u/Significant_Wing_878 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Marketing budget must be drying up, I haven’t seen this big of a gorilla marketing effort by codesmith in 3 years of being on this sub
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
The marketing team was all laid off, correct. They hired a former student to write blogs and post in CSX Slack.
But this has always been their marketing strategy - they don't pay anything on display ads anywhere. The closest thing is sponsoring Course Report.
I think this kind of marketing is fantastic use of money and it's also more organic than seeing blatant ads like we do.
But it IS marketing, correct, and the person who ran it is a career long director of marketing. So if people think it's all fun and great community - it both is great community AND it's marketing, but anyone who thinks it's purely one or the other is choosing sides.
u/WagonBashers wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Sponsoring Course Report is a thing? Wasn't aware of that!
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah they pay to sponsor them and Course Report doesn't disclose sponsorship in videos and Twitter posts etc... which I've also complained about.
I dunno, I guess I'm the loser hall monitor who tattles on everyone but people are playing such fast and loose with the truth I don't really care.
u/WagonBashers wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Wow. How do you know this? Do you know if there are other bootcamps who take out sponsorship?
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I don't have explicit list of who is paying how much, but this is what I have:
1. They are on the "featured schools" list: "Schools may compensate Course Report for featured placement."
2. The mention sponsorship tiers here: [https://www.coursereport.com/connect](https://www.coursereport.com/connect)
3. I follow their Youtube and they release videos there (and on their blog) from the same list of bootcamps, that they also publish "weekly events" for on their socials. And all of them are "featured schools" on their website.
I wish they were more transparent about all this, it's not easy to tell.
I did report a review on there from an alumni who listed their name, so I found their LinkedIn and that they worked at the school they reviewed and didn't disclose that in the review. Course Report said it was totally fine and didn't remove it.
u/WagonBashers wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thanks for sharing. And people wonder why there is a degree of ill-feeling against bootcamps and the industry here...
I put [this](https://lewagonfiles.substack.com/p/how-course-report-et-al-manipulate) together previously re: how reviews get displayed/hidden, but wasn't aware
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I mean facts are facts, and upvoting and downvoting doesn't change them. People can follow me and downvote all my comments, doesn't make then false.
People in the bootcamp industry need honesty and transparency. They do not need the next level of manipulation: using transparency as a marketing tool, they need straight up open communication from the source.
This Codesmith AMA blog is no where near open communication from the source and no one is engaging in tough questions. The moderator told me not to reply to anything.
Nothing is perfect but if Codesmith doesn't confront it's imperfections it's going to fall apart, they seem to be intentionally spewing out user and student information, source code, and content all over the place and are upset AT ME for reading it and make me out to be some creepy person spying on them. They need to get their stuff together instead of putting lipstick on a pig.
This might not be a nice thing to say, but it's true, and it's embarrassing for the "leaders of the industry" to be supporting all of the great things Codesmith stuff but making false statements about me and my intention and my character for mentioning any of these problems.
u/WagonBashers wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>Students in the bootcamp industry need honesty and transparency. They do not need the next level of manipulation: using transparency as a marketing tool, they need straight up open communication from the source.
Yes, 100%.
Fwiw, I appreciate everything you do. I was lurking h
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Thanks
u/Outrageous_Photo3470 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You seem to be one of the only reliable sources on the internet for boot camp stuff.
Is there a pre and post boot camp salaries table anywhere? Honestly this should just be pinned. Is there anything else that actually matters (besides learning ofc)
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
There is no standard to publish that no. I think an increase in compensation is a really good metric though because it puts a dollar value on before and after to compare to the cost of the program.
Calculating it is hard. There isn't just one way to do it. The two options are 1. someone comes up with a reasonable way and then makes a standard that others agree on and use. 2. You calculate it however you want and then explain very clearly exactly how so people aren't misled.
I would LOVE to just share raw results per person, but you have to find a way to do it without people being able to figure out a person's identity.
u/Outrageous_Photo3470 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
How do boot camps entice people to provide pre and post data? This is the key, to get this data in full
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I mean this is another flaw of CIRR. The data for it comes from the survey that bootcamps do at the end and they really don't need that much evidence for anything included in the results. The Most complex part of the specification is the documentation requirements for outcomes and there go through a lot of different cases for if someone gets a job or doesn't get a job etc. but the key thing is that they say that things like a text message counts as documentation as long as it includes the offer date or start date of the job, the type of job - e g. full time job, and that the person accepted it.
