Because of the current market, switching majors and taking another year is a decent idea. Another thing would be to work with the school to complete your chemistry major but swap in as many CS courses as they will let you do, and then consider a CS masters (and doing an internship in between if possible)
A bootcamp could also be a path, but expect to take a year post bootcamp to find a job.
More specific advice would depend on your circumstances, like how much savings and time you have to keep studying. If it's not that long, then you might want to play the longer game and get a chemistry job that has the most programming possible, and then doing a bootcamp or master's on the side - planning to take a few years to get there.
I don't run or own a bootcamp. I'm extremely open about the mentorship platform I do work on (using my real name, one account, and being very transparent), but it's a **mentorship platform** for people with at least 1 year of SWE WORK experience and it's not competing with bootcamps at all. We don't teach anything, have a curriculum, we don't have teachers, so anyone considering a bootcamp wouldn't consider Formation... unless you actually have SWE work experience already and were still considering a bootcamp.
We compete with Interview Kickstart and Pathrise and I never see them mentioned here whatsoever. We in fact work with a lot of bootcamp grads later on their careers and not INSTEAD of a bootcamp so I don't see how trashing bootcamps would be in my business interests at all.
I sent you a LinkedIn connection and happy to chat there if you want to try to explain more where I'm coming from here, I feel like we're on very different pages and I know where I stand but I don't know where you do.
How did they reply to your questions directly so quickly? Can you ask them why they won't self publish their H2 2022 CIRR report ready to go and let me know, because I can't get an answer.
I highly recommend wearing masks on planes. People can legally travel with COVID and with COVID travel protections no longer in place, it's rational for people who get COVID on vacation to fly home with it than spend money changing all their travel plans.
So assume everyone has COVID on the plane and do what you need to do for yourself to feel safe.
I also don't think you would fall into this bucket based on your post and your clear and transparency for 2+ years here.
I know a number of people that post on their own free will, a number of people who ask me to post things on their behalf, a number of people who just tell me about their multiple accounts and how they use them, it's a really wide spectrum.
Like I do have a trusted source who claims to have first hand evidence of an employee directly asking a group of trusted alumni to comment on specific posts and I want to figure out how THAT is happening and sprinkles down to others.
I don't know if you agree or not, but each cohort is a little different. Part time is a lot more chill (and hence why their ghosting rate is much higher on CIRR), new york onsite is super intense, east coast I get the most concerns about toxic positivity, etc... I don't know all the of the instructors…
Yes, from talking to a number of people casually, this is my current understanding (this is not fact-based but connecting the dots from various first hand sources):
\- enrollment is down, one timezone was removed, there were layoffs a month or so ago
\- there is pressure on admissions to get people admitted faster (less time between interviews and more discretion, BUT KEEPING THE BAR HIGH! - which is important)
\- the teacher hierarchy is students -> fellows -> mentor -> instructor -> lead instructor -> head instructor and program director. when someone leaves they get replaced by someone one step lower in the hierarchy
\- so when pressure comes from the program director, head instructor, and outcomes advisor to increase enrollment and that message gets spread down the hierarchy and eventually hits the current students.
so my working theory is that say the program director pulls i…
Only people who drink the kool-aid feel that way from what I see, the vast majority of people outside of the Codesmith bubble think I'm balanced and reasonable and I tell many of them to go to Codesmith if it's the right thing for them. I help a number of Codesmith grads (at Formation and not at Formation) think of ideas and things to do who are stuck. So I imagine that my view is skewed more for people on the struggling side who don't drink the kool-aid.
But like I said, many of the bootcamp leaders (current and former) talk with me anyone from once in a blue moon to regularly, except for Codesmith - they instead just call me a troll to their staff instead of acknowledging the truth in the things I say and making changes. With so much churn in staff, some of those people who are not so bought in are going to start talking to me (when they see me challenged by people who drink the kool-…
Feel free to send your resume for review, I'm also curious what you've been doing since then since that's a long time. The market is indeed tough for people without experience and there's no shortcut (other than if you lie or exaggerate on your resume) so it does take time, but I can give some tips for things to do while job hunting to be ready.
The market is indeed picking since end of September through now. It will be critical to see through Q1 2024 how things go, as new budgets and headcount kick in. All of my friends are doing all of their headcount planning right now and we'll see. No one can time the market, but you can make the thoughtful decisions you can with all the data you can.
Unfortunately Codesmith is sitting on their H2 2022 report and won't publish it and people can't make thoughtful decisions.
80% in ONE YEAR vs 80% in SIX MONTHS is very different.
Imagine people went to an interview prep program after and got a job from that, all within the 12 months... Codemsith still gets credit. The longer the time period the more people do on their own afterwards that contributes to their job than. And the portion any bootcamp would claim for the success of failure at that point is lower and lower. That's my point here, not that it's not a good point that people are getting jobs but just taking longer.
