Do you have a link to that thread?
Just my personal opinion, but people can't argue against facts, but retorting with an unsourced response can provoke people from my experience in this sub.
It's very reasonable to question a new account posting about a $140K outcome and we can have a very REASONABLE conversation about it.
If people are that passionate for and against Codesmith and don't want to have REASONABLE discussions then moderation won't help... people have to self reflect a bit more and try to be more open minded.
I've had 20+ alumni, sutdents, staff, former staff and family of students tell me that Codesmith is extremely positive place with processes to "correct negativity" and that's part of the problem. The result is that people with feedback message me telling me they have no where to give feedback and they dump it on me instead. It's really hard to navigate!
I've repeatedly suggested that this sub turn on a minimum karma to post and comment, otherwise we rely on Reddit's machine learning algorithms identifying bad actors and user reporting.
I'm really plugged into to Codesmith and this post is not fake in the sense that the content is incorrect or that the responses are not genuine, but leadership members at this program do indeed monitor this subreddit and react to posts.
I wrote [this code review a couple days ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/16v4fig/codesmith_osp_code_review_numerous_unbreak_now/) that was then shared internally to numerous people and actioned very quickly in a number of ways. They do ways to get successful, dedicated alumni to post on Reddit and respond to things but I haven't seen evidence they put words in people's mouths directly. I asked the OP directly and they acknowledge that "Codesmith always encourages us to share our stories to help others" but that this post was not encouraged or prompted, and I have to believe the person. I do know less successful graduates who were ne…
There's a lot more going on here behind the scenes that I'm not speaking about publicly, but highly recommend you post extremely well researched points because any vagueness in my messages is to protect confidential sources and not a lack of information. This only means so much without those sources, and this is not something I actively spend time on, but I'm just mentioning this because you and I have been discussing for maybe almost 2 years now and since then, I have dozens of insiders (generally people who work there or worked there) who send me direct evidence or secondary evidence of things.
Codesmith has a somewhat unique company structure that only supports positivity and squashes negativity so the dozens of people who have feedback and can't share it internally have begun sending it to me instead for whatever reason.
I mean I feel like I was being very open and transparent. Like I sent over my other post to Reddit for vote manipulation and now the votes have tripled.
I could just send this over too and see what happens and not say anything, but I think people can be professional, open, and transparent and it makes the community better to have that discourse.
Yeah I have to have my suspicious, I reported [my post](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/16v4fig/codesmith_osp_code_review_numerous_unbreak_now/) to people at Reddit for vote manipulation and after being looked at, the upvote rate tripled (with no change in view count) so there's something weird going on... let me know if you know about anything!
Yeah I asked for clarification and we'll see! They had layoffs and a number of people (including current staff) contacted me, and I'm now aware definitively that at least one staff member monitors this sub and has a group of alumni that are asked to comment and post on specific things.
I asked for clarification in my questions above, if I don't get a reply I would assume so because I'm aware that at least one Codesmith team member monitors this sub and has a group of alumni that are prompted to post and comment. I can't go into more details because of confidentiality but it sadly is a thing and has been demonstrated to me.
Yeah, apprenticeships, internships, and and every company has completely different leveling systems.
I use [https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/) to compare the levels at different companies (don't get distracted by the salaries but just compare the granularity of levels)
You can see how Microsoft has more granular lower levels versus something like LinkedIn or Netflix.
Push notifications. I get a push, I spend literally under 2 mins replying and then I do 10 other things unrelated to Reddit, then I get a push again... you do you and I'll do me.
These might seem direct but I think they are important for transparency, thanks for doing the AMA!
1. Did someone from Codesmith ask you to do this AMA or suggest indirectly that you or someone do it?
2. Do you work for Codesmith part time or as a contractor or any capacity since graduating?
There are no bootcamps that I know of based on my definitions.
If you want high compensation, Codesmith, Launch School have well into six figure median salaries for placed students, and Rithm and Hack Reactor are close as well.
But there is no program that creates mid level and senior engineers because you can't get there without industry experience, but **let me explain what this means.**
I was promoted at Facebook from entry level to mid level in 3 months from starting and then mid level to senior in \~1.5 more years. The senior to staff in \~2 years.
So when I started, what was I? You could say 'well I was a mid level engineer from the start and underleveled!'
But that's really not true. I was an entry level engineer and I was treated like one, and I crushed it.
