I can give my 2 cents on this, which is as usually fairly middle of the road.
1. I'm well aware of the coordinated Reddit interference initiated by leadership, specifically on me and my comments. I never talk about this because it's childish and I want to focus on what's important.
2. Running a program is hard. Not everyone will have the best experience, scheduling is a nightmare (we have so much software to do scheduling and there are always last minute surprises because humans are human). So while it's easy to pile on and criticize how it's run, I do think it's overall run well relative to other programs. Codesmith should obviously minimize session issues and I would be concerned if scheduling problems happen the majority of the time.
3. I believe their CIRR numbers are legit. There are a lot of things people can do to maximize their outcomes and spoke at length and I think Codesmith does that but I don't think their published numbers are fraudulent. If you have evidence of that, I'm all ears, but people left out I believe are left out for legitimate reasons, but just in them most advantageous way for Codemith (which is very reasonable IMO, it's our job as consumers to put equal effort in understanding the numbers and loopholes).
4. Career support issues. I personally think their career support is oversold drastically for what you get and agree with that, but relatively to other programs I think it's really strong. They sell it like it's better than career accelerators (which focus on this alone) and it's definitely worse that those, but it's also a lot better than most other bootcamps.
5. Curriculum out of date. So I actually don't think the curriculum being hour of date is an issue, but I think their attitude is that it's ideal (someone sent me a quote where an instructor said "trust me, Codesmith has experts who have spent hours making every minute of the curriculum the best, it can't be improved" and that was insane to me) . I actually really like Will Sentance's approach to reinforcing really how things work at a first principles level, and apply rigorous thinking to everything you do. It's a learning strategy that can carry you through anything you haven't seen before. It takes much longer than that to actually learn things. He spent FOUR HOURS a few weeks ago teaching people the basics of how HTML state works and how JS interacts with it.... yet Codesmith spends four hours of lecture on ALL OF REACT.
6. I've talked about OSLabs before, but yeah they created a legit charity for it to double down on that strategy and I'm definitely curious to see where it goes. I.e. if it's used to build better open source projects for the world, and which give Codesmith students opportunities to work on them, or if it's used to give the appearance of legitimacy to the existing OSPs. Curious if you have thoughts here, but I think it's the former as the goal.
Overall, we should all keep in mind that no program is perfect and any kind of company that has been around for a while and is successful will have made mistakes and missteps and have people (both customers and employees) with bad experiences.
Might update with more thoughts but just wanted to add a little of pros and cons thinking since the post is largely negative.
u/Potatoupe wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Do they have employees watch the subreddit and post the very positive comments about CS? Or is that not cost effective, so it is doubtful it happens?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
From what I've heard it's solely DEFENSIVE not offensive. Which is why you see a ton of random people come out of the woodwork with almost no history on Codesmith-specific posts. I carefully check the comment history when I get attacked and numerous accounts only post and comment about Codesmith and then attack me about Formation. Kind of odd for an account with almost no history to know me so well to make detailed attacks and simultaneously only comment and post about Codesmith.
The other problem is so many people are hired back as fellows, career support, instructors, that a lot of people who talk about being an "alumni" don't disclose that they were/are also an EMPLOYEE! Codesmith has 80 to 100 (depending on when you count, changes frequently) former students currently on staff in some capacity on their Website.
u/Mynameisgeoff123 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Were you previously attending codesmith before working there? And what did you do after leaving codesmith?
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Yeah this is one of the accounts on my special list that I monitor that is affiliated. Some people have shared internal quotes of certain execs/leaders/advisors and you notice the exact same language and phrases used on Reddit, you start to piece together who is who, or who was influenced by who.
This account surfaced out of hibernation from 9 months ago the second Codesmith was discussed negatively.
I'm here every day commenting and being helpful and you can easily tell from people's comment history sometimes why they are here.
u/ChuckTheWebster wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Codesmith only spends four hours of lecture on React……..??? Is this true? I just went to our schedule for my Rithm cohort, and we had twelve separate lectures on React over the course of 2.5 weeks, a React study hall where we could ask anything about React, three React weekend as
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Frontend and React is a week, I meant like 2 lectures on React, but there are assignments and practice as well. But Codesmith is a true full stack curriculum and there isn't much React. People get half the program for personal projects and OSPs so people that want to do more React do much more then
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah I have many comments about the OSPs but that is exactly why they aren't anything close to mid-level and senior projects. If you work for 4 weeks with a senior eng who specializes in React, you would get a lot better fast... and this is why an entry level apprenticeship at AirBnb paying $100K is better long term than a Senior Capital One job as your first job out of CS, imo.... for the average grad. For some people it's not but pushing people to mid and senior roles is missing a fantastic opportunity for grads.
