle of a cohort and the head of instruction took over at the CTRI lead temporarily. After the last CTRI cohort finished, they stopped advertising it and said it was 'on pause, hoping to return in the new year', and then it never did.
They did have about 18% layoffs later in the year, also unrelated to this person's departure and I think it was more related to that.
But even with those layoffs, they didn't make any significant changes (my opinion) to the actual instruction or curriculum or career support - at least not nearly as significant as what's been discussed in the recent announcement.
This is all stuff I agree with too, like things change, the instruction quality will hopefully remain the same.
My personal concern is that this tone is one that Codesmith leaders have had during all the market downturns, and keeping instruction the same old same old isn't working - and it might just be impossible for people with 0 SWE experience to get jobs right now out of a bootcamp.
I was actually more optimistic about them finally making changes to the process, and I'm more nervous about THOSE CHANGES being executed flawlessly and working as expected. To me the risk is that those things may or may not materialize and have impact because they are brand new and since we don't know it just increases the risk in joining. Risk here is not a bad thing! It's risk in the technical definition - higher variance of possible outcomes/results.
I mean they also eliminated CTRI last year and told people it was "coming back soon and just on pause". The eliminated the data science program after also saying it was "on pause".
I know they are marketing, it's a business and I'm not bashing that, but like they had signs for a long time and communicated to prospective students that everything was fine. So when everything turned out to be not fine, they should be equally supportive and helpful to those people - which is why I'm trying to help all the ones messaging me because I just think it's not fair, in opinion, to do that.
RE: OSP Feedback, yeah I review 1-2 projects a week that students proactively send me and I give them feedback, why? I have no idea, I just see them and see how it looks like no legit engineer reviewed the code at all and feel bad that the students have no idea if what they produced is good or not. Many are aware of weaknesses in their code, but need help prioritizing what to improve.
For example, committed code with hundreds of random - legit - lines of code commented out and comments like "not sure what this does", is not mid level and senior work at all. And it's not acceptable for a code reviewer to sign off on that either, and it's not acceptable for a manager of a code reviewer to have this go unchecked across every project sent to be so far.
I'm presenting both sides in my commentary on this, and I'm also officially moderating the discussion, but I think it's fine for people to express their OPINIONS and label them as such, and as long as that's clear and we don't attack people personally for their opinions, we can have a healthy discussion.
Two sides to this:
1. Codesmith instruction is really consistent - not 100% - but the instructor matters less. PTRI had thrash with their lead leaving last summer and it was eventually fine for the residents.
2. That said, if too much changes overnight, that's a concerning sign, because Codesmith is a MACHINE and a lot of parts are being swapped around and replaced at once. You paid for one machine and it's turning into a different one, and it's not clear what the new one is. I wouldn't flip a table, but I would be on alert.
Ah ok, yeah feel free to DM me. A lot of information has come my way about this. I tried to summarize in my comment on this post, but if you are comfortable sharing more personal circumstances then I can give more specific advice as well, if not, just follow along and will continue to comment on things that I see to present a neutral perspective of what's happening to try to help people who are really nervous :S
Have you tried asking people at Codesmith openly? Or do you feel uncomfortable asking your leads?
For the students who have been contacting me, I would advise going to your instructors and asking them openly and transparently about your questions.
I know some have reported confusion because their instructors were laid off but finishing the cohort and asking someone who was laid off what's going on is a bit awkward for sure.
I'm aware of all the people laid off, and there were a lot of instructors, but maybe try going to the leaders? If they don't reply to you then you then ping me more privately to come up with other people to ask.
Feel free to DM me, we might already be chatting haha, but I mean they are not a very big company at all.
When I was first looking into them I thought they had like 150 people, but the VAST majority are contractors and not employees.
The actual number of employees seems to be around (after the layoffs) three dozen. And of those like 6-7 leaders in 2 tiers roughly?
That doesn't seem that bad.... but are you saying that the leaders don't do enough on the ground and with the cuts being only on the ground people, that that has you concerned?
Hi! I believe our team members dedicated to reviewing applications are still thoroughly going through and interviews are expected to begin at the posted date of March 6th. I believe interviews will happen through the interview period, so not hearing back by March 6th doesn't mean you won't get one necessarily. I will say that the team reported a very large number of applications and thank you to everyone for taking the time to apply and make a video! But many great candidates, naturally, many will also not get interviews unfortunately.
There's no progress tracker for the program this year but it's something we would like to add in the future and appreciate the implied feedback that that would be useful.
This is my concern too, they don't really have time, without adding these on as add on modules. If they charge for them they are breaking the promise of lifetime support to me, but I could be misunderstanding what that means.
But yeah, the people I talk to believe the future tech are things explicitly asked for by grads that they never launched or focused on that they threw in there to appease them, but that don't have concrete plans on how to implement them yet.
