Hi, I think this overview is pretty fair from my understanding, and I can summarize what I can corroborate from multiple sources. I have a lot to say good and bad about Codesmith - overall a balanced view, but these specifically are things corroborated by others and the **ALL CAPS BOLD** are my **PERSONAL OPINIONS.**
1. The free lectures and courses ARE the marketing funnel so they are intentionally trying to move people through to the immersive. So they represent a more high touch experience than the actual imersive.
2. I know someone from Oxford who talks about "hard learning" and it's reputation for just meaning "teach yourself" and I think Will is bringing this approach to Codesmith intentionally. That said, it might work for some people - Oxford is a great school and I think their admission process is essentially weeding out people who won't do well in that environment. As a result of the 20 to 30% drop in people signing up, and keeping admissions opened until a few weeks before a cohort starts has resulting in more people being admitted without being as well vetted - even if their closures/recursion is at the bar.
3. Will's tone has changed recently on the midlevel senior - shockingly so - he now says Codesmith grads get "real SWE jobs" and the "title is irrelevant" so I'm hoping to see that tone change. **IT IS NOT IMPOSTER SYNDROME PREVENTING YOU FROM GETTING A SENIOR ROLE - IT'S A GENUINE EXPERIENCE GAP.**
4. Eric K sold his company to Disney and then became a semi-retired Hollywood screenwriter. In my personal, biased, opinion, he doesn't have tech industry experience to lead thousands of people into top tier tech roles. I've heard his job search and negotiation advice and it's very solid - it's similar to what industry career coaches would give, not better, not worse. I know a lot of grads worship him because they got a $140K mid level job and think they couldn't have done it without him, but they are missing the point... **A TRUE CAREER COACH WITH EXPERIENCE IN THE TECH INDUSTRY WILL HELP YOU FIND THE RIGHT ROLE AND NEGOTIATE THE BEST SALARY FOR THAT ROLE, NOT PUSH YOU TO GET THE HIGHEST PAYING MOST SENIOR TITLE.**
5. I don't think CIRR numbers are fake or unreliable, there are just a lot of games being played. "fellows" get their grad dates delayed by 3 or more months to buy time and boost placement rates. [Para.dev](https://Para.dev) "hires" alumni back and pays them like $1X0K+ run rates on 5 week/or short term contracts so those could count as placements in theory.
6. All of the Codesmith alumni I know (well the vast majority, there are a handful that use super unprofessional language towards me) are really great people and I think that's what keeps the reputation going. They are just really hard working, ambitious, awesome people and awesome people + awesome people has a snowball effect.
u/Exotic_Captain4575 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
With the free lectures, it really sucks that you think this will be your experience during the program. The lectures I attended were okay at best. It is mostly just slides and not actually teaching me HOW to do anything.
I did not hear Will's tone change much. Everything I have
u/michaelnovatireplied·
RE: Will's tone, I'm talking the last week or two lol, and it was externally
u/Electronic_Table2708 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
No I didn’t go there. I think it’s fair to be critical about things. But when I was reading this post I thought it was the same person from a few days ago posting another thread without seeing the author
That person who posted that previous thread also posted it in a bunch of ot
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
If the company had layoffs there is likely to be a lot of disgruntled people (not just people laid off) and a lot of internal churn as things get reshuffled or changed. I heard last week that recently the number of instructors/support staff was cut down by 1 per cohort, and things like that have a cost to student experience as well. If they are ending or pausing the CTRI quietly without telling anyone that will also make prospective people confused, and if there are less staff to explain and communicate things to them = more bad sentiment.
u/Exotic_Captain4575 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The only issue with start ups is that they might not survive, so I would save money in case the company goes under.