I think they are going to have trouble with OSLabs as a boost to get mod and senior roles. If it's wildly successful, students will get to learn from real senior engineers and be perfectly setup to get referred to entry levels roles from them, but not mid and senior. There isn't an industry engineer I've asked who approved of CS grads marketing themselves for top tier mid senior roles out of CS.
u/throwaway9873298732 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
As a **former Codesmith graduate** **(FT '22)**, everything said here is factual.
The most important point I can add is **the CIRR numbers are suspicious**. From my cohort as of now, roughly **2/3rd of us are employed in tech** or a tech adjacent field. The cohort after mine - w
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Thanks for sharing your views and examples. I said this in my '2023 bootcamp predictions' post that we're going to see a lot of people complaining this year, while a lot of bootcamps remain largely the same as they did in <= 2021 and I stand by that. Codesmith was over-credited in the past in a good market for on-paper outcomes and will be overly criticized now, as will many good programs. We're seeing similar sentiment about Hack Reactor and Tech Elevator recently.
I also completely agree on OSP's being misrepresented and I think Codesmith is going in the wrong direction by doubling down on them.
Can you elaborate on sending lawyers after people in private? That seems concerning. I know that protecting intellectual property is super important and I could see that for leaking important content, or confidential business information. But no one should threaten you for stating your opinion about an experience. It's healthy to have productive discussion about what worked and didn't work about a program so that other people can make the right decisions.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Relatively speaking yeah :( lol. I have a traditional engineering background and there were good classes and bad classes in college. There were good TAs and bad TAs. Overall though I would say my college program was really good. But that doesn't mean it was flawless.
Codesmith is a good bootcamp. They control their growth, they care about having good outcomes, they keep the bar high, I genuinely think Will and others love teaching.
I'm not here to judge if it's worth $20K, of if it's good for you, me, your friend, etc.... and I have been relentlessly attacked for critizing Codesmith on:
1. All in support of CIRR without trying to improve the standard and make it better
2. Over-representing OSPs and doing fake background checks/references for people
3. Not being inclusive because only very driven people with $21K, and 11 hours a day + 7 hours on Sunday can attend.
4. Making people think they can get mid level and senior level SWE jobs without any prior experience and doubling and tripling down on it.
5. I don't appreciate their leadership calling me out in lecture and Q&A. I don't appreciate leaders texting students and telling them I'm a sketchy person. I don't appreciate a leader calling me a dark and disturbed individual whose sole mission is to take down Codesmith. I don't appreciate them defending lack of proper sourcing standards in their student's "Tech Talks" and I don't appreciate people assuming intentions and mocking me - both my work and my physical appearance.
And all of that said, I think it's a really good program, BECAUSE EVERY PROGRAM HAS FLAWS.
Every single Codesmith alumni I've talked to is professional, hard working, motivated, and eager to make the world better. Some of the ex-employees I've talked to were great people and passionate about teaching.
u/RedAfroNinja wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You think the CIRR are inflated? I always seemed too good to be true. How could bootcamp grads go unreported though?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
CIRR outcomes should be relied on as as legit yeah. The ways that games can be played are very sneaky. I've written a lot about this and have to timebox my time on Reddit so I'll try to quickly summarize and you can ask me more:
1. The spec was written by bootcamp outcomes managers and not lawyers. So it has some flaws. For example, there's no explanation of how salaries are recorded and what evidence is needed. They allow reporting a person who ghosts to be reported as employed if their LinkedIn says they have a job (no matter what the job is) and they exclude them from the salaries only.
2. The only absolute number on a CIRR report is the number of graduates included in the report. The rest are all percentages off of percentages off of percentages. The salaries are only for people who got jobs AND reported income. 90% being placed in 180 days means 90% OF GRADUATES were placed, but only 93% of people GRADUATED. And then the salaries might exclude another 5% that didn't report. CIRR should just have absolute numbers for everything, would be a lot more transparent. I've made mistakes trying to undo the math as have many.
