https://youtu.be/SkWYanfkfCY?si=d7jFHlVV0grjKuPN&t=1980
"There's this one guy Eric Kirsten, who has a silver tongue and he will teach you how to say anything. You tell him this is my background, how do I present it to an employer to where it doesn't look like I just decided to switch careers \[\] and he will give you a great way to say it"
By lying :(
The people I know from Codesmith basically had to have resumes that showed 4+ years of experience to qualify for "senior" at Capital One and they 'worked with Career Support Engineers' to help make that happen.
There's a tight crew at Capital One and they even help each other out, like one person did a wink wink 'hey how many years of experience do you have' - candidate said 2 - person said - make it 4 to qualify for this role. And somehow they got the job.
Maybe I'm being too negative, because it doesn't come out of thin air. People turn their past jobs into 'engineer-sounding' jobs. Illustrative examples like Auditor -> Technical Analyst. Teacher -> Technical Instructor. Customer Support -> Operations Engineer.
They have a outcomes advisor that one grad said has a "silver tongue" and can make anything sound good who can help with these kinds of things.
lol I'm glad I can have some amicable discourse in here.
Codesmith has a number of amazing placements out thousands of Alumni, there are a few dozen at Amazon, a dozen or two at Google, a smaller amount at Meta, a handful at Apple/Netflix.
100 (being very generous/rounding up) canonical FAANG placements out of THOUSANDS is an edge that people should not be using an as example nor should anyone be making decisions off of.
But that doesn't change the fact that a number of incredible people go to Codesmith and do incredibly well in their careers and I both encourage them to go there, support them while they are there, support them after they are there, and that's how it should be, I'm not hear to tear anyone down or bash on their achievements.
So Codesmith has like 50/60 or so Capital One placements ranging from Associate to Senior Associate to Senior SWE. Senior SWEs make about 160 to 170K base + a base performance bonus (say 8%) + signing bonus (say 30K) + maybe the perosn is including 6% 401K matching. It could get to 230K for first year TC on the high end yeah, but I could see it getting there.
Entry level FAANG is around 200K right now that I'm seeing and mid level is around 300K I'm seeing, so these "senior" alumni are kind of hitting "mid level"-equivalent Capital One roles.
Regarding point 2: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis\_of\_52\_most\_recent\_codesmith\_offers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis_of_52_most_recent_codesmith_offers/)
Analysis of 52 most recent Codesmith offers LinkedIns and trends on who is getting a job right now and why. Summary: an average of 11.7 months of experience claimed for 3 week long projects (lacking evidence of additional time spent). Majority claimed to have prior SWE-adjacent experience.
Hi all, I was recently made aware of the 52 most recent reported Codesmith placements (not saying when this was provided to protect identities, but it's from a window within the past couple months) and did a summary of how those people present themselves on LinkedIn. Please note that this is an UNOFFICIAL ANALYSIS based on an ordered list of placements during a 2 month time window. I won't be DOXing anyone on the list, and because this is just my personal analysis and not an official study, you should use this information for illustrative purposes only. There are numerous ways you can try to reproduce…
I'll run in through several sources and see if it checks out. In my sources personally, I haven't seen FAANG placements from Codesmith for a while, so I'm curious what "recently" means, and what "FAANG" means.
Someone got a job paying 400K at Netflix, that wasn't a SWE role and was in the same field that the person had 8 years of background as a high performer in.
There were one or two Capital One placements that could be 230K TC, but that's not a FAANG company.
Yeah I did analysis of how people present themselves on LinkedIn. Codesmith's placement numbers themselves in their CIRR are accurate. The numbers their senior advisor throws around are less so more like mischaracterizing.
My data shows that the average recent Codesmith placement (reported job in past few months) claimed to have 11.7 months of experience on their LinkedIn from their 3 week group project.
So while the outcomes themselves are good, people might be exaggerating or mischaracterizing their backgrounds to get there.
It's not as hard as it seems yeah and there are a number of ways, some easier than others.
The OSPs for example,.you can monitor their repos and make a list of everyone contributing when and very easily identify every single person.
There are also other sources that are harder to explain and not as obvious.
You still can't confirm placements themselves but you could analyze how people represent themselves on LinkedIn.
I did this and have a draft analysis I'll post when ready, the summary is that the average placed grad in the past 2idh months claimed almost 12 months of work experience at their 3.week long group project :(
Yeah for sure, here's a job post from BloomTech (aka Lamba School): [https://jobs.lever.co/BloomTech/bc039ed3-2ba8-4e4f-a434-616f75ef667d](https://jobs.lever.co/BloomTech/bc039ed3-2ba8-4e4f-a434-616f75ef667d)
"You will be responsible for managing and executing various marketing campaigns across multiple channels to drive engagement, brand awareness, and customer acquisition"
"Implement and maintain marketing operations tools, platforms, and processes to streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and enhance campaign execution."
