u/BornEnvironment3665 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
This is a good take that I hadn't considered before. I don't think demand was as high as it's peak when I started (no long wait list but I believe our cohort was full well in advance), but we definitely had a strong cohort of "Codesmith-y" people. (PS Cohort if you're reading th
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah attending workshops and full ahead of time counts in my theory haha.
End of 2023 people were being let in like 2 days before and one in particular was absolutely not a good fit and it was not good for them or Codesmith that they got in.
Now that they shrunk down do like 25% of their peak capacity hopefully they will stabilize at a 30 person solid cohort filled up a few weeks ahead of time.
The people I know who work there say that leadership is terrible at forecasting and appears to make changes every few weeks at all hands meetings that are reacting to the current state of things. Like they paid bonuses to admissions people who filled cohorts - which resulted in people getting pushed to their 2nd and 3rd interviews days apart to rush them to get in.
Their website is full of so much randomness now: career accelerator courses, paths to prepare for Codesmith, future code for NYC residents, it's like they are jumping the shark to offer 10X more stuff with 1/2 the staff members.
I haven't said this publicly yet, but repeated whack-a-mole style approach to changes is a factor in why I stopped recommending people go there until we see if these announced changes happen and if they are committed to iterating on them until the work.