Oof this is a tough spot because you also want to make sure the one you choose is also good for you!
So TripleTen (formerly Practicum) some things about their numbers because numerous people were surprised by this... they publicize that "87% of our grads get hired in 6 months or less". If you read their report, this is that 87% of GRADUATES WHO ARE HIRED are hired in 6 months or less, and 13% ARE HIRED IN MORE THAN SIX MOTHS. They don't include people refunded or people who drop out in this stat. I couldn't find the graduation rate anywhere or the number of people they refund every year, I would ask them for both these numbers in order to understand their outcomes better. Second, they are owned by the multinational search engine Yandex, and that also wasn't obvious to a lot of people. All of this is not a reason to not go, just things that seemed not obvious to others in prior discussio…
CEOs are people too and everyone is different. I connect with a lot of people on LinkedIn who are early career because most of my network is early Facebook employees and I want to diversify who I'm connected to get to know how more people think and feel about things.
I wish there was just one for everybody! But there are so many different ones because everyone has different ways of learning. So I would try all of them for a day or so and see!
ChatGPT is not to blame no. The entire entry level job market is just stalled right now for a few reasons.
1. Mid-level and senior hiring has resumed for people with experience but entry level headcount is being held for the traditional "new grad recruiting pipelines" this fall.
2. A ton of recruiters were laid off in the sweeping layoffs this year, so companies are focusing on fewer pipelines for entry level roles, i.e. university recruiting - which is the tried-and-true source of top entry level talent.
3. Quite frankly, top companies struggle with hiring bootcamp grads. They take longer to ramp up and are just not as competitive as a Stanford grad with 3 internships at top companies. There are definitely successful bootcamp grads who do well, but if I were to focus on only ONE pipeline, I would choose the university one.
FWIW Trilogy was eliminated as a brand and almost impossible to find anything on their parent company website. 2U is the parent company and their website doesn't even mention Trilogy.
Yeah this, I know people who do make this in their first job, there's just a lot more to the story and you need to do like an hour long interview with each person to dig into them a person for context.
I'm going through a dilemma right now myself and I can't give a well sourced, confident answer. I'm focusing on Codesmith because week after week I just get so much stuff sent to me, I know the ins and outs better than any program.
At the end of the day, there's no 12 week program that can turn anyone into a really good industry engineer. I see so so so many people, covering all backgrounds and there are patterns between successful ones and unsuccessful ones but each individual is a unique human that is unpredictable!
I can say it's extremely hard to get entry level jobs right now and there are no shortcuts, loopholes, "get rich quick" ways of doing it.
I can also say that THE JOB IS THE BEGINNING, not the end. This is one of Codesmith's "dirty secrets" - people get highly paying first jobs - that they exaggerate their experience to get - but if you follow the alumni down the road,…
We need to see official numbers but maybe just ask them and if they don't give you a clear answer that would be more concerning too! I don't think the rate is concerning but just the transparency so you can feel good about the program.
The market is improving so my bet is they will say this: "We haven't finalized placements for H2 2022 but it was a much tougher market and results were worse but we are seeing placements improving every day now"
If you DM your email address or LinkedIn I can confirm if it was received. You should also get an email with a link to a benchmark assessment that is very important for the application!
The goal of the program is to help increase diversity in tech and Waymo is looking broadly for "College students from underrepresented or non-traditional backgrounds pursuing a BS/MA/MS in a technical field (Computer Science, Engineering, Math, Statistics) graduating Summer of 2025."
So not necessarily "strictly for URM".
Good question! It's about 20 hours a week (say 5 hours of scheduled sessions and the rest of tasks and benchmarking assessments to do). Formation's magic is that we pull your calendar and schedule all of your sessions and workload around your calendar (even weekends are fine), so as long as you're organized you can fit it in, but it will be a lot of work.
You do have to interview but we're working with Waymo recruiters and engineers to prepare you for their interviews specifically and you should expect to have interaction with people at Waymo in different ways along the way. If you do everything you need to at Formation then you should get an interview (assuming the market or hiring doesn't change unexpectedly) and you should be extremely prepare for these interviews.