A number of people have contacted me about this. I'm going to give a balanced take here so please read the whole thing, it's likely polarizing. Unless noted as a personal opinion, the information is being summarized from what people (students, staff, etc...) have been telling me, and is still illustrative and examples, not definitive facts
Overall though, I do advise to exercise extreme caution to join before all the changes settle... it's risky right now, meaning that the variance in what really happens versus what is expected to happen is wider than the variance of joining their typically super stable and consistent previous programs. But I know many risk-taking students there who might want to take that risk.
PROs:
- I think it's fair to give them a chance to change and settle in on those changes before jumping to conclusions that there is no hope
- Clearly with such a massive redu…
That's a pretty unique perspective to have, happy to DM more. I try to take a more balanced view on things in general, but I have a number of more personal comparison points and I'm curious if they align with your views.
Accountability and network.
1. There's infinite things you can learn on your own. Following a fixed program and having people checking in on your to make sure you finish that program.
2. Working with others and with alumni, can help you find referrals to jobs.
1 is easier to do on your own if you are disciplined and focused and stick to it.
2 is harder to replace. If you are an ivy league grad, or have a lot of friends in tech, or do open source, you can do it, but for a lot of people it's harder.
The website lists:
"13 Weeks / Mon-Sat 7:30am - 5:30pm PT / 10:30am - 8:30pm ET"
So it's an hour shorter on weekdays and 4 hours longer on Saturdays I guess?
I mean that's why I'm on pause and waiting haha. There are a lot of high level changes discussed, like "smaller group lectures", and that could mean anything.
I agree yeah generally speaking, but they removed the times from the website so it's not entirely clear if the times will change. They have been soliciting feedback on the times for a while.
FEEDBACK FOR CODESMITH (OPINIONS):
1. The blog post should have had more logistics for the students impacted instead of half defending how great Codesmith is before discussing any of the changes.
2. The website should have been updated in tandem because it's very confusing right now
3. Staff should have been around when the blog went out to assist and support people
4. Will should have written a letter in his name about all that Codesmith has accomplished over the years as a preface to alumni and to the public, and then a SEPARATE LETTER from a Shanda about the program changes written to students and future residents about logistic changes that was more tactical and less marketing.
Yeah I know some instructors and I REALLY hope they have a transition time because the ones I know are amazing and I know will find great jobs outside of Codesmith but might need a little bit of time to ramp up and compete in this same market as the Codesmith grads.
But yeah eliminating two cohorts is 6 instructors (2 leads, 2 instructor, 2 mentors) and a number of lead fellows and fellows, I agree there might be some people looking for jobs. Even if they are promised their jobs will survive and morph, I would be looking for a new job given the state of things...
DISCLOSURE: I am actually bias on this because Codesmith instructors coming to my mentorship program is decent option to consider and they are at the lower end of our acceptance bar, but still a viable option. I know we're only talking like a few people and my comments above aren't meant to be an ad, but I'm just disclosing t…
Launch School is a little smaller and has always been smaller, and follows a vaguely similar idea to Codesmith. You spend a lot of time preparing to go to Capstone via the Core. Difference being Core is paid and more committed and CSX is free. Capstone is a little longer and the projects - also open source products - are a little more polished and legit.
So TLDR: depends on what works for you. If you like Launch School Core go to Capstone. If you like CSX and Codesmith public lectures go to Codesmith - although note I would pause and wait to see what's going on with these changes before locking it in. I'm sure everything will be totally find, but just calmly absorb what they tell you and process it, I'm happy to be a sounding board 1-1 if you are nervous about something they tell you to chat it through with an independent rational look at things.
Oh wow, I assume they would have told you or will tell you any second now and have people ready to respond all night, that's what I would do. That would be a huge miss if they announced this publicly and left all the March people hanging :(.
That said, I would just take a deep breath though and wait to hear from them, they are already small and shrinking but they seem committed to providing a good consistent experience, so I would cautiously wait and not get too worried yet and give them a day to explain everything.
Hopefully they let you know soon and let me know if you find out the answer! I'm really busy too and not proactively trying to find out, just surfacing and summarizing what comes my way.
Similar to another comment, all of the day to day details haven't come out yet and it's why I temporarily paused my recommendation until it is sorted out.
I've also seen in CSX Slack a number of people super excited to join in the next month. The new times are very different. Like 7:30am to 5:30pm PST Monday through Saturday, and some people might have to change up their schedules.
My COMPLETE GUESS FOR NOW is that the March NY cohort will run "hybrid" style as a "co-working space" where the instruction is remote and the same as all others in the cohort, but a group of people happen to be in person for as much as they want to be.
I'M JUST GUESSING! I want to know too
They didn't say explicitly but what they did say:
- The March 4th cohort sounds like the last one that will run the old way
- I would guess they will have a transition time where the instructors of all these cohorts are kept on to wrap things up and co-teach the first 1-2 cohorts before moving on to other things outside of Codesmith. So maybe as they transition the first "new" full time remote cohort will be taught a little differently with multiple lead instructors? No idea, good question! **This is exactly why I'm pausing recommendations until all the day to day details are out** and we see what happens
- All the cohorts are still on the website through July, but staff were removed from the upper section and the new times were placed there instead. So it seems only partially rolled out.
Yeah I mean I didn't learn Typescript until fairly recently!