Like I said before, my commentary reflects what people tell me. With recent churn of staff and longer time staff who left a while ago reappearing there is more going on here.
Look at their Glassdoor reviews (I hadn't but a prospective student shared them and asked if I knew of they were real). Notice how all the 1 star ones have a shit-ton of upvotes and the great ones have none. And this is with Codesmith monitoring page and reporting reviews for fraud review.
Which is crazily lower than the placement rate in their website and what they tell people in info sessions....
Best of bad options might be the best but it doesn't mean people have to choose any option at all.
Finishing in April means your CIRR 6 month mark was October, so that's about a 40% placement rate. I tend to round up because people that you dont' know ghost, and if their LinkedIn says they have a job, they count as a placement anyways. So let's say 50%, which is consistent with Triathletes' comment. This is also consistent with the data I have as well.
I still think they should be more transparent about this since since they are so all in on CIRR and transparency in results.
For anyone reading this who is skeptical because of the somewhat sketchier pro Codesmith posts recently, this person is a very long time reliable commenter who has been here for a long time.
So about 70% placement in A YEAR is quite low compared to the past CIRR results almost concerninly low because they are advertising an 80% placement rate in 6 months post graduation and telling people that in info sessions. Just because CIRR hasn't published an H2 2022 report, they have a report prepared already and know the numbers and that's deceptive in my personal opinion to life in customers knowing the latest placements rates are.mjch lower. The CIRR executive director already said that Codesmith is free to self publish those if they want to.
Everyone reading this - CIRR is expected to change the 6 month window to 12 months and I expect Codesmith to start quoting 12 months placement rates of…
Zooming out, masters degrees are super complicated.
You know how 2U/Edx/Trilogy has partnerships with most of the top schools to run bootcamps under their names.
Masters degrees fall into a similar world of for profit, where a lot of top schools that have expensive, short degrees that they offer online or in remote cities for a very high fee.
The real benefit I'm talking about above for CS degrees is if you are able to engage directly with recruiters who are dedicated to hiring from your school and get priority interviews and "the red carpet treatment" (recruiters taking you out for dinner, fancy events, boxes of coconut water mailed to you).
It's not going there just grants you these benefits, they happen because the students end up being superstars at the companies and the recruiters go back for the next year's graduates.
The fundamental problem with bootcamps is that there isn't…
CS degree from a good school does make a massive difference. We worked with a number of college students for our Netflix and Waymo programs and a number have tons of interviews for amazing companies right now and competing offers.
CS degree from the cheapest and fastest school you can find is a different story.
Ironically this post had a 97% upvote rate last night and then suddently dropped to 70% when I woke up and the number of shares went from 2 to 9. So that looks like people shared it and asked to downvote it... amazing how a post calling out manipulation is being manipulated.
I partially agree with the OP yeah. I do think the "ship has sailed" for a group of people that had a previous career they didn't like, saw the flexibility and high salaries of SWEs in a youtube video or an ad, and impulsively joined a bootcamp to career switch without considering all the options.
I do think a smaller number of people it's still a viable option (not THE ONLY option, but a viable one). People who have put in months or years of self study, have a lot of personal runway/savings and no hard headlines, and have a previous career that has some or many transferrable soft skills to SWE (e.g. lawyer, doctor, accountant, teacher). Then a bootcamp might be a good option to focus and make the final jump.
People post on here when they get their job or shortly after to celebrate, but it's not the end, it's the beginning and there is quite a journey ahead - of ups and downs.
But to…
Even with VPN they can tell you are making fake accounts. There's something called "fingerprinting" and engineers spend a lot of time finding obscure ways to identify your computer specifically to prevent fraud, bots, etc...
After working at FB for so long, I learned the only thing you can really do is have integrity and don't play games.
My 2 cents are that it depends on:
1. your current programming and professional background (and prior education)
2. your goals in your next job hunt (including both the type of job and also the location)
3. your timeframe range (if you have one or not)
In the current job market, going to a bootcamp with little to no experience isn't a great idea because the market is really tough. The graduates getting jobs are those from bootcamps that have a high bar and require a lot of self-teaching before even being admitted (e.g. Codesmith and Launch School, both take months to get into).
That said, regarding certificates, they are useful if you are targeting specific roles that explicitly require them - tend to be roles at contracting firms, for example - and by having the cert, you can get put on the bench for new clients. But if that's not your plan, I don't think getting a certificate is rea…
I don't agree with the representation of all of the things that person sid, but feel free to DM me because I see you posting frequently about Codesmith as well. I talk to a lot of people who work/worked at Codesmith... there is a heck of a lot of churn in admissions and instruction and people's titles and jobs change like every week... there are dozens of people that Codesmith long forgot about that know a heck of a lot and share a heck of a lot.