If you don't pass the interviews you'll also be super setup for other companies that have similar interview styles... you are getting approximately $13,500 of value from Formation paid for by Waymo if you are selected for the program.
Definitely not a scam to be online focused but you do have to look deeply in each school and see if it's right for you. The hiring market is bad right now for new engineers, so I would ask them what "a lot" means and how many people in the recent cohort got jobs via those local partners.
Of the super top tier / competitive bootcamps the only in person ones I know are Codesmith (NY) and App Academy (NY and SF).
I totally get everyone is different, but I would advise on finding the right program for you over in person/online, unless there is a particularly strong reason to have a worse fit program because of the stronger benefit to you of an in person program.
In person programs in smaller cities are often a great way to get a foot in the door with local companies in that city. This was the bread and butter for Tech Elevator during the good times.
We don't have any in the pipeline right now :( I wish we had more programs but we're really small and we're hoping that as the programs we do have succeed, they will attract more partnerships and larger scope partnerships.
PSA: Waymo + Formation Program applications opened today - targeting 2024 summer internships (for 2025 grads only)
Hi friends! Waymo and Formation just announced the [Waymo + Formation Program](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7094403935964205056/) and applications are open now through August 23rd, 2023. This is a free program (paid for by Waymo) that will take place online and part time (on your schedule) in the fall. The program provides 2025 grads (undergrad OR masters) rigorous extra CS fundamentals training with the goal of being selected for a 2024 summer internship with Waymo - which is a pretty cool right now to work at!
I'm a co-founder of Formation and want to disclose that transparently, but this program has no catches (other than that it's for a very small number of people and will be very competitive to get into) and is a great opportunity for qualified…
The numbers have shifted. The numbers I've seen are closer to 50% for H2 2022 and too soon to tell for H1 2023 (very roughly, non official, from people with direct access to outcomes). But this is a reflection of the market and not changes at Codesmith or Codesmith getting worse or anything.
I have not but that sounds bad.
1. Read the contract carefully and see what you agreed to.
2. If you have any evidence, like an email, that said something different than the contract, approach them nicely and ask for a further discount.
3. If not, make them a reasonable offer for what you think you should pay and see if they accept it.
If you already know it then I think it can be done relatively quickly. Try messaging their team to see if you can test out of it. It's mastery-based - so if you should be able to test out of certain lessons, but I think they want you to spend some time doing it because it helps you-and-them identify if the Capstone is the right thing for you.
If you are concerned about building, yeah maybe not the accelerators. Codesmith could be an option, Launch School Capstone would be another.
Alternatively, look into things like Hack4LA - where you might want to just volunteer for free and build some stuff. Codesmith's open source partner OSLabs also seems to have free options for people to build stuff without doing Codesmith.
You on the fence of if a top tier bootcamp or career accelerator is right (or nothing at all!). I would consider Codesmith yeah. It's not guaranteed to get you a job but if you feel really stuck it might be worth it for the community. You'll highly likely be coding circles around everyone but their curriculum isn't what you are paying for - anyone can get the material and it's entirely taught by former graduates.
Also consider career accelerators and see if they are right for you - they tend to be job hunt and interview focused instead of learning focused.
Formation.dev (I'm a co-founder) (adaptive learning efficient practice, small group sessions, mock interviews with senior/staff engineers, support until you get a job)
Interview Kickstart (structured DS&A practice, lecture style sessions, mock interviews with senior engineers)
Interviewing.io (a la cart interview practice, or pay f…
My 2 cents... I'm super open and transparent and in my opinion you're going to have some trouble in this sub if you just post ads for your events and don't engage with people about App Academy in a valuable way. People ask questions about App Academy and make guesses at outcomes and experienced, etc... and if you ignore all of that to post an ad for your event it might not get received well.
I've been in this situation and stuck with Uber. The reasons why?
1. I don't want to deal with payment or think about payment
2. I want to track where I'm going in an app because I don't trust anyone and want to make sure the cab driver heard the destination right and is going there.
3. I know Uber is tracking pretty much everything it can in the apps and if anything went wrong security wise, I think they could react faster than if I had a problem in a cab
4. I know cans are supposed to have metered pricing in most cities but I tend to find cab pricing is a surprise at the end of the trip. I watch the meter and then at the end of the trip the person pushes a button and it goes up 20%. Tolls? Fees? Taxes? No idea. With Uber I know how they are transparently ripping me off with fees upfront in the price produced.
