I'm happy to respond to this point by point, but **if this is real, the timestamp is accurate, and it's one of the leaders (i.e. Eric K or Will)** then I'm going to reconsider recommending anyone go to Codesmith instead of just pausing that recommendation like I did when the new changes came out. Why? 1) they are directly admitting to being involved with this subreddit, and 2) they are continuing to be defensive and vaguely dismissive instead of providing specific examples, and it doesn't sound like anything has changed.
MY PERSONAL RESPONSES:
1. **Most importantly this post is clearly admitting to being extremely involved on this subreddit after being fairly dismissive of that in the past.**
- I became a moderator like three days ago-ish, it wasn't announced anywhere, and the Codesmith person is already aware, so they are clearly paying attention to Reddit closely
- "We've had grads do AMAs" - which is fine, but those people said that Codesmith didn't ask them to do them or was involved or aware or encouraging of them, but it sounds like Codesmith was directly involved, or maybe this was just phrased poorly, but it sounds like Codesmith was very supportive of positive alumni doing AMA regardless?
- If this person is that involved in Reddit, then I think it's reasonable other people are suspicious about Codesmith's involvement in the sub, since not a single Reddit account has claimed to be a representative of Codesmith officially
**2. What are the lies? A lie is something someone knows is false and states it as true.** Maybe other people are lying but I'm certainly not. I make a lot of opinion statements and if I state something more objectively, I try to give sources of where it came from, even with links to that source. I repeatedly, on every controversial post, ask people to openly discuss with me anything they believe is not correct and show a responsiveness and willingness to backup my words with action. I don't know what the lies are. If this is about the senior advisor who keeps saying "I sold my last company to Disney" then I talked to Disney PR and two of the final employees at that company who explained a heck of a lot of details and I presenting my personal interpretation with the details of where my opinion is coming from, isn't a lie.
3. **What posts and comments have I been deleting and how do you know I did it versus any of the other moderators since the person who takes action is not visible to the public?** I haven't removed any comments from any posts this week about Codesmith that I can recall, unless maybe it was something unrelated and a racist comment. I have demonstrated myself being able to actually moderate discussion following the definition of the word MODERATE, and I have been effectively moderating so far by keeping the convos from derailing too much. Finally, we have three moderators and we might disagree on things and that's why we have a few people involved.
4. **Codesmith said it will be fine for the long term at the end of last year too. Tell that to the super loyal instructors that were just laid off when they thought everything was fine too.** I too hope the changes help and make things better, but people are legitimately nervous and this Codesmith statement is dismissing that by saying everything is fine again doesn't make people any less nervous.
u/buttholewax wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
They (Eric K) are referring to Michael Novati. Michael has actually been pretty positive about CodeSmith. Phil had very positive things to say about Michael when I spoke to him.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
When people talk to me 1-1 I often recommend Codesmith to people based on their personal situations, I'm no longer going to be doing that. Maybe Phil actually heard from students who said I was the reason they went to Codesmith and has more appreciation of what I do.
Eric K though seems to have no idea, and if my stopping to recommend them has a further impact on enrollment then maybe he'll change his mind and if it doesn't have an impact, then my conversations don't really mean anything significant.
u/WagonBashers wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Lol. Just lol. New depths of lol.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I mean when it comes to harassment or serious negative impact, everyone should be heard and it doesn't really matter what you said in the past. I'm just a human and I don't have all the answers and I can see hard cases come up. Some things are meant for more calibrated Reddit employees to deal with, but my stance is open and fair lines of communication.
u/GoodnightLondon wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Nah, they're definitely referring to him. I didnt even know he'd become a moderator, and still knew they were talking about Michael and thought they were just confused in thinking he was a mod.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I was made a moderator a few days ago because I have a strong presence here to help keep the piece. I don't know if I will forever be a moderator but I hope I can help.
u/joeyfosho wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Do they address the fact that they intentionally deceive employers and use an affiliated company to sign off on fake work experience lengths that are longer than their graduates have even been programming for?
Because THAT is the tea they should address. Their graduates make mo
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
The raw evidence I've seen shows Codesmith on paper discourages people from lying about their experience - almost awkwardly directly - like it's said early on in the resume process and said firmly, so I think it's important to call that out to lay the pieces out there.
It's also a fact that they sign off on background checks for the time that you claim you were involved with your OSP. By default they sign off on your time in Codesmith but they sign off on it under OSLabs and under your main project, and not under Codesmith's name. And if you update a README 6 months latter and tell them you've been active over 9 months, the would sign off on that.