3. Reports are only audited AFTER being submitted and once a year, not before.
4. Tech Elevator has to republish their report in H1 2022 because of mistakes in the CIRR worksheets.
5. Auditors are verifying that humans put in information correctly. But CIRR is vague on the sourcing of information, so it's good to have auditors but doesn't mean the data is flawless.
u/Historical-Most2671 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi Michael! You're famous in Codesmith so it's nice to interact, I respect your consistent view. As for the CIRR reports, I mostly just don't understand how in a 6 month period they are only counting \~60 graduates (before they combined program reports). There is a graduating cl
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hi 👋!
What feels like years ago but was about a year ago I spent two hours on a Sunday cmd+clicking and collecting info on the LinkedIn vs GitHub OSP representation that really peaked my interest in Codesmith outcomes. I did similar math to you and was also confused in who was included in the "graduates included" number, versus the percentages underneath. More recently I looked at the formulas in the CIRR worksheets (because they weren't spelled out in the spec like they should be) and it added some clarity but I still have questions about how they extend how fellows are included (they admit to not following CIRR and delaying those people's clocks by the length of their contract) but I don't know if that impacts "number of graduates" or graduation rates, or what not. And would love the absolute numbers. But I was a kid who memorized cereal box nutritional labels and the exact details don't matter that much in reality, they are good overall. It's just incorrect to quote them as the golden source of truth that "proves' Codesmith is the best bootcamp.
The bootcamp industry would be better if:
1. Prospective students were more open minded about pros and cons. Rather than immediately judging based on anonymous people's words, being open to hearing the good and the bad and using critical thinking.
2. There were more critics. Vincent Woo did an extensive analysis of Lambda School that made headlines, and we haven't seen that kind of digging into other programs and bootcamps. We shouldn't be relying on CIRR - a business league run by bootcamps - as the "best thing we have" for looking at outcomes.
3. At first I thought NuCamp was making excuses by focusing on satisfaction over placements, but maybe it would be better if people focuses on talking about what they got for their money instead of judging by outcomes. The teachers spend all their days TEACHING and developing curriculum, so why does their work get judged only based on the salaries the students make. It's a factor, but there's a lot more!
P.S. I posted this on another thread, which I'm sure is lost, but I definitely am aware of that reputation "I don't appreciate their leadership calling me out in lecture and Q&A. I don't appreciate leaders texting students and telling them I'm a sketchy person. I don't appreciate a leader calling me a dark and disturbed individual whose sole mission is to take down Codesmith. I don't appreciate them defending lack of proper sourcing standards in their student's "Tech Talks" and I don't appreciate people assuming intentions and mocking me - both my work and my physical appearance."
u/Suspicious-Engineer7 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
From what I've seen, I agree with this take. You want to talk about back room drama and false promises? Go to any university - it's 100x worse. You have to compare to the alternatives. I actually admire the 'immoral' coaching - it's not a level playing field out there, and it's t
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I'm in the CIRR is super flawed, why doesn't Codesmith improve it or replace it, but that is' not a fraud camp.
I'm concerned about the OSLabs stuff though. They made an official charity out of OSLabs in the middle of last year that pays mentors to mentor students. If they are collecting money from the charity to pay mentors to mentor Codesmith students only, that may be criminal, or may be a tax law violation. There's no way they aren't smart enough to figure out a way to make this work legally, but it's playing with fire.
Like if I, representing Formation, approached OSLabs about a collaboration to provide mentors and to work on projects or something, would they act in the best interest of OSLabs or would we get rejected because Codesmith leadership hates me? Eric Kirsten was advertising a job posting at OSLabs for the Executive Director saying to ping him if interesting.... I worked at Facebook and have been though crazy legal discovery processes and if Eric has some influence over this role and OSLabs isn't independent and someone goes looking, don't think those deleted emails and Slack messages are actually deleted lol.
u/InTheDarkDancing wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I should be getting paid with how much I defend Codesmith, but just for you I'll double-down on my claims:
ALL businesses, 100%, with ZERO exceptions will have these issues. Don't @ me.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah I don't agree with like 50% of what Dancing says, but I think they have good intentions from interacting with them over like a year and we can keep it civilized :D
u/toroga wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
This is really sad to hear. If all these allegations are true then the same thing that’s happening to other bootcamps (from my own experience and that of others) is happening to the one we thought was “the good one.”
