+100 go to a bootcamp for the curriculum and skills you'll learn and not for a job... that's what you are paying for and you aren't paying for a job. A lot of people who are negative in this market about their programs are people who thought they were paying for a job and not the training. What the training is worth is up to you to decide and join a bootcamp if you think it's worth it!
u/EinsteinsLabradoodle wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Kind of reads to me like a positive for Codesmith and a negative for Tech Elevator. I believe a good program is allowed to be very picky, to the point of even just selecting folks who would make it anyway, if that’s what it takes to raise the value of their stamp / signify that t
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Having talked to a very wide spectrum of Codesmith grads, from those who loved it and wanted more, to those who hated it and wanted more, to those who hated it and never want to talk about bootcamps every again, to those that loved it so much that they won't even look anything without a Codesmith lens and are limited themselves and closed off to growing their careers at the rate their could if they were more open minded, to those that were meh about it and got fired from their first job after 9 months and are a little lost, to those say they couldn't have gotten their first job without Codesmith but it prepared them zero for the actual day to day.
The world is complicated. One thing for sure is that if you are accepted into Codesmith, you are likely to be successful at a number of similar top programs, because their bar is high, they have strong consistency in that bar, and they have a lot a integrity in their bar. They select for people who are Codesmithy and the definition of that person is a specific subset of someone who has strong potential to be a successful engineer.
What this is missing though is that it's one very specific type of person and a specific way of getting that person a job. If you are that person, GO THERE! If you aren't that person, it doesn't mean you can't do just as well or better, but you need to have a different path.
u/InTheDarkDancing wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Exactly. Codesmith is doing a lot of the pre-selection work for you. If you're wondering if you're the type of person who will have a good chance of finding a software engineering job after a bootcamp, the best litmus test available is getting admitted into Codesmith. If you can'
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Said by a true Codesmith grad with a $130K job that says they couldn't have gotten it without Codesmith.
The Ivy Leagues have dampened diversity efforts for 100+ years with that attitude and the industry will be a hell of a lot more productive if everyone with ambition and drive had a way to fulfill their potential.
u/MathmoKiwi wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
If you're going to a Bootcamp "for the curriculum and skills" then you're waaaaay overpaying
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
I think that's why bootcamps have the reputation they do :D
u/InTheDarkDancing wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Post the 100Devs completion and employment percentages.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I could say "Stanford computer science is totally the way to go!!" no one can post Stanford's completion and employment percentages.
u/JohnWangDoe wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
But Formation has me locked in at $25,000 ISA
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
We don't have any ISAs that cost exactly $25,000 so I'm happy to explain your ISA better if you ping me internally! There is a cap to make sure your ISA has an upper bound that is meant to be a positive feature for you and that is not the amount you owe necessarily. The amount you pay back depends on your salary so for this specific "full option", $25K is the cost if you get a BASE SALARY of $167K or higher.
In the past few months we have clarified our payment options to help explain this so hopefully this will only be clearer in the future that the ISA option (which is just one of many) is an alternative to paying the upfront cost but with a higher cost for the luxury of deferring payment.
The price of Formation varies by experience and needs, as it is a mentorship platform as opposed to a form of education, so that was an example for making a simplified point, but for anyone reading, you need to apply and talk to a team member to get the cost for you specifically.
u/JohnWangDoe wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>Income Share 15.00%
Payment Term 12 Months
Maximum Payment Amount $25,000.00
Minimum Monthly Earned Income $65,000.00
That is, 15.00% of your income (pre-tax) for 12 monthly periods when you make over $65,000.00 .
Your Obligations:
Keep your primary ban
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Like I said you should contact me privately internally because I can't discuss your ISA publicly and have to verify who I'm talking to.
You selectively copied a portion of the contract page and you should look for a "Financed Amount" below that, and you had the option to pay that amount upfront as well.
If you were unaware that you could pay upfront, ping me, or someone on the team, with details explaining the situation to discuss more!
$7500 is just one price point typically for senior engineers with about 4+ YOE and the price point would have been higher for you.
u/JohnWangDoe wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Am I fucked. I signed up at least 2 years ago on the ISA ( I think the up front cost was 13k back then. I could be wrong), hopping to get a job in less than a year.
I am trying hard to get any job right now and hopefully a base of 165k. After 2,000 job applications, I have al
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
Again, have to know who you are and exactly what you've done, if you've had pauses, where you are benchmarking right now, what interviews you've had and why you haven't passed them, or why you aren't getting any interviews, what kind of support you've asked for and look at the entire history of what we've tried to work with you on already.