"Develop and execute multi-channel marketing campaigns across email, CRM, Facebook, and TikTok to achieve marketing goals and objectives."
\------
VS Codesmith:
"Foster positive relationships with Codesmith enthusiasts and leverage advocates to amplify the brand message."
"Proactively participate in discussions to influence the narrative around Codesmith…
So I don't entirely agree with your tone because I try to be more robot in looking at these things, but excellent point about the "The outcomes presented in this report were collected through an online survey of 1613 alumni" **that they SURVEYED 1613 alumni but don't say how many responded.**
It doesn't say how many peolple actually got responded, and this survey is of the people who RESPONDED and GOT JOBS.
Very much noted and concerning, but I'm going to be level headed, I think they should have a chance at clarifying before flipping a table.
This doesn't inspire me to share, bootcamps manipulating discussion in this subreddit.
Job posting: [https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead](https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead)
>\- Foster positive relationships with Codesmith enthusiasts and leverage advocates to amplify the brand message.
\- Proactively participate in discussions to influence the narrative around Codesmith.
\- Strong understanding of online community dynamics, with experience managing brand perception on platforms.
**According to what I read in their outcomes report and my personal interpretation, it's NOT true that 87% of graduates get jobs within 6 months of graduating, but it's a statement that of all the people who got jobs, 87% was within six months and the rest were more than six months.**
[https://practicum-content.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/usa-main/Outcomes\_Report\_2022.pdf](https://practicum-content.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/usa-main/Outcomes_Report_2022.pdf)
"The outcomes presented in this report were collected through an online survey of 1613 alumni who’d graduated before 2H 2022 and reported working in a field relevant to their training."
"87% find a tech job within six months of graduation"
"These numbers represent graduates who got hired in their field within 6 months of graduation. Grads who founds jobs after the 6-month mark were not counted. "
87% OF PEOPLE WHO GOT JOBS IN…
Like this: Codesmith is also hiring someone to manipulate Reddit full time: [https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead](https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead)
>
\- Foster positive relationships with Codesmith enthusiasts and leverage advocates to amplify the brand message.
\- Proactively participate in discussions to influence the narrative around Codesmith.
\- Strong understanding of online community dynamics, with experience managing brand perception on platforms.
I'm sure as more grads are used to "amplify the brand message" and "influence the narrative".
An alternate proposal: I would stop being so suspicious of success posts about people with "no experience" making $130K, if they stopped looking the other way when 48 out of your 52 recent placements list their 3 week long OSP as an aver…
There is a lot of negatively directed towards the job market and not the bootcamps themselves IMO.
Chris from Launch School said it well, their outcomes in later 2023 will likely be lower than in the past, but the education is the same, the experience is the same, and the graduates have the same technical bar, it's the market that's changed.
The programs complained about the most were often complained about even in the good market.
I did an analysis of the 52 most recent Codesmith placements (which I might publish soon) and people are getting jobs! But that average person claimed their 3 week group project was 11.7 months of "experience" on their LinkedIn and the majority (about 2/3) claimed to have some kind of relevant past experience (systems engineer, developer, tech project manager, data analyst, etc...) so I'm sure people are still having great experiences, but clearly the bar t…
I would not trust any guaranteed job placement. There was reporting that Springboard delayed some number of 12 month job guarantees by 3 extra months (no direct confirmation) because of the market, and I'm also observing a very hard job market for bootcamp grads. Take the slow and cheap route in this market.
It's Formation ([formation.dev](https://formation.dev)). It's for people with 1 year or more SWE work experience (and typically MUCH more) but a lot of people we work with are doing their 2nd, 3rd, 4th job transition. We're not a school or education program or teach anything, rather it's practice and mentorship experience to get interview ready at top tier companies.
They have their own question bank but people can still ask questions outside of those.
It's really important that you explain your code and have a clean solution so I really don't recommend memorizing a list of problems. If you are just doing normal practice and want to include topics or areas they ask more commonly, I would practice the LC list tagged with Meta yeah, just make sure you spend more time thoroughly understanding the problems and solutions versus just checking off every box on the list.
This is absolutely a huge problem and a giant topic. I don't have a ton of time to proactively help you but feel free to add me to a thread or discord as I do have a lot of behind the scenes perspective.
In case you don't know me, I do not run a bootcamp but I do work on a mentorship platform for experienced engineers and as a result work with a ton of bootcamp grads a few years down the line and hear about a lot of programs.
I don't know much about Le Wagon specifically though only worked with a couple of people that went there.
Here's a great job post from Codesmith, they are looking for someone to manipulate social media on their behalf
-Foster positive relationships with Codesmith enthusiasts and leverage advocates to amplify the brand message.