It must simply be the most profitable model in these times a
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I think Codesmith is "a good one". I talk about them disproportionately on Reddit and have been accused by a leader of being a dark depraved individual whose sole purpose is to take them down. All I'm doing is talking fairly about the pros and cons and talking reasonably about a program... and I talk about them so much because this subreddit talks about them so much.... people see $130K salaries and assume they are the best and see people on here say "Codesmith, mic drop" when discussing the best bootcamps.
To me, Codesmith is a very good program that is focused on consistency and outcomes over profit and people shouldn't over react.
Having a healthy discussion about what can improve doesn't mean they can't be good too.
u/meseeks3 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I mean it seems like they were actually getting the midlevel roles so why would they lol. Maybe that's different now that the market is bad
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I have commented on this extensively but the level and title of your first job are irrelevant compared to the company, team, and product. Your career trajectory will be far faster and better being a $100K apprentice at Airbnb over a $130K "mid level" engineer at a 30 person agency where you are the only front end engineer assigned to a project.
I don't know why there is such an emphasis on them, if they have truly gone all in on this since the beginning. I don't think their leadership has a lot of top tier experience and maybe they are trying to appeal to the masses and people looking for an average job over a top tier job, but the marketing and tone of their outcomes commentary says otherwise.
u/CarlFriedrichGauss wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Maybe I'm naive since I have yet to attend Codesmith but I would expect that with a STEM background from a top university, especially if you were a (mechanical/electrical/chemical/non-software) engineer, you would have the demonstrated rigor to be successful in Codesmith. But if
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
+1 to both you and the parent comment.
I don't think Codesmith wants to be compared to other bootcamps and wants to be somewhat of an elite program to take experienced engineers to mid level.
But they admit a long tail of people who have no experience and expect the same outcomes. I've stated over and over that they should publish outcomes by initial experience level so people have a better idea of what their path might be like.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
So the letters don't say they "worked" there. They are carefully written to not say that but also broad enough for a generic background check company to probably check off a box that this "experience* had a validated reference.
I don't want to make judgements on the legalities because I'm not a lawyer. Something doesn't have to be a registered company to exist as an entity and what OSLabs was doing before this is ambiguous. Some things that I would ask a lawyer about are if Philip Troutman is signing letters as a board member when he is not and doing so knowingly and to perpetuate a fraud, could that be a problem for him as an individual. If he is a board member who just isn't listed in their public paperwork it could be a conflict of interest if he is using the charity to help Codesmith, which from the IRS website (again, not legal advice) might be a tax issue for the charity (i.e. it's not a real charity and might lose its status).
u/rosiebeir wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
As a recent Codesmith grad (PTRI '22), I feel like I can offer a more balanced perspective.. You can tell from my account and comment/post history that I'm not a "Codesmith bot" or whatever. It's definitely strange to me that they have those and it's kinda icky but oh well.
Fi
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Thanks for sharing a balanced view. +1 that the heart is in the right place, and that's important to note.
I comment this often but people don't read everything and adding for consistency, but in the industry, many "open source" projects are PAID. Almost all of the large open source projects are maintained by people who work at top companies as their day job and the company is paying them to support the project.
So saying something is "open source" does not mean it was unpaid work and saying you were a "Software Engineer at X (Open Source)" doesn't properly represent that it was a 4 week project with code reviewed from previous students.
This is my opinion, I understand and respect people who feel differently but just adding because I think it's an important perspective that people don't often hear (except from me lol)
Another note but "Codesmith has literally changed the lives" is something I hear very often and is a bit concerning. I firmly believe it's true, but it's also something I heard from people at NXVISM and in a lot of cult documentaries. I'm not saying it's not valid and I love that Codesmith changed your life and set you on a great track now! It's just something that can be dangerous to someone in a bad place who desperately needs a change and see that phrase as an out.
