They 1000% advertise it aggressively. I've heard it from their CEO, Lead Instructor, 4 admissions people, three outcomes people.
This was posted on LinedIn just on Friday: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/codesmith-llc_codesmith-career-support-prepares-grads-for-activity-7111061618699968512-mzvP
"Codesmith career support prepares grads for mid- to senior-level software engineering roles — with resume guidance, mock interviews, salary negotiations, and beyond."
Good to be critical but these are 99% not the same people. The other poster u/HorrorEquivalent3261 blocked me because they didn't want employees of any programs commenting on their posts about Codesmith. this OP has happily engaged with me on this thread.
I don't mean to push back because I support you being brave and posting and replying to everyone and appreciate it! But I don't feel like Codesmith keeps it a secret that all the teachers are Codesmith grads, most have never worked in industry. When I've been to info sessions it seems to be something they are PROUD of rather than hide.
I do agree there can be pros and cons, but I think of all the criticisms of Codesmith this is lower on my list so to speak.
The raw slides for main lectures are like Chat-GPT-able content now, but I maybe the project retros is what is being mentioned, where you deep dive into the solutions of the practice from the day before.
They definitely are and attendance is down across the board. Several programs have shutdown or consolidated, and the top programs are seeing lower enrollment from the peaks.
The entire week by week schedule and materials are out there if you pay attention (btw we had a Fellow retreat last week with 8 Fellows and hopefully people can attest I spend very little time on Reddit and rarely talk about Codesmith IRL haha)
Ultimately you can't cram an "elite graduate degree" into 12 weeks so if you saw the day by day schedule and materials you would probably think it's crazy, e.g. 2 days on React, but you shouldn't be looking at it expecting it to be what you are paying for.
We have a philosophy that all the materials you need are freely available online, and since everyone learns differently, there are not just all the materials you need, but variations of them in all kinds of styles. So the value add is trying to guide you with the right things at the right time instead of trying to teach. There's less value in the raw materials itself and you aren't paying $20K…
Yeah JavaScript is fine! I'm super bias here because I'm very experienced with more traditional big tech, but companies all have their own stacks and frameworks such that any specific language doesn't help that much. For example, Meta does "whiteboard"-style interviews because they don't care about perfect syntax or compilable code.
If you are trying to get a job at a smaller company, they might want you to have already learned a particular stack so you show up ready to go, because they won't train you as much.
For the later case, I think being broad is still better and JavaScript is SUPER broad (frontend, backend, scripting, etc...) and people tend to get sidetracked with what the "hot language" is, which ends up slowing you down playing whack-a-mole.
At Formation, this is super interesting but all sessions are run in either Python or JavaScript and these are small group interactiv…
Yeah this is the downside with all the fellows, instructors, mentors, lead instructors, lead engineers, even the head of instruction, all going to Codesmith themselves... you lose the ability to get help for things outside of the box. I do think this structure helps them have an INCREDIBLY CONSISTENT experience though that I haven't seen anywhere else.
If the company had layoffs there is likely to be a lot of disgruntled people (not just people laid off) and a lot of internal churn as things get reshuffled or changed. I heard last week that recently the number of instructors/support staff was cut down by 1 per cohort, and things like that have a cost to student experience as well. If they are ending or pausing the CTRI quietly without telling anyone that will also make prospective people confused, and if there are less staff to explain and communicate things to them = more bad sentiment.
Hi, I think this overview is pretty fair from my understanding, and I can summarize what I can corroborate from multiple sources. I have a lot to say good and bad about Codesmith - overall a balanced view, but these specifically are things corroborated by others and the **ALL CAPS BOLD** are my **PERSONAL OPINIONS.**
1. The free lectures and courses ARE the marketing funnel so they are intentionally trying to move people through to the immersive. So they represent a more high touch experience than the actual imersive.
2. I know someone from Oxford who talks about "hard learning" and it's reputation for just meaning "teach yourself" and I think Will is bringing this approach to Codesmith intentionally. That said, it might work for some people - Oxford is a great school and I think their admission process is essentially weeding out people who won't do well in that environment. As a result…
I'm not sure about your role at Triple Ten but I've worked in Silicon Valley for a long time and I assure you this is a problem if your projects are what they say they are.