I've talked to two students who refused to exaggerate at all and were struggling on the job hunt and I honestly don't have much advice for them. But when you see how demoralized these people were, you start to piece together how another demoralized grad seeing their friend get a job by turning that previous "Customer Support" role into a "Support Engineer" role worked, they feel less bad doing it. They might describe the work the same, but just fudging the title opened up a whole new set of jobs.
I see both sides. I personally don't want to stretch the truth, but I also advise people to describe the work accurately. If someone was a "Data Engineer" but wrote code all day and worked in the same codebase as the SWEs, I might advise to say "Software Engineer - Data" for example.
I think the judgement of how to communicate a resume is very nuanced because it's a COMMUNICATION TOOL. If you can brain-transfer your experience into the recruiters head directly, we wouldn't need them. So having very experienced recruiters who actually hire for companies help you word things the best way possible but still acceptably.
I know one recruiter at Formation that reviewed a Codesmith grad's resume almost terminated their contract with us because the person refused to remove that they had 2 YOE and the recruiter didn't want to work with people like that.
u/Shurashi22 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The psychology of marketing is truly crazy. People should just self study and pay somebody (a developer with real experience in enterprise software) once a month to create a curriculum for them and check up on them. So like what, 1500 bucks a month a month and you need to discipl
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah my stance on this is:
1. That there is indeed ALL the free material in the world you can find on your own to self study. There is actually TOO MUCH, and that's why programs of all kinds (not just bootcamps, but even like a $20 udemy course) exist to kind of set a pathway through the mess.
How much is the pathway for you? That's up to you to decide.
2. Return on investment. Paying for a bootcamp is an investment and not a transaction. You should be getting that value back, ideally in the job you get afterwards, but it could also be in your time savings, or by you learning something permanently you just couldn't learn on your own.
Could you get a higher return by doing things on your own? Maybe, but if you get a return via the bootcamp than you can't complain.
If you don't feel like you got a return, and that happens to most people, that's when the bootcamp has problems.
u/Swami218 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Disclaimer: I’m obviously a Codesmith shill, so nothing I say counts.
First, I’d be very surprised if you had done anything like deleting others’ posts. Of course I don’t ’really’ know you, but my impressions is that you wouldn’t do anything like that. Like, ever.
IMO it’s read
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Yeah I think all that is fair. I just don't see how the person in that post would know I became a moderator unless they were on here very recently and noticed that I happened to be a moderator.
And yeah I mean I don't expect Eric K to ever like me, and I think if I had switched up the language a bit when I talk to Formation Fellows about a startup that closed down 10 years ago, and someone was just harping on that, it would be a bit irritating. I would probably message them and be like hey, this is what went down, and I was trying to summarize the experience maybe too casually and I'll be careful with how I talk about it in the future.
Anyways, I don't have anything personal against Eric K, maybe it's like politicians debating, who co-exist professionally but don't really see eye-to-eye.
I also don't think my personal treatment matters whatsoever and I'm not going to discourage anyone from going there. I'm just not going to be like 'based on your background as a mechanical engineer for 3 years who lacks hands on project work for your resume, Codesmith is definitely the right choice' and I'll just say to consider other options. That's all I meant.
Like this from a few hours ago won't happen: "michaelnovati 10:18 AM I don't know them that well but really Codemsith was the best for adjacent engineering experience"
I should also clarify that two new things came to light in all this shakeup that's happening that is also informing my opinion right now:
1. Someone explained to me that most of Codesmith runs on Google Sheets, Calendar, and Drive, and GitHub repos, and the main code the "senior software engineers" work on is the public website and the CSX platform, and that some instructors hardly commit code. I was somewhat shocked at this because I assumed they had a bunch of software to help make Codesmith work. Like adding a dropdown to the website isn't senior software engineer work, and I'm very concerned for the instructors laid off that they'll find their bearings :(. Maybe I'm being way too out of my bounds here, but I just have genuine concern because the ones I know are such great early career engineers who want to do good.