RE: Eric, people have sent me text messages from him and I want him to apologize for telling people I'm 'a dark and disturbed individual who lives on Reddit with the sole purpose of taking down the great thing they built'. I don't hold grudges, I would love to have dinner and learn more about his journey, I just don't think that that's cool and mature.
u/derpepper wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Honestly, Codesmith should pay you. Short of people who attend multiple bootcamps, you're probably one of the most qualified to talk on how people reflect on different bootcamp experiences. And you're putting some of your own credibility on the line by vouching for them.
That sa
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
There are a number of people who follow me and downvote almost everything I say with the word Codesmith in it. I've done some tests where I comment on something that has ZERO engagement, check a few days later, still ZERO engagement other than my comment, except me with -2 lol
But thanks for the kind words!
u/illustrious_feijoa wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I agree that level/title is a weird thing to be preoccupied with. But what even is a "top tier" job versus an "average" one? I'm at a FAANG now, and I wouldn't recommend it to some people--so is it actually "top tier" for them? And is that classification helpful?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Excellent point! For me, the most important thing is for you to understand the range of options, set a goal, and then work towards that goal - adjusting if needed, and for many people that's not FAANG.
So pre-layoffs, FAANG usually meant literally the 5 companies, or adjacent companies.
These are some of my criteria for what adjacent means:
1. Similar compensation, including stock based compensation as a meaningful portion of an offer
2. Engineering/product driven culture. Meaning that engineers and product managers, designers, etc... have an equal seat at the table as business people.
3. A popular, widely used product. No specific numbers here but a product or service that has significant SCALE and BREADTH where you will learn how to scale something infinitely, and how to build for a variety of people.
4. Reputation for high talent bar. This is fuzzy but generally you'll see "high performers" from canonical FAANG go to these companies.
Top tier is a little more broad and is a superset of FAANG companies and a set of companies that have maybe 3 out of 4 of those criteria above. Most non-public companies valued at $1B+ would be considered top tier at 3 out of 4. The ones that slip are typically number 4 (as the company might not connected to top talent but has made a lot of rushed hires a long the way as they grew) and number 2 (some companies are very business driven but check all of the other boxes, but engineers don't have quite the influence they have at FAANG).
Companies that I generally don't consider "top tier" are banks and credit card companies. They typically don't offer stock compensation and are business driven. Some financial institutions are though: Bloomberg is one of the leading ones, which checks off 2, 3, 4, but doesn't offer stock (even though it has very high cash compensation).
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
>but it's also something I heard from people at NXVISM and in a lot of cult documentaries
To be very clear I'm not implying directly or indirectly that anything illegal is happening at Codesmith, and I feel like it was pretty clear I wasn't saying that in any way.
I was simply stating that it's dangerous to vulnerable people to say 'do X, it changed my life and it can change your life too' and as an example of why it's dangerous, looking at cults and MLMs that have similar messaging where people join for the wrong reasons and feel social pressure to not leave.
u/zota wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The vast majority of open source projects are entirely volunteer with zero funding. If you say you worked on open source, absolutely no one is going to reflexively assume you meant a Google project.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Sources please, I don't appreciate defamation by coming out of hibernation, selectively commenting on all my comments and no one elses and attacking me with baseless claims. I'm well known I'm this sub because I'm open about my background and use my real identity, but I also don't respond to people trolling me.
Source: The research is a collaboration between the Core Infrastructure Initiative at the Linux Foundation – now part of The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) formed in August – and the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard University. via [https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/08/foss\_developer\_survey\_mostly\_male/](https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/08/foss_developer_survey_mostly_male/)
"A new survey of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) contributors, conducted by the Linux Foundation and academic researchers, reported that 91 per cent of respondents are male, the great majority has full-time paid employment"
"48.7 per cent were paid by their employer specifically for time spent on open source projects and 2.95 per cent received payment from another party"
u/derkokolores wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
For what it’s worth my cohort’s top offer (in the mid 100s) only had experience on their family’s farm (keeping this vague for privacy) and had no degree at all. Really is just about putting in the work and also putting yourself out there.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
A number of farmers are millionaires and run complex businesses.
From the USDA: "In 2021, the average U.S. farm household had $2,100,879 in wealth. Households operating commercial farms had $3.0 million in total wealth at the median, substantially more than the households of residence or intermediate farms."