It's a bit ironic for 4 because Uber used to follow the cab model where y…
BloomTech has changed A LOT on recent months. The result is that the graduation rate has plummeted, but if you do graduate, the odds of getting a job are higher.
I think the main problem is all of the changes basically turned it into a Udemy course with live sessions where the "self motivated autodidactic" people are the ones that make it through - and the ones that probably would have gotten jobs in any bootcamp.
For those unaware, the changes are:
1. You move the curriculum completely at your own pace.
2. You sign up for "lectures" whenever you want and the same lectures are offered frequently so you can always join the one you need right now, or repeat ones you aren't understanding.
3. There is no longer a sense of community or that you are doing this with other people - people start every week and you don't have cohortmates anymore.
4. You have a support person that you can file…
There's no short cut here for hard work. It's a lot of work to dig this stuff up but you can use programming thinking to make it a lot faster :D I commented above/below about some ideas.
I don't plan on sharing the actual spreadsheet or any personal information because I respect all/most of the individual Codesmith alumni I know very deeply and don't want to be a part of any individual person being called out out focused on negatively. In fact I help a number of Codesmith alumni on a 1-1 basis figure out options and paths forward in this market and I know how unique and person these convos can get and "exposing people" would be against my goals.
Yeah I'm EXTREMELY good at cmd+click cmd+tab, etc... lol. Apple Automations and formulas in Sheets can help. For example if you have a GitHub handle, you can make a formula to great a url concatenated with that handle, then copy those into a text file and open in the Terminal, and then cmd+ double click on each one to open in a new tab. 5 mins to get 200 GitHub pages open. And then say we want to go to a tab in the same location…
Rithm is a place, similar to Launch School, that keeps the cohorts small and gives people a lot of attention. So it's a place for quality of education and time with teachers. However, quality !== job and Codesmith might be a better place for ambitious hustlers who will do push to find a way to get a job. Case in point: Rithm grads proudly post about their graduation on LinkedIn and get cheered on by their friends - Codesmith grads mostly hide the fact they went to Codesmith and half of their resume is 3 weeks of project work written up in 6 bullet points.
I'm too busy to help but I can give directional advice on where to look. Well over a year ago I got fascinated by Codesmith and OSLabs as a bunch of resumes crossed my desk with months and years of experience that turned out to be 2-3 commits over 3 weeks. I sampled 200 LinkedIn and GitHub profiles that showed how most graduates exaggerated their work compared to their GitHub contributions. I can easily show this method if a group of people want to reproduce.
I found it and they basically are a hiring agency. So they get paid if someone hires you via their platform. You are paying for a bit of training but they get paid a lot more money if you get a job.
Yeah maybe I found the wrong CodeDesk, but it's also suspicious it says USA-based internship. That makes it sound like it's based in another country and a highlight is they get you an internship in the USA.
Look into the parent company - they are an IT contractor. So their goal is to place you into contractor roles they fulfill and they get paid by those deals on their end.
Sorry, I don't know them :( I fortunately/unfortunately know a lot about Codesmith because it's a snowball effect of it being discussed so much in this subreddit and then people send me stuff - usually anonymously because I get a lot of pushback from Codesmith insiders in comments and they want to help me and thank me for explaining things more the way they are.
I know a decent amount about Rithm (I know the founder) and HR (I know a number of alumni), BloomTech, but not every single program
The resume I was referring to was of this structure (generalized to hide any way of identifying and shifted the dates a bit, but it listed only years - following Will S and Annie Z's Resumes):
Senior Software Engineer
EXPERIENCE:
Software Engineer at CS Engineering - 2022 - present
Software Engineer at OSP - 2021 - present
PROJECTS:
Scratch - 2022
Solo - 2022
Iteration - 2022
It's definitely a lot, but it's comparable to any other loan you take out. The difference is if you don't have a job at all, you don't pay so it's more peace of mind you won't end up in collections if the job market tanks even more - and you might pay a bit for that peace of mind.