"Our students are using real company data to solve real business problems"
This is the definition of IP and not a single legit company would give someone access to their IP and receive IP from a student without a formal agreement (doesn't have to have compensation but you need a formal agremeent) Otherwise you won't pass legal due diligence review. There's no way Triple Ten could raise funding or sign big deals and pass legal review if what you say is the case and there is nothing signed.
I'm talking about legitimate Silicon Valley companies, perhaps the companies aren't in the USA or somewhere with different IP laws but you should flag this for your executive team if you aren't an executive yourself. If you are t…
This is the general answer you get from companies because giving a specific answer could be used against them in a discrimination lawsuit.
But in this job market there are more candidates and fewer slots and they are actually just choosing the best person for the job.
It could be based on:
1. background and experience/internships/prestige of school
2. performance in the interview
3. company fit
4. alignment of skills to the job
5. "star power" - high potential candidates that have a little something special that is hard to put into words
So my understanding is that externships are projects not inside the company code but just related to the company that get presented to someone from the company for comments and reviews.
1. Is that correct?
2. How do you solve the IP issues if someone presented an idea that actually got used by the company some day? Is there compensation in that case or a signed IP agreement?
2 might seem annoying but if these are truly amazing projects then it would be very likely to be an ongoing problem I assume you've solved.
Can you explain the "externship" more? Is that with outside companies? And how is that guaranteed in this market. Ada basically shut down because their partners couldn't guarantee internships anymore and they are a non profit backed by amazing companies.
Past time ISAs don't exist anymore because most modern ISAs have a time limit before it gets activated. For example, if you don't get a job in some time after starting the program, the ISA is activated... you might not pay anything if you don't have a job yet, but they aren't the "sign now and pay years later" model they used to be. If you have a full time job and do the program part time, it's likely you would have to start making payments after that time period.
Short answer: if you are going to take a very long time to get a job because you are part time, the program can't pay thousands of dollars out of pocket on expenses while crossing their fingers you get a job in 1 to 2 years in the future.... doesn't work financially.
Salaries didn't fall that much. What has changed for Codesmith is people are taking worse jobs because those higher paying jobs are more competitive and the Codesmith strategy no longer works. People are getting entry level legit engineering jobs now.
Oh wow! I mean if you have some kind of source/evidence of those untrue/false numbers let me know! Like I definitely know their enrollment is down so I assume they are pushing the limits a little more on this but if they intentionally lie that's not good :(
I don't think they lie. I think they have absurdly consistent marketing stances. Everyone from fellows to admissions coordinators to outcomes people, all have extremely consistent talking points and deliver them well.
The talking points aren't lies but just carefully thought out messaging, and I wouldn't expect any less, that's how businesses work!
I have many thoughts but am super busy right now to write them up, will go beyond my 60 second normal timebox for Reddit comments.
However, I would look at this report for something more comprehensive: [https://carta.com/blog/startup-compensation-h1-2023](https://carta.com/blog/startup-compensation-h1-2023)
My number one biggest concern that **needs to be called out because it wasn't called out in the report:**
**The report is based on "date of offer" and not placement date.** So this doesn't tell us anything about placements. This isn't a criticism or comment about the numbers themselves, just the methodology.
\- These salaries could be mostly people job hunting for a year. so they were job hunting for a year AND got lower paying jobs than the people who used to job hunt for 6 months and get higher paying jobs. We don't know because it's not mentioned at all. The opportunity cost of…
Report from Carta: the state of tech hiring in H1 2023 - very long and detailed report but answers a lot of questions about the market
Note: I'm not affiliated with Carta (other than being a user)
Carta manages equity for many of Silicon Valleys top companies, form tiny stsrtups to recently public companies and they have amazing data on the top tech companies. So this is a legit report!
IT HAS AMAZING DATA OF EVERY ASPECT OF THE HIRNG MARKET SO READ IT EVEN THOUGH IT'S LONG!
LINK: https://carta.com/blog/startup-compensation-h1-2023
Selected quotes:
1. "This compensation report is drawn from more than 280,000 employee records from startups that use Carta Total Compensation. Other metrics in the report, such as those that describe employee movement, derive from the aggregate pool of more than 1 million employees currently working for the 40,000 startups that use Carta to manage their…
I think it's great you posted, but I do think that you could have offered more help in the original post itself. This sub is full of scams and half-scams and it's hard to tell whose legit or not.
