u/Swami218 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Disclaimer: I’m obviously a Codesmith shill, so nothing I say counts. First, I’d be very surprised if you had done anything like deleting others’ posts. Of course I don’t ’really’ know you, but my impressions is that you wouldn’t do anything like that. Like, ever. IMO it’s read
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
Yeah I think all that is fair. I just don't see how the person in that post would know I became a moderator unless they were on here very recently and noticed that I happened to be a moderator.
And yeah I mean I don't expect Eric K to ever like me, and I think if I had switched up the language a bit when I talk to Formation Fellows about a startup that closed down 10 years ago, and someone was just harping on that, it would be a bit irritating. I would probably message them and be like hey, this is what went down, and I was trying to summarize the experience maybe too casually and I'll be careful with how I talk about it in the future.
Anyways, I don't have anything personal against Eric K, maybe it's like politicians debating, who co-exist professionally but don't really see eye-to-eye.
I also don't think my personal treatment matters whatsoever and I'm not going to discourage anyone from going there. I'm just not going to be like 'based on your background as a mechanical engineer for 3 years who lacks hands on project work for your resume, Codesmith is definitely the right choice' and I'll just say to consider other options. That's all I meant.
Like this from a few hours ago won't happen: "michaelnovati 10:18 AM I don't know them that well but really Codemsith was the best for adjacent engineering experience"
I should also clarify that two new things came to light in all this shakeup that's happening that is also informing my opinion right now:
1. Someone explained to me that most of Codesmith runs on Google Sheets, Calendar, and Drive, and GitHub repos, and the main code the "senior software engineers" work on is the public website and the CSX platform, and that some instructors hardly commit code. I was somewhat shocked at this because I assumed they had a bunch of software to help make Codesmith work. Like adding a dropdown to the website isn't senior software engineer work, and I'm very concerned for the instructors laid off that they'll find their bearings :(. Maybe I'm being way too out of my bounds here, but I just have genuine concern because the ones I know are such great early career engineers who want to do good.
2. Lack of proper IP and contractor relationships with alumni "faculty". I read through a blog about a Tinder Principal Engineer who is on Codesmith's Faculty and was a little concerned with the way it portrayed Tinder as supporting Codesmith. It says the engineer is a Faculty member who wrote curriculum explicitly "while working at Tinder". That's playing with fire, because the top companies require a conflict of interest vetting and approval for an employee to work in a related field and produce IP for another company. It's more likely an issue for the PERSON than it is for CODESMITH, but if they are setting people up for problems like this, I'm concerned once again for those people that they properly check that before contributing IP to Codesmith and they have rock solid IP terms in their contracts.