If I was hired as a mid level engineer, I might have underperformed or not done as well and maybe taken a lot longer…
Yeah, I've "written" two papers as an undergrad. One won a best paper award at a large conference... after the PhD students rewrote it in the "proper language" lol.
I think the difference is academia is heavily peer reviewed and collaborative and these projects have literally no one looking at the code.
But it's somewhat similar yeah
I've interviewed a number of Codesmith grads for Formation acceptance (which is not a job, so I have a more constructive/feedback hat on and more tolerance) and they practice all of these questions at Codesmith yeah.
But yeah I noticed within 5 minutes, and the misleading answers kept going or we would have awkward silence, but people would not say it was a job, but they say it's something else. I was "working with an company under OS Labs" for example.
There are a number of buckets here but generally, this is why all of these jobs are with small or less well known companies - who are not tech companies, and don't have solid vetting processes, and sometimes people make it through.
1. People who get entry level jobs at solid tech companies that they call "mid level and senior" but aren't. e.g. someone at Google got entry level L3 job and said it was "level 3 senior" but L3 at Google…
I don't get the downvotes here, do people not believe I spend no time on Reddit or is this perceived as a humble brag? Engineers get better by writing code, not by posting and commenting on Reddit.
Bootcamps are definitely enough to get a job and I'm also not debating that a minority of Codesmith grads get "senior" titles, but what I'm arguing is that the people are not actually mid level or senior engineers in both definition AND skill level.
I've worked with and given advice to a number of people in this position and tried to help them navigate their jobs - people just on Reddit who I don't even know their real names and it's really really really harmful to most people what Codesmith is marketing. Not "lawsuit level harmful" but like it's not the right career advice for most people there (even though it IS the right career advice for a minority of people there) and I have a deep passion for helping people have great CAREERS and not just the highest paying first jobs (where they will make way more money too across that great career than they will otherwise).
Well 3 people in the group say they worked on theos for 2 or 3 months on LinkedIn and it's listed as a Software Engineer job at a company so clearly people think this.
And I have a couple of emails from alumni to the effect of 'how dare you contact anyone in the Codesmith community about Formation, we don't need you and leave us alone, we are already mid level and senior engineers'
Of course people make mistakes and then they have to figure out how to fix that by rewriting the git history and changing all the credentials. In this case the credentials are all over the place and not just one bad commit.
The project is not close to any production code I've seen and is blatantly being portrayed as so.
As you can see on my GitHub, I spend most of the day coding and helping Fellows at Formation and surprisingly little time on Reddit haha.
https://github.com/mnovati
I wouldn't post this if that list of people mentioned haven't adamantly insisted that in captured emails, recordings, slide decks and screenshots, but I strongly agree.
Codesmith OSP code review: numerous "unbreak now" security vulnerabilities discovered after spending 5 minutes reviewing an "advanced security tool". Not the mid-level or senior engineering work it is claimed to be.
I'm not going to share direct links because I don't want to pick on just this project or the people that made it. I circulated this post amongst a couple of Codesmith alumni to make sure they were ok with it as well.
What is the "OSP"? The OSP is the capstone project at Codesmith. You work in groups of 4-5 people, supervised by engineers. Codesmith claims it to be the key in making you a mid-level or senior engineer. It's the highlight of most alumni's resume and the main talking point in interviews.
I feel jerkish in posting about this widely instead of privately contacting the team that worked on it. But I've observed Codesmith's CEO, outcomes advisor, admissions staff,…
Yeah for the right people the mid-level senior thing is interpreted rationally and you can get by.
I don't know if you have seen any info sessions or heard their outcomes person Eric do a talk, but if you did I think you get a sense of the vibe. It's not like 'we aim for mid level and senior' it's 'this is codesmith, it's obviously only for mid level and senior, so it's offensive to call it a bootcamp', you'll even see the leaders arrogantly chuckle if you call it a bootcamp, like 'ha ha, we don't like that work around here because we only make mid level and senior engineers'. If you've heard Eric K talk about his background, and then you've actually dug into and asked around, it tells a much different story... but he's fantastic at turning anything into something that sounds amazing! An alumni described him as having a "silver tongue who can make anything sound good".
.... again, if…
Yeah I've done deep dives on MLMs in the past and deep dives on Codesmith's info sessions.
Codesmith is absolutely not an MLM by any definition, people pay for lectures and education, and they get those. Alumni and students don't get bonuses or paid based on how many other people they convince to join.