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-household-well-being/income-and-wealth-in-context/
u/bdlowery2 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>I'm well aware of the coordinated Reddit interference initiated by leadership, specifically on me and my comments. I never talk about this because it's childish and I want to focus on what's important.
Speaking of, this post had 4 reports.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Do you know why or any feedback? I don't think anything in there violates the rules but let me know!
u/bdlowery2 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Not your comment, but this codesmith post.
"misinformation" "personal and confidential information" "misinformation" "misinformation"
lol
I think a couple of your posts further down got reported for misinformation too. Sounds like codesmith people are mad.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Haha I got an "award" from Reddit for being one of the most balanced commenters on Reddit and was asked to moderate a number of abandoned subreddits!!
u/nabramow wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I graduated from Codesmith in 2020 and never worked there, but unless it really went downhill since then, this seems a bit extreme.
I went into the program skeptical and a bit cranky as there was some miscommunications about my scholarship when I started. That said, having finis
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
This summary is fairly consistent with what I hear from most people as well, that overall Codesmith is a great program, very consistent, and the community is fantastic.
The big change is the job market since 2020 is the job market.
In the time period of 2021 and into 2022, people were getting like 150K jobs (which you can see in CIRR) at Amazon and Capital One by using exaggerated resumes (or have recruiters proactively reach out on LinkedIn without even expanding to see "Developed under OS Labs") to pass recruiter screens + practicing Leetcode on their own and with each other.
These people then were all over this subreddit in mid to late 2022 created an impression that Codesmith was a magical place with a magical formula and getting in will be the ticket to a $150K job. No one was explaining HOW it happened, just "Codesmith is the best", "Codesmith changes your life", and a bunch of people jumped on board desperately trying to get into Codesmith and pulling every trick in the book to get past the interviews - rather than realizing that was the other way around Codesmith: was letting people in who are already good enough and that's why they succeeded. I've been here consistently looking at bootcamps more neutrally and discussing the how and taken a ton of personal insults and attacks from both Codesmith alumni and staff members for talking about this stuff.
Then almost literally over night (over the span of \~1 month), market halted.
Now people who have those 6 months of OSP experience on their resumes are NOT passing recruiter screens anymore, and interviewers aren't just hiring you for passing a generic Leetcode problem - they are scrutinizing more and digging deeper into people's experience and problem solving abilities - which can't be crammed and can't be exaggerated.
The alumni community is fantastic because the students are fantastic, and they are fantastic because the bar is super high and they are very selective.
u/Prior_Baseball_1926 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Throwaway, but I am a Codesmith alum. I did not work at Codesmith, so I can't speak to all the inside turmoil, though I 100% trust what you wrote about the work environment. I wanted to address a few points you made, but before I get to the smaller stuff, I want to emphasize for
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
For the record, I strongly believe I present a balanced view of Codemsith in my comments, which is much more balanced than this comment above, and I get torn apart and attacked by people calling me a liar, a sketchy person, a "dark disturbed individual". For every comment saying Codesmith tells you not to lie I get one DM telling me almost word for word this ^^^ comment above.
I don't think it's as deceptive and fraudulent as this commenter claims and I try to present both sides of the "fake work experience" dilemma in my commenting, but I really wish people would get off my back when I try to present things in the middle of the road because most of the time, that's where things are!
u/thenamesej wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Glad I saw this post. Was looking into the program but might do coding temple instead
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I don't know Coding Temple but I would make your own decision of if Codesmith is right for you and not over index on one negative post.
Codesmith leadership hates me and thinks I'm trying to take them down for some reason, but I'm a very middle of the road person and I see a lot of people over indexing on one or two anecdotes on Reddit so I want to caution people against doing that.
The post highlights numerous weaknesses of Codesmith - it's not perfect, it has many caveats and nuances. But for the right people it's the best program out there and if you've done your homework, talked to alumni, understand the day to day of how it works and what you do, then I would choose it!
u/Independent-Hawk-164 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
As a former employee from the same period (less than a year) I want to come forward and provide an alternative perspective as this person posting has clear incentives to misalign truth to fit their narrative.
• During my time at codesmith, I witnessed no mass firings or dramati
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Codesmith had layoffs last week causing some people to get nervous. Current employees backed up a number of claims in what was said in OPs post. I unfortunately can't talk about this stuff for a while to protect sources, but I really do hope they figure it out.