The data is audited but No auditor needs to check that the original data was provided is correct. the auditors are checking that you followed the process. so if you have a text message, the auditors check that the text message is documented following the process, but nowhere does it say how a salary needs to be verified. so therefore no auditor needs to actually verify that any salary is correct.
u/StephenScript wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I see answers to all ranges of questions, including the more critical and specific ones from Michael. I have no record of removed comments of course, but given the standard tone of commentary in this sub I would imagine it was consistent with some of the regulars’ difficulty with
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I stay told to not comment on the AMA, but my questions weren't critical. they were just hard questions. They are looking at data intelligently and asking questions from it. I saw a Launch School AMA where all of the questions were like that and they were extremely strong supporters of the program that asked them.
I was super concerned that the Codesmith poster also expressed concern that she feels like I'm ever present in her work and I have no idea where that came from and I've never seen her before until the call yesterday that they had where I was present camera on with my full name.
Codesmith shares so much student and user information, code, content widely that if she is unaware of that I think that that's on them to figure out and not to blame on me. But now I see where this attitude comes from. If a leader feels like that, it tells me they have absolutely no clue whatsoever how messed up their operations are. They might be blindly assuming things are great because of their own narrative of how great Codesmith is. They have senior software engineers who should know how to build industry standard systems and I think that it's reasonable for them to answer for that.
For starters, one of the more minor problems, it's reasonable for them to answer why their CEO uses his personal email address for sensitive work communications and information access. This might seem small but it's indicative of the attitude they have to information and systems.
People need to hold them to their own bar and I think it's very reasonable that people are frustrated when members in the community ignore this stuff and only allow positivity.
Codesmith does a number of things exceptionally well but you should have competently set up processes and computer systems. It's table stakes for a company that's claiming to be the best in the industry and producing engineering leaders. No one is perfect and people make mistakes but this is not that, it's systemic and it's possible no one there even knows what I'm talking about. I highly suggest they figure this out before defending.
There is no counter argument to this, people can try to turn the tables on me. people can start questioning me and who I am, but it does not change the fact that these problems exist and all the alumni doing that need to hold Codesmith to a higher bar before doing that.
u/annie-ama wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi all - just wanted to chime in here since I’m the OP for this discussion and am getting notifications of new comments. A few things I want to clear up:
The AMA is something I’ve done on my own volition as Codesmith’s Director of Outcomes, to provide an open space to talk abou
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I appreciate the clarification about your personal feelings.
1. I don't think this is fair that you say above:
>The AMA is something I’ve done on my own volition as Codesmith’s Director of Outcomes, to provide an open space to talk about our CIRR reports, reporting standards, and graduate outcomes
Yet this was advertised by your CEO and in you CSX Slack in a giant image as an ["Official Reddit AMA" ](https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T7X3836NN-F06SK9BNY9W/ama.png)
I genuinely feel bad about the personal feelings, but unfortunately you are also the Director of Outcomes who was doing an Official Reddit AMA.
2. Similar to another commenter, I was also offended by this, in my personal opinion:
> Please all - go have a great weekend! Get outside, read a good book, spend time with family and friends.
I stayed up until 1am doing a super important infrastructure upgrade at Formation. Then I woke up at 7am and went skiing in Whistler until 3pm and I was with 10 friends. I skiied on a glacier for the first time and it was amazing.
While I was there, I responded to 5 Fellow questions and 4 private work threads.
Tonight I'm having a dinner with the friends, and then I'm going to work on a new Chat GPT integration that everyone is super excited about.
I can do whatever I want on the weekend, and if I feel guilty for going skiiing for 6 hours when I really wanted to do work, I can feel that way.
This is how I define work life balance for me and I'm happy with that.
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Huh? Why do you specifically need to understand a situation completely unrelated to you?
They clearly wrote they feel uncomfortable that someone’s viewing “internal content” that’s being viewed by someone externally and then referenced online. Seems reasonably weird and an inva
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I don't see anything that I don't think I shouldn't see, other than perhaps confidential things people share with me that I never repeat publicly but certainly drives my opinions about how Codesmith is run. Anything I talk about publicly is stuff Codemsith is choosing to share. Since they always talk about producing the leaders of tomorrow and senior engineers with strong capabilities I treat this stuff like it's intentional. If it's not intentional and they communicate this to me then I would help and report all this stuff, but it would require admitting that their technical and operations team is super is not remotely up to even the industry standard, never mind the best in industry.
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
“Confidential things people share with me”
You’re a moderator of a forum and an owner of a completely separate company.
Isn’t it completely inappropriate that when offered sensitive internal data or content from employees of a completely different company — who didn’t give
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I talk to people as friends and give contract advice, helping people with HR violations, people complaining about their work environment, it's confidential because the people asks me not to talk about it. This isn't "content" and people have a right to complain about their work environment.
I actually have no idea what she's talking about and don't want to assume, but if you are interpreting it as content I shouldn't have access to the Codesmith needs to sound the alarms and call in their engineering team no matter what the time and address this stuff. At any company that would be an SEV 0 emergency.
I understand this is a tough situation and I wouldn't be so tough if someone reached out to me privately, told me this, and we have a human conversation about it.