Of course everything is going to be "hard" when learning something new, but they really leave you on your own. The fellows pop into the help desks and they have no
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah this is the downside with all the fellows, instructors, mentors, lead instructors, lead engineers, even the head of instruction, all going to Codesmith themselves... you lose the ability to get help for things outside of the box. I do think this structure helps them have an INCREDIBLY CONSISTENT experience though that I haven't seen anywhere else.
u/Exotic_Captain4575 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Michael you seem very knowledgable about all of this. My cohortmates talked about you! You are very fair despite what some of had about you. Do you think in 2023 just JavaScript is going to cut it? I have wondered why CodeSmith only teaches JavaScript, other than it is the easies
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah JavaScript is fine! I'm super bias here because I'm very experienced with more traditional big tech, but companies all have their own stacks and frameworks such that any specific language doesn't help that much. For example, Meta does "whiteboard"-style interviews because they don't care about perfect syntax or compilable code.
If you are trying to get a job at a smaller company, they might want you to have already learned a particular stack so you show up ready to go, because they won't train you as much.
For the later case, I think being broad is still better and JavaScript is SUPER broad (frontend, backend, scripting, etc...) and people tend to get sidetracked with what the "hot language" is, which ends up slowing you down playing whack-a-mole.
At Formation, this is super interesting but all sessions are run in either Python or JavaScript and these are small group interactive sessions where everyone participates. But people are mixed up despite their preferences and this is rarely a problem because we focus on CONCEPTS and not syntax. So ultimately what's **critical** is that if you know JavaScript really well, you understand the concepts enough to apply them in a basic way to other languages. If you can't do that, you might need to work on more deeply understanding the underlying concepts.
u/CodedCoder wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I wish someone would join Codesmith undercover, then go through the course, and then write an actual article about it. So we don't have to see students whoa re unhappy being constantly attack by happy students, and we can see who is telling the truth, that is a very good idea lol
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
The entire week by week schedule and materials are out there if you pay attention (btw we had a Fellow retreat last week with 8 Fellows and hopefully people can attest I spend very little time on Reddit and rarely talk about Codesmith IRL haha)
Ultimately you can't cram an "elite graduate degree" into 12 weeks so if you saw the day by day schedule and materials you would probably think it's crazy, e.g. 2 days on React, but you shouldn't be looking at it expecting it to be what you are paying for.
We have a philosophy that all the materials you need are freely available online, and since everyone learns differently, there are not just all the materials you need, but variations of them in all kinds of styles. So the value add is trying to guide you with the right things at the right time instead of trying to teach. There's less value in the raw materials itself and you aren't paying $20K for that.
u/Exotic_Captain4575 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
What are you talking about??? The free lectures have more code you walk through and the lectures in the program very little code.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
The raw slides for main lectures are like Chat-GPT-able content now, but I maybe the project retros is what is being mentioned, where you deep dive into the solutions of the practice from the day before.
u/Exotic_Captain4575 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I thought I was paying $20k for amazing instructors, teaching me HOW to do things, and units that were up to date. The React lecture was not good at all and it was SO rushed. I don't think we needed to learn Redux. They could have made React 4 days.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I don't mean to push back because I support you being brave and posting and replying to everyone and appreciate it! But I don't feel like Codesmith keeps it a secret that all the teachers are Codesmith grads, most have never worked in industry. When I've been to info sessions it seems to be something they are PROUD of rather than hide.
I do agree there can be pros and cons, but I think of all the criticisms of Codesmith this is lower on my list so to speak.
u/Exotic_Captain4575 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I did not know until recently that Phil even went through the program. He made it sound like he did coding for the government beforehand.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I think the program was way different back then but yeah it's not something he talks about but you can see tiny breadcrumbs
u/Electronic_Table2708 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Fresh account made 4 hrs ago. same tone, and angle as another post few days ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/16nah9z/im_just_being_real/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
All these “just being honest about codesmit
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
Good to be critical but these are 99% not the same people. The other poster u/HorrorEquivalent3261 blocked me because they didn't want employees of any programs commenting on their posts about Codesmith. this OP has happily engaged with me on this thread.
u/noorofmyeye24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
May I ask, why did you think that they were going to help you get skills for a mid to senior level job? Is this something they advertise?
