What Happened To Codesmith?

I'm personally very far on the don't tell people they are senior engineers side on this one but I've had many debates with people that "know someone that got a senior job out of Codesmith" who adamantly believe in Codesmith's stance on this. I would argue with them why a program branding itself as a top tier program preparing people for jobs in the TECHNOLOGY industry should be using the canonical definitions of the top tier TECHNOLOGY industry companies. Codesmith does this "how to get hired in 2024" talk that I saw most of yesterday and they aren't just saying this anymore, but the CEO spent almost 2 hours straight in the talk convincing people that using - what in my opinion - are incorrect arguments: 1. Argument: the 2024 market has changed and companies that didn't previous prioritize technology - like banks - are hiring laid off FAANG engineers to build the same level of product there. The CEO cited McKinsey consultants telling these companies to invest in technology as a response to FAANG companies entering their markets as the reason why this change is happening. - This is completely false to me. These companies have always prioritized technology but they are in industries with lower margins and don't pay their engineers $500K a year like Meta does. So Meta, with its giant margins, gets the top engineers and builds top tier product. Nothing has changed here. American Express has had great product for 10 years+ now and continuously invested in technology. NYTimes has had a long term effort to move stuff online and invest in games and other areas, and hiring good engineers to do it - and this is nothing new in 2024. United Airlines has been investing in technology for years for rebooking and customer service, because it's CHEAPER and a better experience than having humans do it. But they aren't getting the best of the best engineers in the industry to do it because they have razor thin margins. - The argument comes across that it was made up (the CEO has not sourced any data on this) to validate Codesmiths outcomes. i.e. if you ASSUME Codesmith makes only mid level and senior engineers then whatever jobs they get IS the market for mid-level and senior. And this is just completely flipped around because those people are not mid-level and senior engineers so they are getting jobs at non-big-tech companies. 2. Argument: an interview is about communicating your capabilities in a traditional setting designed for ivy league graduates (the CEO references "Princeton" in the talk). Since Codesmith grads are mid-level and senior they have to practice how to communicate their potential "capabilities", not their experience, in interviews so that they are perceived on an equal level to a Princeton grad. - I agree with part of this, that there are biases in the interview process and you have to understand and navigate those. I agree with putting extra effort to show you care in the process - which is one of the main pieces of advice given. - I adamantly disagree with the implication that since Codesmith grads ARE mid-level and senior "capabilities"-wise they should do what they need to to "communicate" that (what does that mean? because grads are taking that to mean exaggerating their resumes) to recruiters. It helps people justify the exaggerations. ----- Anyways, I wrote this out in 5 minutes and I would be happy to debate these more.