The Codesmith vibe has the isolation aspect - everyone starts at zero and is trained using MLM - like techniques of consistency and status to "brainwash" (for lack of better word) people into absorbing desired materials quickly.
I think the behavior we see is actually defensiveness - a lot of people I talk to feel uneasy - but only in private - about how they present themselves in the Codesmith-way and I think some people feeling a bit uncomfortable double down on defending it so they feel less guilty for what they did themselves - I'm not a psychologist, but I bet a lot of these peopl…
Many:
* Asana Up
* Dropbox Ignite
* Airbnb Apprenticeship
* Intuit Career Pathways Program
* Amazon (not running right now)
* IBM Apprenticeship Program
* Google Apprenticeship Program
* Lyft Apprenticeship Program
*
Neither are amazing right now and the market continues to evolve day by day so no one will be able to give you a definitive answer, but I can share some opinions.
1. Hiring is picking up for people with 2+ YOE SWE. This is genuine SWE work experience and not "programming experience" or "open source projects". Specifically 2+ years. I work with engineers in this bucket and a number were hired by Meta in the past few weeks or an doing onsites and it's definitely a change in pace!
2. Hiring is NOT picking up for bootcamp and new grads and it's getting more stressful and more intense. University recruiting teams were decimated in the layoffs and are using the resources they have for new grad hiring right now in the fall at the most reliable top tier schools, instead of broad entry level hiring that was happening in the past. This is making it much harder for bootcamp grads and grads of no…
Codesmith had layoffs last week causing some people to get nervous. Current employees backed up a number of claims in what was said in OPs post. I unfortunately can't talk about this stuff for a while to protect sources, but I really do hope they figure it out.
Can you provide any kind of primary or secondary evidence of layoffs or cohort consolidation? I haven't heard anything, but I did suspect the 19 week program was promoted to expand the audience and get more people signed up.
Rithm is a very small program 18 people per cohort capped and they don't plan on growing the cohorts so they can have the most instructor time they can do. So the number of graduates isn't that important.
So I personally don't care much about outcomes because:
1. Your personal outcome depends on so many factors not captured in a report that it could mislead your decision
2. Outcomes reports have games people play to present them the best they can within the rules (which is expected, but you have to read very critically)
3. The market has changed so much even from 2022 to 2023 that 2022 outcomes might not even mean much.
All of that said I would push them for something so that you feel you can trust them, ultimately - outcomes or not - you need to trust them and if they can't create trust you should decline.
1. I want to grow a community around coding bootcamps that promotes authentic and productive conversion in an industry full of exaggeration and mistruths. Reddit is a platform of anonymity and having authentic conversation is hard, so I will be here every day, rain or shine, to make that happen in this sub.
2. https://www.reddit.com/message/messages/1zksxdj
If you have enough self motivation then do something cheap and self paced, like Odin Project, or Launch School Core, or cheap Udemy courses (e.g. Colt Steele or Angela Yu)
I suggest JavaScript as a first language. It's a bit confusing because of how broadly it can be used, but it's less confusing to only work on one language instead of dealing with multiple environments and frameworks.
I can give my pros and cons fact based answer. It's funny that when I do this for Codesmith people say I'm "trying to take down the great things they have done" and when I do it for BloomTech I'm accused of "supporting a scam" but 🤷♂️, I'm just trying to give balanced views.
1. Bloom Tech rebranded from Lambda School because of a trademark lawsuit with Lambda Labs. They spent over a million dollars (unverified) on legal fees to defend the lawsuit and even acquired a company in Florida called Red Lambda to try use that company's trademark defensively. But instead they settled and changed their name.
2. They have undergone massive changes in the past 2 years, not necessarily good ones, but they are trying to make a sustainable business that works. They let go of a large number of their staff and moved to a more self-service model based on their platform. the platform is some in house an…
Yeah I feel so strongly about this I will not stop talking about it haha, but I appreciate people sharing all sides because definitions aren't important, helping people become happy and impactful engineers is and that's all I really care about at the end of the day.
I know a number of Codesmith grads that get roles beyond their experience and fight tooth and nail to hang on, and I know a lot more that have a wake up call during interviews OR get laid off or struggle on the job because of they started at the wrong level.