Hi thanks for sharing your experience. I hear this often from Codesmith grads in DMs and what you said isn't thaaaaaat bad in my opinion. This is a balanced comment so read the whole thing.
I feel like I'm a broken record on here about how important it is to understand how Codesmith works and make sure it works for you before just giving them $21K because of their CIRR reports and strong supporters (a number of whom I know and worked there as fellows or continue to work there part time).
They are very transparent that every single teacher, TA, instructor, lead all went to Codesmith and it's almost a point of pride, so I don't think you can criticize them for that if you expected something else.
Having fellows 6 weeks ahead of you sign off on your resume actually gives them a lot of hierarchical control over the product. It's why almost all Codesmith resumes look the same.
Regarding p…
So it depends on the role but most of the ones I saw were Facebook contractors for anywhere from 3 months to 12 months.
I would have to write an essay haha.
So at Facebook most contractors are "Software Developers" and while paid $150K run rates the role has zero path to SWE and you have to interview like anyone else.
Other companies are different but the common threads are:
1. Higher than normal base salary
2. Lower or no bonus
3. No equity
4. Worse benefits / none of those sweet full time benefits
5. Generally worse vacation policies
6. First to go when there are re orgs or budget cuts
7. Typically let go suddenly with zero notice and it's quite frustrating - even if you are performing well.
Would I take one of these hours of a bootcamp - HECK YEAH! But when you talk about it on Reddit it's just a completely different job than even a full time job at a worse company and no one on…
Really tough market for people without experience or new bootcamp grads. There are no shortcuts but I would highly recommend joining industry groups for underrepresented engineers that you identify with as a lot of apprenticeships are advertised and sponsored amongst these groups.
I don't disagree with this, but the opposite comments: "I made $130K anyone can do it" followed by comments 'where did you go, I'm applying right away' are even more damaging. Joining programs for the wrong reasons is very dangerous.
I work with someone this week self-taught, no full time experience, got a job at Facebook making $200K, and someone else self-taught who has been struggling for well over a year to even get an interview.
**Individual stories mean absolutely nothing, do not make decisions from a handful of individual outcomes on Reddit, figure out how it works and if that's what works for you too!!1**
You should make as much money as you can because with the attitude I don't think you'll last long in the industry.
What bootcamp did you go to so that I can advise people not to go there?
A lot of commenters don't believe this is real, I do, but I have a lot of words of caution and OP's post is potentially irresponsible in this community because the result is not reproducible at scale and broadcasting it to 33K people without any context doesn't help anyone figure anything out.
1. 1 year ago was Sept 2022, meaning you got he job before then and started then. Amazon was still hiring their last remaining hires in Sept 2022. The hardest time to get hired was the very end of 2022 and H1 of 2023.
2. "Total Compensation" needs clarification. What's the base, what's the signing bonus, what's the performance bonus, how are you valuing the stock, are you including relocation or other benefits in that?
3. Tell us more about the job. I know people who graduated Codesmith with $150K **contractor** role and that's much different than a full time role.... many of those people are not…
Formation probably isn't good for you in this market,. I would recommend trying to get a math-y tech internship actually.
I would try to line one up in the fall during internship season (literally RIGHT NOW) - when you are technically still in your PhD program and eligible, maybe go on leave instead of dropping out. And then try to convert the internship into a full time role and "drop out" of the program then.
If you have no experience at all, internships are key right now.
Now if you don't agree and want to look at different supplemental options...
Consider a bootcamp like Codesmith if you are an ambitious hustler and want to produce a nice looking resume that is optimized to get through recruiter screens. You won't absorb that much actual skill but if you are the right personality it might be the most effective way to get a job for you.
Consider Formation if you want to fill in…
Hi, you can trust that CIRR numbers are what they are because the auditing process makes sure the numbers are recording and calculated correctly. But the standard itself was written by Bootcamp marking people to promote bootcamps and it's not legally sound paperwork. For example, there's not description of how salaries are collected, other than they are base salaries, but no description of evidence needed or mechanics of it.
They also have a worksheet with formulas in it that are not explained in the specification clearly, which leads to errors. Codesmith's auditors files the wrong numbers and had to issue a correction!
Some data came out from a Codesmith grad that showed 70 recent placements and the people's starting salary. The median starting salary BEFORE CODESMITH was 70K+ and 20% of people were making 90K+. So the target audience is not the same as programs that have people maki…
Right so we process everyone's schedules, needs, preferences, etc... and schedule about 500 sessions a week to optimize across all of those factors.
