⚠️ WARNING: Codesmith subreddit is mostly propaganda (resharing Codesmith content without full context and boosting with positive comments from accounts that mostly post about Codesmith only). Challenges and negative comments are called "lies" and you get banned. BE SMART AND THINK CRITICALLY.

⚠️ WARNING: Codesmith subreddit is mostly propaganda (resharing Codesmith content without full context and boosting with positive comments from accounts that mostly post about Codesmith only). Challenges and negative comments are called "lies" and you get banned. BE SMART AND THINK CRITICALLY. NOTE: I'm not saying the content itself isn't true or that it's bad intentioned, but I am saying that it's marketing material that missing context and it's likely the people sharing it don't even realize this. I've accumulated a lot of information over the years and while I see a **A LOT OF GOOD THINGS CODESMITH IS DOING,** the outcomes have changed dramatically in 2023-2024 and these materials are not reflecting that. **DISCLAIMER: these are my personal opinions using publicly available information and my own insights.** **MODERATOR NOTE: any comments talking about my own company will be deleted, it's completely irrelevant to this discussion and while you should judge my words critically like you should anyone elses, this isn't a place to personally attack me when I'm posting in good faith.** This has been going on for a while but let's dissect this recent post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dpq7kq/codesmiths\_outcomes\_for\_april\_may\_2024\_53\_job/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dpq7kq/codesmiths_outcomes_for_april_may_2024_53_job/) >"Codesmith's Outcomes for April - May 2024 -- 53 Job Placements! Grads INCREASED salary by $54,000 on average! $119k average base salary (Industry average is $65k!)" >"What's crazy to me is that a Codesmith grads average salary increase ($54,000) is almost as much as the entire first year salary for SWE grads from any other program. >Almost 70% of grads also received ADDITIONAL compensation ON TOP of their base salary ($130,000 to $140,000 in total). this shit is bananas" And this one [https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dp28sk/will\_sentance\_codesmith\_ceo\_and\_brandi\_richardson/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dp28sk/will_sentance_codesmith_ceo_and_brandi_richardson/) >\[NAME REDACTED\] (Codesmith CEO) and \[NAME REDACTED\] (Sr. Software Engineer, Microsoft and Google) ---- LIVESTREAM NOW # My Notes: 1. No timeframes were provided on how long the people were job hunting, and some of these offers were people job hunting for over a year post graduation. These won't show up in CIRR for example. Does that matter? Personally, I think it's great people were placed, but the time it's taking people is much longer than it used to. If you are going to a bootcamp like Codesmith, make sure to give yourself 1-2 years post graduation to get a job. A couple of alumni have contacted me in the past week who have been job hunting for a very long time and they don't even check in with Codesmith anymore at this point, but they will NOT GIVE UP and will get a job eventually, it's just taking so much longer. 2. It appears to me from the data I've see and my opinion on interpreting it, that more of these placements have been non-SWE roles than before. For example, "customer support engineer" at Palantir, or "technical writer", or "project manager". Again, this IS GREAT AND THESE ARE GREAT ROLES AND THEY PAY VERY WELL!, but I think Codesmith should be transparent that getting a full blown SWE role is much harder than it used to be and you shouldn't expect to only get one going to Codesmith. This is not apparent in that post and the OP seems to only care about money and salaries and not what kinds of jobs people are getting and how that will impact their lifelong career. 3. Salary increase of $54,000. That's awesome! But based on the $119K average, that means the average person was coming INTO CODESMITH with a $65K salary. They aren't saying if this includes people making $0. If it does then the average salary of someone employed would be much higher to produce these numbers. If it's not including $0, then that means the average person STARTING CODESMITH already has a base salary equal to that of the OUTCOMES OF OTHER BOOTCAMPS. What does this mean? It means that if you are considering Codesmith against bootcamps where the outcome is $65K, and you make no money right now, you might not be the "average Codesmith grad". If you are making $65K already in a decent professional job, then Codesmith might be a no brainer over choosing another bootcamp as you might be more like an average grad. 4. The person interviewed in that call is INCREDIBLE AND AN AMAZING PERSON. But she also says she interviewed at Microsoft as a 59 and was offered as 61 role. A 61 roles is a HIGH ENTRY LEVEL GOOGLE-EQUIVALENT ROLE and is NOT A SENIOR ENGINEER ROLE. The person then transitioned to technical project management and moved to Google and is not a Software Engineer at Google. **THIS IS AN AMAZING OUTCOME AND TRAJECTORY.** But the framing is not correct that she was uplevelled into a senior role during the interview. The fact that she was upleveled during the interview to a high entry-level/low-mid-level is INCREDIBLE and I don't want that to be lost whatsoever. But the marketing spin and further promotion by only positive accounts, could make that misleading. There's a ton more dimensions to look at here but I'm giving some **REASONABLE CRITICAL ANALYSIS** to help people unpack information.