u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
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 non-"top tier" CS degrees to get interviews.
3. There is a trend in downturns for people to shift to longer term degrees over short term skill building (which is fairly obvious because no one is quitting a stable job to become an engineer in 12 weeks in this environment). Codesmith is exploring more part time options as enrollment has dropped 20 to 30%, which aligns with this trend. I'm seeing a lot of bootcamp candidates look at WGU, but WGU is also a fairly "short" program that doesn't get you the same recognition a top tier program does.
4. A number of people are also exploring Masters degrees in CS and I think that's better than WGU if it's at a better known tech school, as you'll get some access to those new grad recruiters in #2, however by the time you graduate, the market will change, and who knows!?
5. In terms of MAINTAINING a job. That depends more on you than the program. WGU does cover more topics and is broader. Codesmith doesn't really teach any specific useful skill and instead is focused on "learning how to learn". I tend to see very ambitious and hard working people go to Codesmith and they tend to find ways to keep chugging at their jobs, but I've also worked with a number that struggle on the job or get laid off because they we overleveled.
6. Codesmith's misguided midlevel and senior emphasis is hurting them right now. Codesmith really really pushes people to get "mid level and senior" roles. You'll see this over and over and over and over everywhere. I'm seeing mid level and senior roles only interviewing people with 2-4+ YOE and usually the higher the better. Codesmiths outcomes have dropped significantly as people are accepting junior roles instead now. Their CEO said that the drops are market related, but I 100% assure you, new grads at the top FAANG companies in ENTRY LEVEL ROLES are paid $140 to $160K base salaries right now, so Codesmith medians dropping to the $110Ks in Q2 2023 are an indication that people are indeed taking VERY GOOD JUNIOR JOBS but not mid level and senior ones. I think it's too deeply ingrained in their culture at this point to change, but the repeated emphasis is harmful right now. I've raised this time and time again and people get defensive instead of discussing it.
7. Onsite is +100 to Codesmith if you really want onsite and it works well for you - it's rare now and they are burning cash on their office (it's more than 3 students tuition a month for just basic rent!!) so it might be good to take advantage while you can.
8. As a side note, Codesmith allegedly had some layoffs in the past two weeks (an alumni mentioned in a post from last week) so I would maybe ask them more about changes that might be coming as a result because I haven't heard of anything officially, other than CTRI pausing and a potential new east coast part time remote cohort. I have heard that Eric K monitors this sub and has a group of alumni he asks to comment on posts, so I think you need to go to the source if you want to get more info about this and don't trust things here from anonymous people.