We don't have "sticky groups" because we match with people at your skill level - and the progresses differently for everyone. But people can express affinity towards others (both explicitly and implicitly) and that can factor into the matching.
We have simple ways to work on the skill gap problem that work okay but reported skill gaps is still one of the more common reported feedback for sessions.
We have mostly solved scheduling through both algorithms and product, in that people flaking entirely happens fairly minimally (but is terrible when it does and could still be reduced more). We can schedule sessions according to people's calendars, availability, magic factors, and then have all kinds of product to make sure people attend and to automatically follow-up with people who don't - with escalations.
One thing we launched recently is self organizing sessions for people that work well together (but doesn't address skill gap feedback directly). We have a cool new concept we are building for Q4 that should solve skill gap but it's a secret because it's not built yet but our entire team is working on this stuff day in day out,…
Hi! I'm happy to clarify and thanks for being transparent on your views. There are definitely some misunderstandings.
I was the #1 committing engineer at Facebook when I was there and I got a heck of a lot done and I still do. I spend extremely little time on Reddit and Codesmith relative to my day job. I'm on the ground helping and responding to Fellows all day, fixing bugs as fast as humanly possible, and building new features and technology. And my Fellows will back me up on that.
You are also 100% correct that the more Codesmith grads there are the more Formation customers there are in 1 to 4 years from now... it's a bias I try to disclose but I have Codesmith grads insisting I'm still trying to steal Codesmith students or get people to go to Formation instead of a bootcamp... which couldn't be farther from the truth.
I actually recommend a lot of people go to Codesmith 1-1 and he…
The secret is to allocate those mentor hours very carefully.
1. We use patented technology to do that
2. We have small group sessions of 2 to 6 people to make that time more efficient
3. We allocate 1-1s when we think you actually need it and not just for fun
4. We dynamically create your schedule on the fly and weekly... like creating a college semester schedule every week from scratch.
Our team is full of 10+ year FAANG product engineers and recruiters so this might sound easier than it is, and it's indeed a unique approach that no one else has done.
I can also go into all the bad things about this approach :P
Yeah the platform I helped start is this, but it's expensive and it still requires a lot of individual effort to make the best use of that... we actually help people learn how to network, but yeah, the fees go to paying mentors, who often have FAANG senior salaries at their day jobs.
So there are a three ingredients, Will Sentance has talked about this in public talks, and I have a hunch Launch School would agree re: their Capstone as well (but don't take my word for it!!)
1. Be a strong engineer to begin with/lots of potential. Good bootcamps test for this by having a challenging acceptance process. People prep for Codesmith for months and often fail their first interview. People have to complete Launch School Core for many months before applying to Capstone.
2. Build raw technical skills. A program has to train these and it's very very hard to do in 12 weeks. A project is one way to apply technical skills, and both of these programs focus on multi-week long group projects that are the highlight of your experience.
3. Be able to communicate and talk about your experience confidently to non-engineers. This includes your resume and recruiter outreach to be impressive…
Last year's came out mid September for the first wave and first week of October for the 2nd wave.
For Codesmith, Will Sentance said in a public talk this week that the numbers are somewhere 'around $120Ks but need to be audited still and will come out soon'. (No source, but credible)
I personally don't care what the salary numbers are and am more curious about the placement rates themselves, but I know a lot of people care about the salary numbers.
On the other hand, Codesmith describes itself as "Codesmith is a team dedicated to democratizing elite education for a new era - the outcomes of an elite grad school but online and for 1/10th of the cost" [Source](https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Codesmith-EI_IE1093972.11,20.htm). And I know that elite school new grads I work with are getting about $155K base salaries right now at FAANG-level companies (and $200K+ with equity)…
Codesmith is averaging about 22 to 27 people per cohort right now and was maxed out at 36 people all of last year at least from what I was made aware of, so that's down about 20 to 30%. SOURCE: unofficial answer from two Codesmith staff.
More questions!
1. Can you try to summarize the main motives of the people that joined that you worked with? i.e. was it tech salaries, interest, pre-existing training and looking to get a job, etc...
2. Can you summarize the main reasons people DIDN'T join? Like did they seen though the gimmicks, cost, outcomes, etc...?