2. Lack of proper IP and contractor relationships with alumni "faculty". I read through a blog about a Tinder Principal Engineer who is on Codesmith's Faculty and was a little concerned with the way it portrayed Tinder as supporting Codesmith. It says the engineer is a Faculty member who wrote curriculum explicitly "while working at Tinder". That's playing with fire, because the top companies require a conflict of interest vetting and approval for an employee to work in a related field and produce IP for another company. It's more likely an issue for the PERSON than it is for CODESMITH, but if they are setting people up for problems like this, I'm concerned once again for those people that they properly check that before contributing IP to Codesmith and they have rock solid IP terms in their contracts.
u/isntover wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>but for now, the school is actually able to give each student even more time and more support, so smaller is gonna end up being good thing for the residents. And that's really all matters.
🤔
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah I mean smaller cohorts with same number of instructors would be better and that makes sense and probably what this means.
As others pointed out, I think there are a lot of ways fewer staff can be worse for alumni and grads. Like the wait time for reviews and mocks was really bad for the past few months, people asked me to review their resume. But I think they improved that a bit recently, and that they churned out not involved alumni and pushed the existing ones to open up time.
u/OllieTabooga wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Michael, I've been contacted by Formation and I replied to an email from Mackenzie with some questions mid February. They have yet to get back to me. I assume it'll be faster to ask you questions directly: I'm curious about joining Formation but since the schedule and material be
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hey, feel free to DM me if you want me to look into your specific case, it's hard to generalize what happened or if there was a miscommunication perhaps.
To give some more info:
- There is no fixed schedule or fixed materials. Every week you get a new schedule of small group sessions, practice and benchmarks to work on based on how you did the previous week, and eventually you'll get to real mock interviews to sign off that you are at the top tier performance bar. A small caveat is no two Fellows will have the same experience or materials and our job is to sign off that you are at the top tier interview performance bar as efficiently as we think we can get you there, rather than by exhaustively covering fixed materials. That's why the time it takes, the time per week, etc... are all very ambiguous and fuzzy because we don't want to mislead you into thinking there is anything fixed about the timeframe or materials.
- You can withdraw in the first 7 days before paying anything/locking in your payment, and then after that, the refund policy kicks in depending on how many weeks you were there. With the fixed-time subscription option (which is the same day to day as the Fellowship, but for a fixed amount of time and you leave wherever your skills are at) you also have 7 days to leave with no cost, but you pay for unit of time at a time and there are no refunds once you pay for a month.
u/InternetMedium4325 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Does it really matter what bootcamp you came for or what you told your interviewer? If you can get through a few rounds of interviews and convince somebody you are worth the hiring investment and then actually keep your job...you bloody deserve to be there! All bootcamps are scam
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
So I agree with the part about the person with the right skills and most capabilities should get the job and credentials shouldn't matter as a surface level criteria.
BUT the interview processes are not perfect and they are super fast to try to evaluate these things. They rely on people having the experience they say they do. It's not like just that X got the question right so they are qualified. It's X got this question right that someone with 2 years of experience is expected to get right and therefore this question validates that they have that experience. System design interviews are the best example of this. If you don't have experience, you shouldn't be passing a mid level or senior system design interview flat out, and if you lie and game the system so you are violating the interview process. Passing the interview doesn't mean you are qualified for the job.
u/Swami218 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I have noticed a lot of using Google Suite products. And low code form platforms - I think JotForm or Airtable? I don’t really have an opinion on what they should use TBH.
But regarding the Tinder alum (I’ve spoken directly with that person and they are super sharp BTW) and othe
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
The concern came from the wording in the blog post that comes across that he was creating content while working at Tinder in a way that implies there is an association with his role at Tinder and his role at Codesmith, and making statements on behalf of Tinder. Maybe it's poor wording or I'm misunderstanding.
The only reason I process these things this way is because Meta has contracts with some universities to have engineers teach full courses for a while semester and there is a heck of a lot of paperwork and regilatort stuff that comes with that.
If a Tinder engineer is representing Tinder as the faculty of a regulated school I would expect paperwork and formalities.
Maybe this is is just my lens and not reasonable, I dunno, but to me it's a fair concern.
I'll just ask people at Tinder instead of guessing though, that's a fair point.
u/StephenScript wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I’d like to point out that the only reason I knew this thread existed was because there was a 4chan-style raid going on in the Codesmith Slack general channel by a fervent supporter of Michael, making immature and personal attacks against Codesmith staff. Michael himself was also
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I saw that thread because I was mentioned in it and I immediately commented that I thought it was not appropriate. I don't know why someone posted it, but it was pretty inappropriate for the person to insult and mock people and I stated that on the thread and the person will hopefully back off a bit. I don't think anyone wants that kind of thing.
u/StephenScript wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I posted an AMA a few months back to share my experience with Codesmith and to hopefully inspire some prospective engineers to push through the grind. I got a lot of genuine engagement and questions, but I also received pretty obvious tactical commentary from Michael with attempt
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hi, I looked this up, and I don't feel like I was super involved in that post or thread, but sorry you feel that way. I do indeed participate in a lot here, which I hope encourages and stimulates productive discussion more than discouraging people from participating.