I’m genuinely asking because to me that doesn’t make sense. I assume that coding boot camps prepare people to get entry-level jobs.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
They 1000% advertise it aggressively. I've heard it from their CEO, Lead Instructor, 4 admissions people, three outcomes people.
This was posted on LinedIn just on Friday: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/codesmith-llc_codesmith-career-support-prepares-grads-for-activity-7111061618699968512-mzvP
"Codesmith career support prepares grads for mid- to senior-level software engineering roles — with resume guidance, mock interviews, salary negotiations, and beyond."
u/noorofmyeye24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
WOWWWWW!
The audacity!!! I did NOT know that!!! Is it even possible to learn the skills needed for mid to senior roles in the span of 4 months?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
No, it is not. I worked at Facebook for 8 years and now have thousands of acquaintances at pretty much every company. This has come up a few times in conversations when I've asked people their opinions and responses ranged from laughter to this is fraud.
Sure, a bunch of gatekeepers in our towers laughing doesn't sound so good amongst a lot of people here, but this is not based on skill or ability but purely based on "the scale of systems worked on in previous jobs" needed to be at a senior level mostly in the technical side. Like you have to have worked on genuinely large systems with millions of users to build a patina of experience that is what the company is hiring you to be a senior for. They aren't hiring people able to solve big problems with new solutions. They are hiring people who have actually built products for millions of people and get unspoken nuance about that, or build infra for millions of people and get the unspoken nuances of that.
Now Codesmith people who work at non top tier companies could get whatever title they want but that doesn't make them mid level or senior engineers when zooming out, as again, the definition of those levels IS experience.
Codesmith doesn't make people with years of experience because they literally have 12 weeks of education and projects. So they are are entry level engineers. People who get bigger titles are entry level engineers still.
They are taking people who get hired at "mid level or senior" titled jobs (or just get $120K at an entry level job that they call "mid level" for stats) and then saying that Codemsith prepared you for those roles in their marketing, but it's really a marketing twist on the definitions.
Codesmith getting you those titles does not mean Codesmith makes you into a mid level or senior engineer.
I work with a number of grads to undo this thinking and in my opinion it's harmful to their long term development and why I'm so adamant about this.
u/noorofmyeye24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
> this is fraud
That was my first thought when I read your comment that it’s what they advertise. How have they not been sued for false advertisement?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
1. To sue someone you have to have damages in most states. First, someone would have to show that they joined Codesmith to become a mid level engineer and that they didn't AND that a reasonable person would have also believed they would become a mid level engineer seeing the same marketing. Second, they have to show that their outcome was worse and then somehow try to figure out how much they were overcharged given their outcome. If you raised your compensation by $25K, but didn't get a senior job, how "harmed" were you? It's really hard and not many people would want to deal with this kind of thing unless they felt really truly screwed over as a last resort.
2. There aren't any legal definitions of "mid level and senior engineer" and they could argue it's their opinion and that it's backed by the high salaries earned by graduates compared to competitors. Even if it's more of a gray area and they can make a reasonable case, it's not blatantly violating some legal definition.
3. If people get a job with a senior title and $130K salary it's hard to argue that you were harmed by this.
The harm I'm observing is for people a few years down the road and not have started off on the most ideal pathway... but how many of us were handed the perfect pathway for our lives and how much "damage" can even be measured.
So ultimately if someone reasonable signs up and pays $20K and gets a job titled mid level that pays $120K, they might have gotten what they expected! They might not know the difference between a title and and a level or even a title and a salary (like Codemsith does equating salary with level of job).
The potential harm for a lawsuit here is alumni who didn't get jobs at all and needed more training to get any kind of job. But it's still an uphill battle because Codesmith could blame you for not doing what they asked and saying that's why you didn't get a job.
u/InTheDarkDancing wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
> Codesmith getting you those titles does not mean Codesmith makes you into a mid level or senior engineer.
Only it kind of does. For some reason you're context switching and implying that the only senior engineer titles that count are from FAANG. Which is a fine opinion to have
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Those people can CALL themselves senior engineers, their resume can certainly say that if they want, I would encourage people to do so when reviewing their resumes, but it doesn't make them senior engineers.