-Proactively participate in discussions to influence the narrative around Codesmith.
Its also news to me that they have 5000 immersive alumni and hundreds of people in FAANG jobs.... I count a lot less.
https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead
Up to the student. Their backend program has a pipeline to Amazon but I haven't heard about that in a while and they laid off 50% of the staff yesterday so I wouldn't count on anything being the same anymore
So they are taking the Springboard and TripleTen route in highlighting that number. That's the percentage of people who graduate who get a job.
If you make it very very hard to graduate successfully then you can make it really likely you'll get a job if you graduate.
So you always have to multiply the graduation rate by the placement rate to see how many people are actually placed who start.
The challenge with all three of these is that they are self paced. So there isn't a fair graduation rate because people can be active for YEARS before graduating or dropping out.
I don't have a good way to analyze this which is why I advocate for just understanding how everything works in detail rather than rely on a single number to make a decision.
So the relevant definition for me is if FAANG companies have dedicated recruiters to your school, that's all that matters.
When I say top 20 I generally mean these: [https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings](https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings) and UMass is 24th so it's borderline-ish.
I’m seeing a tale of two graduates going on:
1. People who have tons of interviews: top 20 school grads, interns/returning interns, diverse candidates at not top 20
2. People who can’t get an interview after 1000 applications: all non top schools, online schools and short programs like WGU, people with no internships.
Even during the boom time, excluding the occasional person showing off, most of the top CS school students aren’t on Reddit and have recruiters schmoozing them to join their companies.
If you are in bucket 2, consider grad school, contract, unpaid internships, and starting your own company.
Commenting as an individual and just my opinions, I think the founder and CEO of 12 years being removed by the board is a signal that there will be some major changes happening.
I think it's much more likely that the company will be restructured in some capacity (with or without bankruptcy). Maybe they will shutdown all their bootcamps and just run edX? Maybe they will sell off edX? Maybe they will get acquired by one of the other for-profit mega companies like Kaplan or Chegg after all the university partnerships are cleared out.
I have no idea, but it definitely won't be as simple as they go bankrupt and disappear.
Hi I can't comment on 2U but I appreciate you sharing your experiences in a thoughtful well articulated post that is aiming to stick to facts and sourcing where possible. Wish all posts were like that haha.
My strong hunch is that this is the result of just not needing the staff because I don't think their enrollment is very strong.
I have no inside info and just my personal hunch that they are going to make a pivot to being an AI School, similar to NuCamp, and then raise VC money, but AI market also isn't good right now.
We'll see!
Don't DOX anyone, but can give general cases:
1. We haven't offered ISAs for like 7 months now so it's going to be a smaller and smaller number of people in that bucket. But someone on an ISA who lost their job, their ISA stop the second they lost their job. If they don't get a job within another 12 months then it's nullified, if they do, it continues where they left off when they were laid off.
2. If they were not on ISA, then they paid upfront. They could return to Formation, likely with a discount, case by case and depending on the circumstances. But many people would choose to leverage the alumni community the best they can and not pay to return because their skills are still fresh enough.
Layoffs are very personal and happen for all kinds of reasons and don't happen that often, so each one is case by case, but that's a generalization.
This person has been copy pasting this review on allo f the negative Codesmith posts from the past year. It's suspicious behavior.
Codesmith's leadership were saying earlier this week in a public info session call that they had 60 placements in the past month and it doesn't check out with the raw data some people inside Codesmith sent me who were upset that the leaders said this.
I put a pause since then on my recommendation of going there until I can sort it out (and it's not something I'm urgently working on because I'm busy with real things to do)
People are definitely getting placed still but there are some unknowns.
I also have a list of all the recent placements to go through in detail because I spot checked some with a long time industry person who doesn't know what Codesmith was and the person though their LinkedIns were all complete lies (e.g. 8 months of Software Engineer e…
This is correct, although of the people that come back it's a mix of people who lost jobs and who are still in their job but want a different job.
For example if someone went to Amazon remote and doesn't want to move onsite they might come back for the next job hunt while still at Amazon.
And other people are concerned about Codesmith 'finding them and suing them' (almost a direct quote from someone but changed to protect the person) and don't even post at all.
For example the recent negative post about Codesmith was deleted, and another recent one deleted their account entirely, two other people contacted me who feel like they were "paid off" (both direct quotes in their words, not mine) after complaining about various things at Codesmith (one internally, one on Reddit who they found).
Clearly this is not healthy in both directions but clearly there are reasons why it is this way that haven't been untangled yet and no other bootcamp has this kind of pattern of extreme polarization.
Like I said, I have a day job (which has nothing to do with this situation, but I accept whatever people send me so keep it coming and I'll keep reporting what checks out and that I can ano…
I'll share that feedback!