It is because it's the length of Codesmith and the argument is the skills you build before and after are all part of the skills that go into the OSP. This is bs because
1. People choose a very specific tech to work on in the OSP and the rest of Codesmith is breadth across many topics
2. People are told to ALSO PUT THEIR OTHER PROJECTS in another section of their resume - essentially double, triple, quandruple or in one case I've seen 5X counting their time at Codesmith.
That said. It's not done in some super sketchy way to teach you how to lie cheat and steal. It's indeed a good program, the people are great, the alumni do well on the job, it's more of a "optimization strategy" that people see as a means to an ends.
I see both sides and I don't discourage people from joining just because of this. But I do think it's critical for you to know HOW it works and not just see six figures an…
Codesmith and HR are 9am to 8pm M-F and 9am to 3pm S. Rithm is 9am to 6pm M-F. You need a certain ability and support in your life to manage these schedules and it's easier with savings, a supportive partner/parents, no children, no chronic medical issues, no mental health challenges, etc...
Hack Reactor 12 week covers roughly similar materials to Codesmith. Codesmith has as a higher entry bar and 90%+ graduation rate as a result. HR has way more people drop out/get kicked out and not graduate (75 to 80% "graduate") but it's still okay.
Note about the ISAs - read the fine print. You can usually defer payments for some amount of time (I believe 3 month after graduation), but it's not forever (if you have a job making the minimum salary in a current job or any non-tech job).
Codesmith can be a good choice. It's the #1 choice for super ambitious people who are already decent programmers. The alumni I know are amazing, hard working, and great people who want to have a big impact on the world. If you want to put your head down, do what you are told and exceed all of the requirements/expectations, it's the place to go and you'll be happy.
The only problem I have with Codesmith overall is misrepresenting mid-level and senior outcomes (and by relation, exaggerating the value of the OSP projects that they claim make you a mid-level engineer).
The reason I would consider not recommending them is if they pull some shenanigans with H2 2022 outcomes because the raw data I've been shown is not good and if they don't acknowledge this openly and transparently and continue to try to frame them as Codesmith's best in industry results and keep up the attitude, then I will…
OSLabs is a charity that owns and manages all of the OSPs that Codesmith students work on for 3 weeks and they end up being the highlight of your experience at Codesmith on your resume - assuming you have no prior SWE experience. OSLabs collects donations and pays mentors to review open source projects. Which happen to be the same open source projects that Codesmith people pay $20K to do during the OSP phase of Codesmith... hence why it's so important that there be a clear line between the two entities or it could look like OSLabs is funneling tax deductible donations from people to mentor Codesmith students who are paying Codesmith $20K each.
OSLabs has full control over all the OSP projects and is responsible for choosing students to work on them and not a single person at Codesmith has the ability to influence these decisions or that would be a conflict of interest (people tell me th…
Both of these are solid bootcamp programs, I would also consider Launch School Capstone in a similar bucket.
I've been rabbit holing this weekend a bit on Codesmith because I received some interesting information a while ago and additional information last week that I finally looked at, and I may or may not continue recommending them in the future. I'm going to wait for their H2 2022 CIRR results - so see if the information they present aligns with the information I received or not before I make a call here.
They are in additional doing some very shady stuff with OSLabs, Parallels, and Codesmith. I received evidence directly from an employee, documented, that 'OSLabs will sign letters of reference for 3-4 months of work for a 3 week OSP project'. While I have long complained about the majority of people exaggerating their experience on resumes and LinkedIns - despite Codesmith's docume…
Hi, we're looking for 1-3+ years of actual work experience as a SWE or SWE-like role. We don't really "teach" people and we are a practice, benchmarking, and feedback-based training model, and we're not a good place to replace classic-style learning.
We work with people as long as it takes to get a job (as long as you keep training and job hunting) but we don't hand you jobs on a silver platter and are NOT a good place to go if you are struggling post-bootcamp and 'desperate' for just any legit job.
We have a small number of people with less than 1 YOE that typically fall into buckets of:
1. Bootcamp grads \~6 months after graduation, who did some contracting or full time teaching at their bootcamp or paid work are are looking to fill in gaps needed for typical bit-tech roles.
2. Self taught - with some contracting work or legit open source contributions - typically at the skill level…