Do you not believe I've worked with a couple dozens Codesmith alumni later that have trouble with this?
The typical case is someone with a "Senior" title and 1 to 2 YOE on their resume. Depending on the company, but they will likely get a lot of interviews because of the Senior title, and then they hit the hiring manager interview and they get rejected.
I've seen some truly heart-wrenching cases - people passing the coding bar but the HM doesn't have any junior or midlevel headcount to downlevel and it's much more pronounced in this current market than it was before.
I then have to help the person apply to top tier mid level and junior engineering roles and sometimes the people push back and refuse to take a lower than "senior", ghost for a while and get into a really bad place.
Then on the other hand, I work with non-Codesmith people who undersell themselves and I help them build confidence and they go into these interviews feeling great, they appropriate mid-level jobs, and are thrilled.
But if you prefer former then go ahead and encourage what Codesmith does, I personally prefer the latter.
u/ComradeGrigori wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The level of fraud I’ve seen from job applications has gotten worse. Early this year, I got a couple of experience “Open Source” developers.
Last 2 that hit my desk no longer mentioned “Open Source” and one even changed their job title on a prior role to SWE to add 3 years of f
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Sadly this is common with Codesmith grads :( and we get people applying to Senior Engineer roles requiring 5 to 10 years of experience at top tier companies, and the entire resume is 12 weeks of Codesmith, OSP takes up 1/3 the page, 3 other projects take up 1/3, then a tech talk, then skills + education etc...
But it does work sometimes!
The CEO has said that their goal is to make people 'realize how exceptional they are and convey that in non-technical interviews because once they get to technical rounds they do really well but they just have to get the chance'
But I've seen a lot of the documents and nothing explicitly says to lie, in fact they say explicitly NOT to lie. So it's one of those things that might be a disconnect between what leadership THINKS is happening and what's ACTUALLY happening.
u/Senior_Currency_4291 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'm a little confused how this explains how Codesmith has more nuanced approaches. I don't necessarily agree with you on point #1. Though nothing may fully prepare any of us for any job until we are actually in that job, Codesmith leads its residents, myself included, to believe
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Yeah I feel so strongly about this I will not stop talking about it haha, but I appreciate people sharing all sides because definitions aren't important, helping people become happy and impactful engineers is and that's all I really care about at the end of the day.
I know a number of Codesmith grads that get roles beyond their experience and fight tooth and nail to hang on, and I know a lot more that have a wake up call during interviews OR get laid off or struggle on the job because of they started at the wrong level.
Like it's great to make a $140K out of Codesmith and post you celebratory humble brag Reddit post and load up your DMs with people asking you how to get into Codesmith, but a year later, a number of those poeple are a little lost when a layoff hits, or you are being outperformed by more junior employees and you don't know what to do to keep up and don't feel comfortable talking to anyone about it within the company because it might reveal your true background.... sorry tangent lol, but I've really seen the less appealing side of this and will continue to push back!
u/VoteLight wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Are you saying most codesmith grads who enter into higher level positions end up getting laid off a year later?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Definitely not all, some do, and I have no idea if it's more or less than CS grads or the general pop, but these are the four buckets I've identified IMO and they apply to a lot of bootcamps. I just tend to see wayyyyyy more Codesmith people who come to me in their first job and ask for advice because they are struggling to keep up and don't want the company to know they have no experience because they stretched it a bit during interviews. But 100% anecdotal and not can't any meaningful statistics from that, jusy my 2 cents from my position.
https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/173usbz/job\_market/k46xcya/?context=3
u/Yuna1989 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Any recommendations on any good bootcamps? I am currently in Uni but of course that won't be enough.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
If you are in school do internships! If you can't get a paid internship try unpaid. If you can't find anything, volunteer with a professor or lab on campus. If you can't volunteer anywhere, try to do a "startup" or project with classmates that you launch publicly and work on daily.