Hi James! I have some tough questions about the logistics. Codesmith markets itself as the best so I have some tough questions I expect answers to from the best :D.
1. How do systematically measure the impact of curriculum updates on placements and outcomes?
2. Related to 1, how do decide what updates to make based on the job market? For example, I have talked to a bunch of the top AI companies and if you aren't being hired for an ML role with a PhD and 10 years of ML experience, they don't actually want or need any AI experienced whatsoever to hire you for product and infra roles. So I'm curious where the decision to add AI/ML comes from if it's not related to getting people jobs.
3. How do you systematically identify and prioritize "best practices across the software engineering landscape"? I'm aware of a survey that's given to alumni and a curriculum panel of 6 or so alumni in industry, but how do you know that that reflects the industry as a whole?
4. AI/ML updates were promised to launch in May and a bunch of alumni I talk to are waiting for them, are they still on track for that and if not when will they launch and in what form?
u/michaelnovati wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi James! I have some tough questions about the logistics. Codesmith markets itself as the best so I have some tough questions I expect answers to from the best :D.
1. How do systematically measure the impact of curriculum updates on placements and outcomes?
2. Related to 1, h
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
I reloaded this a couple time and the voting went from +3 to -1 to 1... these are critically important questions for a bootcamp and downvoting for whatever reason doesn't change that fact even if you hate my guts.
u/Codesmith-James wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thanks for these Qs! I’ll get to them all, but for now:
4. AI/ML content is launching on schedule! The first workshop for alumni is tomorrow 🎉
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Nice! I'll spread the word, I tend to talk to a less engaged crowd and they might not know where to look
u/Vegetable-Effort-741 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hey there. I’m an alum as well and I agree with you—this career path has changed my entire life for the better and I wish that for everyone but the market is way too volatile to encourage those without a degree (or years of relevant experience, or those without an existing networ
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
+1 to the market being so different now that no matter what worked for alumni when they got a job, it's not the same today. I'm not saying that you need a degree or don't need one, but not acknowledge the changes in the market is detrimental and we're seeing bootcamps drop like flies as a result.
u/Codesmith-James wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
2. Love this question! LLMs are changing so fast - it’s a great illustration of what defines Codesmith’s pedagogy. We focus on teaching concepts + capacities, not technologies. This means that instead of a “cookbook” or set of “hacks” specific to one version of one LLM, we teach
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I'm familiar with all three of those grads actually yeah, but I'm curious what data is backing this narrative. From hearing Will it seems to hypothesis on the idea that "capacities" are all that matters, but no one is giving me hard experimental evidence this hypothesis stands up - it's all anecdotal and quotes from individual alumni. And all you need is single counter examples to disprove a hypothesis so this is not a valid argument and I want to know more!!!
Like I know these people and I wouldn't say these are reproducible paths that any Codesmith student could choose to follow.
For example, if you had a bunch of alumni at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity and generalized from them and resulted in each person with a unique path, that would make more sense to me.
But if everyone is a unique case not in these large scale consistent AI roles as hiring managers and building orgs of thousands of people, I don't see where the confidence comes from to tell prospective candidates you are sure this curriculum will help them.
I'm not being critical here of anything, I'm just diving deep into the details of where this confidence is coming from that the Codesmith approach is coming from.
u/Codesmith-James wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Absolutely! Codesmith is an ideal program for folks with prior experience. We see this in many of our alums who have come with a background in tech and the immersive program helped them break into a new space in their career.
Codesmith is an accelerator to leadership (largely be
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Prior experience as a SWE or prior experience in tech? Those are two completely different things. Prior experience as a legit SWE, do not do Codesmith. Prior experience as SWE-adjacent or other tech role, consider Codesmith.
Since you are answering this "Official AMA" representing Codesmith, be careful misrepresenting the company.
The vast majority of alumni according to your own data had no prior SWE experience and it's not even super correlated to Codesmith outcomes (it is a bit, but not really).
If you haven't seen your own data ask for it before trusting other Codesmith staff.
The one off single anecdote about a PayPal manage graduated Codesmith SIX YEARS AGO and took THREE YEARS to become a manager.
u/michaelnovati wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi James! I have some tough questions about the logistics. Codesmith markets itself as the best so I have some tough questions I expect answers to from the best :D.
1. How do systematically measure the impact of curriculum updates on placements and outcomes?
2. Related to 1, h
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Question #1 wasn't responded to and I think Question 1 is most important because it's critical for how prospective students understanding your process for creating curriculum that delivers outcomes.
I say this all the time, but it's critical to understand HOW a program works and not explaining this is a lack of transparency IMO - even if the answer is we don't tie curriculum to outcomes.
Tis should be my number one concern as a curriculum manager - if you can't measurably demonstrate your curriculum is improving outcomes then why does Codesmith exist (rhetorical question).
Again, I'm being tough because if you call yourself the best, you have to hold yourself to that bar.
u/Skulldoggery wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'm happy to hear that. While I can easily see the value of Codesmith for someone who hasn't programmed before, it's been a bit harder to nail down what the journey would look like for someone who has. This is some great information and (at least for me) a lot to think about. Tha
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
According to Codesmith data, only under 1/4 of students had CS degrees before Codesmith, and a good number of those were people who graduated a long time ago and never did SWE, or recently graduated and couldn't get a job.
So while I'm not saying to go there or not to go there with experience, but I will point out that the vast majority of people there, do not have SWE experience and the ones that do are there for more specific reasons than mentioned above.