If they charge for follow up courses let me know, I was assuming these would be free, but someone messaged me and said they thought these would be paid "minors" to add on, so maybe I should edit that.
I made a whole post to summarize my comments, they couldn't fit in a normal comment:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1b2q8ck/codesmith\_due\_to\_declining\_enrollment\_shutting/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1b2q8ck/codesmith_due_to_declining_enrollment_shutting/)
Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions.
SOURCE: [https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech](https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech)
DISCLAIMER: The following is my top to bottom analysis and personal opinions. I always disclose this and hopefully it's not boring. These are my personal opinions. I've not new to the sub and I have been giving my opinions on bootcamps for almost two years now, daily, from the FAANG angle, and also having worked with hundreds of bootcamps grads. I'm the co-founder of an interview prep mentorshi…
I have a lot of questions and it might depend on the definitions of "senior" and "entry level" at the companies in question.
I worked at Meta for a very long time and they wouldn't do that at all, and most other FAANGs I have close friends at wouldn't either.
They want to evaluate you at the appropriate level based on your experience and if you don't meet the bar for that level, they will reject you instead of down level or consider you for a lower position. If you are borderline, they will round down to the lower level.
So I could see it being likely that someone with experience taking an entry level role was judged to have not have enough experience for the mid level bucket. For example, at Google, people four years of experience are "entry level" (L3)
I would probably do one of two things:
1. a masters in CS part time if you want to work in the US - possibly via a recognizable American school
2. a bootcamp and try to convert to a software role at your current company - can be good if that option is available and you want to stay in Canada. This option might take a couple of steps, like moving to support engineering first.
If you want to work in the US under TN status as a programmer you need a master's or bachelor's in something computer related.
Regardless I would spend as much time as possible with engineers at your company and trying to understand and learn the code if possible.
I mean not every engineer does web dev or full stack development. I think that any CS grad should be able to figure it out but if you are more on the computer engineering side of things then then totally understandable you wouldn't be able to make one from scratch off the top of your head.
It's indeed tough and there isn't just one answer, so just some ideas:
1. Make your own startup! Make an LLC, launch something, get real users, charge for it, etc... This works well if you are ambitious.
2. Do open source work, on legit huge projects and make an impression on people - this works if you can independently figure stuff out - don't expect too much help.
3. Work on a project that you truly poor yourself into for like a month and then try doing a push to network and send it around and get some engineers looking at it.
Yeah CS grads having a hard time have a number of options and doing a boot camp is one of them. Depending on what works for you and what you need specifically, your financial situation, timeframe, etc...
I feel like any CS grad, especially a T30 should be able to build a full stack app that you mentioned without going to a bootcamp, so if you can't then that might be a reason to do one and be forced to do some practical skills.
My number one advice for CS students - do internships every summer.
Hey, I just want to clarify (because I'm pretttty sure you are talking about me and if not, appoligies but this clarification still applies haha), but I staunchly believe anyone who comes from a bootcamp **with no prior SWE work experience** is not qualified for **mid level and senior roles at canonical big tech companies.**
I see and encourage many people to go to whatever titles they want at whatever jobs they want. In banking and finance titles are completely different. For example a "Vice President" at Goldman Sachs is an E5 - Senior at canonical big tech.
In Callie's case it sounds like a specific role at non-big tech company that was the perfect match for her, so I wouldn't discourage that at all!
Yeah they are preparing to release 2022 outcomes any day now so that means they just use the data you self submitted in the form.
The auditors don't check everything and they are just checking Codesmith's math and processes that they are following CIRR, they are not actually auditing that your salary is what you say it is.
It's one of the misunderstandings of CIRR. CIRR allows self-reported salary data without specifying how it should be verified so the auditors make sure Codemsith is following CIRR and ultimately involves a heck of a lot of self reported data.
This is all great advice!
All people can do is keep their heads up. Remember the new job is just the beginning and you'll have lots more ups and downs down the road and staying in the road is the best thing you can do if you are in the right career.
My understanding is that your offer details form IS what they use for CIRR. Their auditor contacts a random sampling of people to confirm the numbers they have for you are what you told Codesmith originally and that's the extent of the audit
With the new CIRR rules, which have t been published yet (which isn't great because the outcomes might come at the same time as the new spec, not leaving time for anyone to give feedback on the spec, other than the 3 schools remaining in CIRR) so I can only speculate, but if you graduated in 2023, you might not get contacted until 2025 with the 12 months cycle. So try to remember exactly what you told Codemsith haha if it comes to an audit.
Maybe I should have disclosed this, I don't think I need to speak for Callie either, but I know her a tiny bit outside of Reddit and she is very much legit.
Hi! Can you talk more about being hired in with a senior title? (both the hiring process - what the interview process was like, was levelling openly discussed vs you had to hustle your way through the interview, etc..., and then also on the job - would you advise others do that path?)
You got a job REALLY fast in a REALLY hard time, so also generally curious how that happened. It's an anomaly and probably not reproducible, so more just curious on the story versus like advice for others.