Like it's great to make a $140K out of Codesmith and post you celebratory humble brag Reddit post and load up your DMs with people asking you how to get into Codesmith, but a year later, a number of those poeple are a little lost when a layoff hits, or you are being outperformed by more junior employees and you don't know what to do to keep up and don't feel comfortable…
Do you mind sharing which program this was, not because of the tough placements but because it's actually great they were honest and transparent with you to help you make the right call for you!
Shutdown:
- Ada (possibly temporarily)
- Kenzie Academy
- Make School
- Juno College (no longer SWE)
- Bloc.io (was acquired but still running, could be consolidated)
Consolidated:
- Full Stack Academy
- Tech Elevator
- Codesmith (recently got rid of CTRI and unofficalg layoff reported)
- BloomTech (eliminated a ton of staff)
- App Academy (eliminate a number of TAs)
- Trilogy (rebranded to Edx)
- Episodes (unofficial layoffs)
Yeah I didn't comment on CS degrees because again, not a huge fan of judging any of these things based on outcomes. Education is supposed to be a lifelong investment, so a bootcamp and CS degree have completely different goals
Zero information from staff, grads or alumni directly unfortunately. I just see what you all see.
I actually am not an outcomes person and think they matter that much honestly, but the more a program markets them the more they need to be discussed. Both Rithm and Hack Reactor just don't talk about outcomes that much.
We're waiting on CIRR results but Codesmith has provided some info in a report last week and in info sessions.
The placement rate was down from about 80% to "in the 60%s", and the salaries were down about 10% or so to the "$120Ks"
I've also heard anecdotally that they are trying harder to to track down alumni and get every last person into those CIRR reports.
But 60% ish still isn't that bad. It's significant if you are planning your life around a bootcamp right now - might not be the best idea to make any assumptions on outcomes - but it's not like it's ZERO placement either.
Sadly this is common with Codesmith grads :( and we get people applying to Senior Engineer roles requiring 5 to 10 years of experience at top tier companies, and the entire resume is 12 weeks of Codesmith, OSP takes up 1/3 the page, 3 other projects take up 1/3, then a tech talk, then skills + education etc...
But it does work sometimes!
The CEO has said that their goal is to make people 'realize how exceptional they are and convey that in non-technical interviews because once they get to technical rounds they do really well but they just have to get the chance'
But I've seen a lot of the documents and nothing explicitly says to lie, in fact they say explicitly NOT to lie. So it's one of those things that might be a disconnect between what leadership THINKS is happening and what's ACTUALLY happening.
Those people can CALL themselves senior engineers, their resume can certainly say that if they want, I would encourage people to do so when reviewing their resumes, but it doesn't make them senior engineers.
Do you not believe I've worked with a couple dozens Codesmith alumni later that have trouble with this?
The typical case is someone with a "Senior" title and 1 to 2 YOE on their resume. Depending on the company, but they will likely get a lot of interviews because of the Senior title, and then they hit the hiring manager interview and they get rejected.
I've seen some truly heart-wrenching cases - people passing the coding bar but the HM doesn't have any junior or midlevel headcount to downlevel and it's much more pronounced in this current market than it was before.
I then have to help the person apply to top tier mid level and junior engineering roles and sometimes the people p…
1. To sue someone you have to have damages in most states. First, someone would have to show that they joined Codesmith to become a mid level engineer and that they didn't AND that a reasonable person would have also believed they would become a mid level engineer seeing the same marketing. Second, they have to show that their outcome was worse and then somehow try to figure out how much they were overcharged given their outcome. If you raised your compensation by $25K, but didn't get a senior job, how "harmed" were you? It's really hard and not many people would want to deal with this kind of thing unless they felt really truly screwed over as a last resort.
2. There aren't any legal definitions of "mid level and senior engineer" and they could argue it's their opinion and that it's backed by the high salaries earned by graduates compared to competitors. Even if it's more of a gray are…
No, it is not. I worked at Facebook for 8 years and now have thousands of acquaintances at pretty much every company. This has come up a few times in conversations when I've asked people their opinions and responses ranged from laughter to this is fraud.
Sure, a bunch of gatekeepers in our towers laughing doesn't sound so good amongst a lot of people here, but this is not based on skill or ability but purely based on "the scale of systems worked on in previous jobs" needed to be at a senior level mostly in the technical side. Like you have to have worked on genuinely large systems with millions of users to build a patina of experience that is what the company is hiring you to be a senior for. They aren't hiring people able to solve big problems with new solutions. They are hiring people who have actually built products for millions of people and get unspoken nuance about that, or build…