I'll I'm going to say is people trust me because they see how I protect them in my frequent/daily posting and don't reveal what they tell me while still presenting the views they want shared but feel unable to for all kinds of reasons, but the stuff people share is well beyond anything I post.
For 2. I don't know if this was one person or multiple people, but all three had distinct patterns in their posts and there is at least one currently active member with similar message structure and tone.
I don't know the reasons for being removed and I don't want to speculate beyond what the link I pasted from Reddit says.
But I can give the patterns:
\- personal attacked in comments, i.e. name calling, turning disagreements into personal attacks about intelligence
\- all three stated provable false information
\- I believe all 3 claimed to be bootcamp grads
\- I didn't perceive any of the users as blatantly or obviously pushing any specific bootcamp or program
\------
Outside of Reddit I was sent some information about someone at a bootcamp asking people to comment on a thread, seemed innocent enough, but when those people ask other people it could appear to be manipulation to…
Yeah downvoting and upvoting is impossible to deal with without asking Reddit to intervene and checkout who is doing what from which computers and where.
If an entire comment thread has comments with -1 to +2 votes in 24 hours and then someone makes a comment and it gets +10 votes in 20 minutes, there's not much a mod can do, but Reddit can investigate and ban people.
My personal opinion: I don't think anyone should convince you to do a bootcamp over a CS degree without getting to know you and your background.
If you don't have any degree at all, I would recommend considering all your options and then choosing TripleTen if you feel the best about it.
Why do you have high hopes out of curiosity?
One thing I tell people to watch out for is that many people have pointed out to me that the "placement rate" is misleading. Their outcomes report **only contains people who GOT JOBS**. So 85% placement rate in 6 months just means "of all the people who got jobs, 85% took less than six months and the rest took more than six months".
I would press them on similarly transparent completion rates within 8 months of starting (or whatever time period they say it is the expected time).
Because it's a self paced program, it's hard to get this number because a ton of people are likely still "active" and you can't say if they will drop out or get jobs yet.
So it's understandable if it's hard for them to explain this but they should at least be transparent about it so that you have reasonable expectations.
A warning about subreddit manipulation. Three prominent accounts and frequent commenters have been suspended from Reddit, all were accounts I frequently suspected of manipulating conversation and/or personally attacking people.
I noticed a number of people who I had always been seeing commenting on threads and I had long suspected were rotating through accounts disappeared in the recent month or so.
I discovered they have all been [suspended](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045734591) from Reddit.
Thank you Reddit for helping out, and I hope we can all push for transparent, fact-based, professional discussions in here.
The bootcamp industry is hard to navigate, the market is bad right now for entry level, and having either manipulated or personally attacks in discussions doesn't help anyone.
Can you explain more about your experience and background prior to going, what you were looking for there, why you decided to enroll, the ways it helped and the ways it didn't help, and how it contributed to your job hunt?
If someone is going to pay five figures they need to know more than "it was a game changer for me" haha.
So algo sessions are done in either JS or Python. Generally with your preferred language but it could be done in either. The main point of sessions is to learn and practice how to think about problems, so the language doesn't matter that much. But you don't develop a JS expertise at Formation.
We do have frontend work you can that goes through for JS language practice, but similar to DS&A it's more practice focused than teaching focused.
So the TLDR is that you probably want to be somewhat familiar with it but to not worry or stress about being good at it before starting.
I actually explicitly removed Outco from the list because they seem to have shut down and aren't taking applications and numerous people I've talked to said they have been non responsive to them :S.
Obviously I'm extremely bias but I would say that:
Formation is a completely different world from Outco, I know some people that did Outco and came to Formation and can connect you. For example, you get a team of three dedicated support staff, an adaptive platform, mocks with actual senior engineers and recruiters who actually work at FAANG companies, personalized prep for upcoming interviews, a custom platform built from the ground up for your progress, scheduling, feedback, job hunt tracking, etc...
Interview Kickstart is a little more structured than Formation and not adaptive to your progress and needs, but it's consistently been ok for preparing for interviews. Similar to Formation th…
I'm bias because I'm the co-founder of a mentorship platform/career accelerator, but I would consider this type of option if you already have work experience - [Formation](https://Formation.dev).dev, Interview Kickstart, Pathrise, Coachable (all of these have deferred payment options as well). These are all very different but they are all built to prepare you in different ways for the job hunt.
Since you already have legit work experience a bootcamp probably isn't what you want to do because the majority of people you work with be much further behind. **You will have way more exerience than most of the instructors who teach you.** And you don't actually learn much raw skills. If you do want to choose a bootcamp, Codesmith is probably the best option for you if you want to hustle your way into the next job and get all the support you need doing that, but I wouldn't go there to actually…
My 2 cents observations from the people I talk to and work with:
- People have changing life circumstances: illness, family illness, accident, new child, visa issues
- People had the wrong motivations going in: changed their mind about SWE and now interested in Product Management, or they just wanted a big paycheck but didn't realize the skill or work ethic needed and getting there isn't a good a fit at this time
- Wrong expectations: miscommunication about what to expect, like quality of instructors, curriculum, speed, types of projects.