I have absolutely zero intention or standing (moderator or not) to doubt or question your personal experience as you see it. I have full intention and full right, just as a user, to question extrapolations and statements beyond personal experiences. So saying something like "I feel like I learned all the DS&A I needed at Codesmith" is not something I would question. Saying "Codesmith absolutely teaches you all the DS&A you need for any job" would be something I would absolutely question, because I have a examples that strongly counter that. This might be subtle but I think it's a huge difference that I take very seriously. If you make a statement about me personally that I don't agree with, I also have the right to (in a professional way) state why.
I'm very happy you had such a positive transition and experience and want to share that with people and you should. There are a lot of people that Codesmith works for, and until this week I recommended people go there a couple times a week 1-1, because it's the right decision for a number of people! With all the changes happen that have yet to settle and all be implemented, it's very rational to be cautious and to want to see how it all plays out. e.g. They don't have any "co-working space" contracts yet that they are planning on adding and I want to see how that plays out, even though I hope it works out well, it's not all executed yet.
I don't think being a mod is an issue. I don't work for a bootcamp, I'm not targeting people with no experience looking at bootcamps, and I've been consistently proving that day to day for a long time now, before I was made a mod, rather than just trusting me saying this here.
I genuinely don't spend that much time on Reddit, you don't know me, how I work, what I do, etc... But extrapolating what you see it your prerogative, just like I can share me, and I know me better than anyone else knows me.
For all the talk, I know enough about Codesmith and enough about their all of their students and their backgrounds and it's just not for the same people at all. Like instructors at Codesmith for a year are borderline ready for Formation, nevermind people who just graduated, and nevermind people who haven't even started it yet.
Note, we change our pricing a lot, but to clarify, the $10,000 is NOT for life. It's until you get a job. We've had a dozen or some people come back in the future for another job hunt and they have to pay AGAIN. We've had someone come back three times and pay every time. If each time, we produce way more value in your job transition than you pay us, then it can be a very rational decision for people to make.
Also the $2,500 a month option is meant for people currently in active interviews who need a month or two of boost, and not meant to be a long term thing. There's a lot of fine print that caps subscriptions, and packages for 2, 3, months, etc...
Anyways, day to day actions speak louder than rhetoric in these posts. You can rush of fake years of consistent day to day actions, and while I'm far from perfect and make mistakes, everyone does, and I hope a lot people I've demonstrated my consistency too would back me up.
u/jkim2323 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
well said! Michael from formation loves to pick apart data and results from other programs, mostly codesmith, but never shares any data from formation. makes you definitely wonder how poorly formation is doing.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah I try to explain Formation over and over and each time I have to repeat things not because I'm being annoying but because people might not have seen previous answers and not familiar.
If you are curious how we are doing now, because we have an adaptive mentorship platform model we can adjust in real time and we've therefor adjusted more senior and seen very good placements in February and March so far, this is unedited list other than < 10 person startups removing the name for privacy, and there are a couple Meta and Microsoft offers that haven't been signed yet!
||
||
|Scale AI|
|Google|
|Oracle|
|<STARTUP TOP TIER>|
|JP Morgan Chase|
|Atlassian|
|Meta|
|Meta|
|Netflix|
|JP Morgan Chase|
|<STARTUP 2ND TIER>|
|Google|
|CoreWeave|
|Arista Networks|
|Doosan|
|Withe|
Everyone at Formation has a different timeline, does different things, has different needs, and it's very hard for us to aggregate.
We need to find ways to aggregate more data and completely agree, but we don't to share random data for no reason that might present the wrong impression about what we do.
u/LoveSosa3000 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
It’s pretty clear when someone can’t reflect on their voice being the loudest voice in the room every time, and the privilege they hold with that. I have come here many times to learn from a variety of peoples’ perspectives and experiences, and have sadly found that nearly every
u/michaelnovatireplied·
+1 to this, I agree that I should try to give more room, it's something I'm thinking about more when I comment.
I do think that having well reasoned and backed up opinions makes it hard to reply with just off the cuff comments, but I also agree and I can sometimes dominate threads.