I feel really bad personally if she feels this way and if she reached out to me personally I would listen and try to help with the situation. That's not what happened.
u/Primary_Initial_3274 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi Michael, I would appreciate it if you didn't copy and paste Andrea, the other mods messages from Slack. She didn't give you permission to post those on here and similarly would like you to know to please not do that in the future.
We are the ones that asked Annie to come do
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
I was talking about this post, by "Annie - Codesmith" with the image attached that said "Official Reddit AMA"
Screenshot: [https://ibb.co/2PJTKnb](https://ibb.co/2PJTKnb)
I have no idea what you are talking about copying and pasting something from Andrea.
u/starraven wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
😅 If you’re employed by Codesmith and you’re mentioning them and your job title in social media that’s automatically and universally taken as you taking on the face of the company at that point. Personal opinions included.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I agree with this. I'm someone who has to navigate this challenge and I can't just have it all ways that work for me and dismiss the consequences of having a public identity because I don't want to acknowledge them.
I have my real name. Some people appreciate that, but others are skeptical.
I state clearly when something I say is an opinion, but if I say it when also talking about my company I have to think about the consequences. Is this something my company would agree with, and if it's not, I might have to extra emphasize where the opinion is coming from, rather than just throw it out there.
Working at Facebook from 2009 - 2017 through some really challenge times (some for Facebook and others for humanity) I really saw why it's CRITICAL to have integrity in pubic discourse.
It's hard. Someone insults me and I'm defensive and emotional in my head. But if I bring that online and it becomes passive aggressive or I exaggerate something to make a point, then I'm hurting society as a whole, and we end up with the whole fake news problem of 2016.
We all make mistakes, and I don't hold anything against anyone. I've been able to have good conversations with people who might have had two-way-emotional conversations with on Reddit in the past and that's fine.
We can't have transparency without being vulnerable and showing our humanity - which means we BOTH have to have a higher bar AND be more forgiving of others. I wish I could do that all the time and I will keep aiming for that goal.
u/Primary_Initial_3274 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
[This message you copied without permission](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bnqrn8/comment/kwutjtf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) from the codesmith slack that Andrea intended just for that domain. She
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
1. This is a completely different thread about CIRR and you didn't give any context, didn't give any feedback privately or on that other thread, and are bringing it up here on a thread about Codesmith - all without any context. **I absolutely copied that comment from that person from CSX Slack in that thread,** and I don't apologize for it at all. Anonymizing a comment from a 20,000 public Slack community that anyone is invited to join is not morally or ethically wrong.
2. She said she was new to the community and then that "we" (without clarifying) started the Codesmith sub for "especially those who are new to Codesmith like me!"... to me that implied that all the people who started it were new to the community. I agree this could be ambiguous, and I think I should have stated something like 'I am interpreting this to mean that it was started from people only new to the community for people new to the community.
Primary - if you aren't new to the community, I personally want know your intentions and motivations, if it's not that, because now I'm not sure why that sub was started anymore.
3. "Content and Community" at Codesmith is the "marketing" function. They hired a 3rd party "marketing company" to supplement the team after the layoffs. The 'marketing' person I am referring to I said was a career marketing director who calls herself a "Marketing Executive" as her LinkedIn tagline and her title at Codesmith was "Director of Content & Community" and her previous titles were: "Director of Marketing Services", "Director of Operations", "Marketing Manager, Home Services", "Sr. Associate Marketing Manager", "Sr Associate Business Manager". If Annie told you they never had a marketing director then two rational possibilities: either genuinely just doesn't know how the content functions works and what that person did - when there are only about 4 directors at Codesmith, or she might be playing games with you just because the person's on paper title didn't match.
4. I agree, you didn't explicitly say "don't comment on this post", I'm not going to share our DMs but I think that that was a reasonable interpretation of the conversation and what I thought we agreed on as a compromise. Doesn't seem like we're on the same wavelength so I'll be more direct in future conversations.
5. The entire marketing team was laid off (source: this is from a combination of checking their website frequently to see who is employed as a content employee and talking to individuals who were laid off at Codesmith who approached me seeking advice after being laid, losing trust with Codesmith leaders, and feeling like they could trust me because they felt like my analysis of Codesmith was accurate). Chris was hired to support the community, such as posting the weekly list of events in CSX Slack, and recently to write blog posts as the remaining members of that team departed.
6. "revealing student data you don't' have consent to view" - what data is this and what consent don't I have. This is slanderous if you don't have factual evidence of this in your possession.
u/starraven wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I don’t think there are even 17 people browsing at one time where are all these downvotes coming from 😂
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
I also turned on Crowd Control so comments with negative scores are auto collapsed, so people would have had to expand your comment to even find mine too...
Adds evidence people are following my specific comments and mass downvoting them and I'll be sharing that with Reddit.