- "HR" issues: people gossiping about them, harassment or inappropriate comments, teachers quitting or being fired unexpectedly
- Failed out: didn't pass a test needed to continue
- Bad market: cutting your losses early if you don't think you'll get a job in your original timeframe - avoiding sunk cost fallacy
Three Important factors:
1. flat out lying and having the bootcamp verify your experience to get through a background check
2. performing well on interviews. Whether it's raw work ethic or ability to sponge knowledge or extreme practice of the narratives, and relentlessly until you get a job
3. The job is the beginning. You have to be ready to put in work everyone, put in nights and weekends to secretly catch-up while pretending to be relaxing etc...
This is what I hear from Codemsith grads but I'm happy to share my personal opinions too.
I've talked privately to a number of people on all sides of this (the OPs themselves AND the people who claim they are scams) and the truth usually ends up being:
The person's results are real, but they also omitted relavant information that people probably need to know.
For example, someone who had 13 years of developer experience on their resume but claimed in their post that they had no experience and were lucky to get a job.
Or someone who is making $400K at Netflix, but it isn't a SWE role and the person has 8 years of amazing work experience in similar roles, relevant to the actual job title they did get.
Yeah I push back on people who have crazy conspiracy theories and I only say things that I have observed first hand, or been given evidence of, and I have many, many people of all kinds of relationships to Codesmith share their own things with me.
... the decision isn't always A or B, it can also be "none of the above" and Codesmith IS BETTER than many programs objectively, but it still might not be the right program for YOU and to me that's critical to evaluate.
We're on the same page there... I actively try to steer the RIGHT people TO Codesmith for that reason for sure, if I think they have a higher chance of being those people.
I've been here for almost two years now and heard numerous arguments almost word for word the same and I've heard numerous arguments that this is offensive and fraudulent. We're not going to solve this in this thread... people reading this get to decide which approach they want. I tell people who agree with you to go to Codesmith on a weekly basis. I tell people who disagree to not go on a weekly basis.
1. Maybe that's the problem with bootcamps if all graduates have to lie to get jobs?
2. Individual cases vary - people who go to Codesmith have a higher entrance bar and are allegedly already "hirable as junior engineers" so it's likely that more exception cases of people who can perform well on the job are from Codesmith grads, but just going to Codesmith isn't the reason why, YOU are.
3. I've posted extensively on this but there are four buckets of grads I've seen: ones who do well, one's who get fired on their first job or laid off because they don't make it, one's who struggle and barely get by and job hop, ones that just can't get a job.
4. How do you know you couldn't have done better with something else other than Codesmith? If you are as successful as you say you are, this would be top of mind. If you aren't making 7 figures yet then aim higher if you're that good.
You are harming all the people of equal skill who didn't lie or don't lie. If Codesmith is condoning this behavior, the thousands of people who don't lie who are looking for entry level jobs could sue Codesmith for damages for that.
It reads more like 1-2 years of experience, and most companies that hire Codesmith grads are smaller non-tech companies OR contract roles that don't really know or check.
But correct, I have a number of industry friends who have gotten upset at recruiters for wasting their time in the next rounds, and experienced engineers can tell in seconds/minutes of a behavioral interview.
Codesmith's sister charity (OSLabs) that manages the projects, provides background check letters and reference checks to confirm your time. I have a video record of an employee saying that they will sign off on 'your entire time at Codesmith' under your "OS Labs work" and longer if you "kept working on your project". A sample letter I reviewed showed active work over 4 weeks, but the letter stated 3 months of experience.
Yeah that's a good point it would be extremely hard to just apply online and get interviewed as a L5.
If the person gets promoted to staff though at this company, they will have a narrative for a high L4 offer and possibly L5 - would need to deep dive into what the person did.
I went from new grad to E5 at Facebook in roughly 2 years, so it's definitely possible, but it's not the norm.
Not to toot my own horn here, but that's why things like Formation exist, because everyone has a unique story that needs to be untangled. We can only do so much, but there are exception cases when this kind of thing can happen.
\+1 there is a common pattern of Codesmith comments that get 10 or more upvotes in < 30 mins. I had evidence shared with me of a senior leader asking people to comment on a thread, and it's really sad that it happens, and they blame declining enrollment on anything but their leadership and just have stern talks with admissions people and pay them extra money to fill cohorts. (all second hand from primary sources)
This person is also affiliated with one of the instructors at Codesmith that is super all in on Codesmith and likely asked them to comment, and likely a leadership member asked the instructor to comment. I say "likely" because I'm not supposed to know these things haha.