This is an average but a lot of people come in with like 80 to 100K salaries with no bonus or stock or anything and this increase accounts for all the bonuses and stock - which is probably why it seems to be unbelievably high.
Yeah I do often disclose and hear you on that. I comment all the time in this sub and people tend to know me but that's on me to keep explaining.
The membership is not lifetime, it's unlimited access to Formation until you get a job. Many people pay again again for their next job hunt.
If you have 4 years or more of SWE experience that is the average increased first year total compensation reported.
The methodology is explained in great detail but this is a new calculator that people asked for to understand the long term value of Formation.
Our outcomes are indeed very very strong but I think the weakness is maybe the time it takes because it takes about 6 months of part time mentorship to get there and its no small commitment, you have to be ready and all In.
I don't run a bootcamp and people considering bootcamps should not be joining formation for the most part.
I even suggested what you should do and it had nothing to do with Formation so I have no idea what you want from me here.
The general consensus is that bootcamps are not worth it indeed. But that is the general consensus for the millions of people reading this and wondering if it's the right time and not for the individual.
The three bootcamps you mention are completely different and you shouldn't rely on anyone's collective opinion here.
Feel free to DM me with your background if you want my opinion, happy to try to advise.
It really depends on you and your timeframe. If you have a longer timeframe, I would consider first self teaching, then doing a more intense self-paced online program/course, and then doing open source contributions or starting a company/building a product from scratch. You can put that 20K into hiring some freelancers and registering an LLC and building something for real.
There is simply no program that will get you there.
There's a saying going around that if you can get accepted by Codesmith on the first interview, run for the hills and save your $20K because that means you are pretty much ready to go and just need a little connecting of the dots to get there.
Happy to chat more if you want to share more personal background for more specific advice, it's hard to generalize.
Yeah the first job can feel like the summit of a mountain after a bootcamp, but it's really just the first step to climbing an even taller one, and that feeling honestly never ends throughout your whole career.
I usually advise people who are hungry for more to give their all to their job and really do exceptional work. You can accelerate your career and get to a senior level scope of responsibility much faster that way and nothing beats on the job experience to build up those skills.
BIAS DISCLOSURE: there are a lot of things later on to help fill in some of the gaps you might have coming from a non traditional background. I'm the co-founder of a mentorship platform that helps people level up their careers later on and these types of things exist when and if you are ready to make the next jump. But in the mean time I would just take on more work, take initiative, fix a lot of bugs, re…
If you think that is useful then you should definitely check out the above more. The career support engineers at Codemsith are typically Fellows/peers you would have at Formation (at least one I know of has been a Fellow actually) and the mentors are more knowledgeable. For example someone got a Senior E5 Meta offer this week and chatted the next day with a recruiter with 30 years of FAANG level recruiter experience.
But depending on your situation that might not be the support you are looking for and need. I highly encourage anyone to make use of the Codesmith scholarship and get free dedicated help, that's awesome!
I'm extremely bias because I'm the co-founder of one of these, but based on everything you should look into career accelerator/interview prep programs and see if you think they would be worth it for helping out. I'm fairly confident this type of thing would help, but they are all expensive and it's a personal decision if you think they are worth the cost for you.
Formation.dev, Pathrise, Interview Kickstart are the three biggest ones left standing right now. They are generally a bit cheaper than bootcamps but roughly the same price but solely focused on all the areas: brushing up on CS concepts, strategizing for the interviews, legit mock interviews, building robust problem solving skills, system design etc...
I can go into more about all these if interested, but first just check them out and see if they would help you or not.
I mean it works... you see how crazy strong many people support Codesmith and it's because of little things like this. If you fought for months to get into a program, you're more likely to be all in.
If you are answering the check in emails and saying you didn't get a job then they won't count it. If you entirely ghost then they will try to find you and have any friends you had on staff text you to see how life is going and try to get info.
CIRR has two fields to try to counter this:
1. Salary unavailable (so if they count it as a placement because of LI and you ghosted them it would show up in this field)
2. Job placed out of field. The definition is if the skills you learned are needed on the job or not. Codesmith teaches 5 things and only 1 is programming skills, the rest are soft skills, so not sure how they interpret that rule.
Hi! Can you explain more your expectations beforehand vs reality? I see their marketing making people feel like they can become mid level and senior engineers in 13 weeks.
The most insulting thing is this will qualify as a placement. If its on your LinkedIn, it will likely be included as a placement even if you ghosted them.
Want to know something crazy but Codemsith often rejects people on their first try even if they are qualified so they can prove how much they want to go to Codesmith. If you really want to go, you'll fight to get in.
So that said, yeah if you get in your first try, you have no hope in a bootcamp and run for the hills.