I know the market is really tough right now, and 2 years is not the norm, but advertising that you have been getting training for 2 whole years, have not put a penny down and we keep supporting you, is kind of showing the value of the program because I don't know any program that does that. Like looking at the handful of people we have had for 1+ years, most have 1000+ hours of sessions and tasks they've done and even $13K to $25K is less than programs for that many hours. And the fact we keep on going and still haven't billed you is a testament to that support we promise.
So I highly encourage you to talk to your FM team internally, or ping me. I'm happy to help review your resume and background and give some thoughts. I'm far easier to approach internally than on Reddit and I can't help you much here! If you don't do that you won't get the support you need!
u/Knikkey wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
> There is a cap to make sure your ISA has an upper bound that is meant to be a positive feature for you and that is not the amount you owe necessarily
Not the person you were originally replying to, but I'm wondering if you could clear up some confusion I have about the ISA,
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hi! Yeah send me a DM so I can explain a little more how the new ISLs work. They are very different from these old ones as the payment term is longer and the individual payments are typically smaller and what the typical person will pay back is expected to be closer to the cap.
You have to start making payments after a year, but only if you are making the minimum salary at the time, so if you are unemployed your payments won't start. This is less friendly than the old ISA but it helps solve the problem that numerous programs have discussed where anecdotally, people don't feel motivated to look for a job as aggressively as those who paid upfront.
I say this all the time but it's very important because of the down market that no program, including Formation, hands you a job and you are not paying for a job. You are paying so that you present your best self and become a better engineer and be supported the entire job hunt by a range of industry veterans. Ironically people with this attitude get placed faster because on every rejection they grow and improve. So it's a pretty rare case you would hit the 12 months rule anyways, especially when you know you have it. Almost all of the people at Formation who have been here a year have taken numerous pauses or breaks or vacations, or ramped up or down their intensity numerous times... and that's totally fine with us but if you really want to hustle to get a job within a year you have a higher chance of doing so.
u/coldwhitedays wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thanks for this comment. I'm a bit confused with this all though, so can you help me understand: is Codesmith good or bad after all? I'm about to take the technical and reading this post and subreddit in general is giving me pause. It's such an expensive commitment...from your ex
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
That's a subjective question and I try to just answer with evidence backed facts so that people can make up their own minds of if it's good or bad FOR THEM.
Do not go there if you need a job ASAP after graduating. No program in fact will do that and the closest thing is a bootcamp like Revature - which comes with numerous catches and down print that many find concerning.
If you can get a job in your old industry that works though for Codesmith, or getting a less intense job now and doing part time. You could definitely get your old job back and job hunt for a SWE job simultaneously after Codesmith.
I've written more details about the market as a whole, but it's terrible for bootcamp grads right now and it's opened back up for experienced engineers... we have had offers at Formation in the past month or two at Google, Adobe, Capital One, Apple, and people currently at on-sites at Meta, Amazon, Bloomberg and more. But all experienced engineers and not entry level.
DO NOT fall for the Codesmith marketing that grads get mid level and senior roles so they count as experienced engineers in this market. Codesmith is indeed placing people but it's taking longer than it did in the past and the companies are not as strong, and what they call "mid level" roles are not what top tier companies call them.
Lastly, the people who get jobs fastest have tangential experience in another field or they get tangential engineering jobs, or contractor roles, or have SWE experience already, but they don't necessarily keep them. I see a bit more turnover in Codesmith grads who don't make it a year (both voluntarily and involuntarily). So getting a job really quickly might not be the right move and having time is better.
u/coldwhitedays wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thank you for that. I was already Sr. in my old area of expertise, and was in FAANG (M2 there, probably Director level at any other company - at least according to my Linkedin interest). My previous field is not at all a tangential area with SWE, so its a BIG change. I guess my w
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
You should DM me or LinkedIn message me, especially because M2 sounds like it might be Facebook and I worked there 8 years as well.
I can look at your exact experience and try to get ideas, like one of your best options could be to to make a series of hops within a big FAANG company into engineering work.
I would 100% start with self studying with resources like Odin Project before jumping into a bootcamp.
I don't have a lot of data points but if you are already super experienced and comfortable in a field there's a lot more to this decision mentally and I think patience is better to give yourself room.
If you have downtime in this next job hunt, I might consider doing an intense program, while job hunting for your old job, getting your old job type, and then trying to find ways to add in programming at that job on the side in the goal of making a long term internal transition.
Formation is not at all good for starting at zero programming level right now. The technology we built absolutely could work for it, but we're focused on a specific area we work best for right now and feel like we can deliver strong value in already and will get there down the road.