⚠️ WARNING: Codesmith subreddit is mostly propaganda (resharing Codesmith content without full context and boosting with positive comments from accounts that mostly post about Codesmith only). Challenges and negative comments are called "lies" and you get banned. BE SMART AND THINK CRITICALLY.
⚠️ WARNING: Codesmith subreddit is mostly propaganda (resharing Codesmith content without full context and boosting with positive comments from accounts that mostly post about Codesmith only). Challenges and negative comments are called "lies" and you get banned. BE SMART AND THINK CRITICALLY.
NOTE: I'm not saying the content itself isn't true or that it's bad intentioned, but I am saying that it's marketing material that missing context and it's likely the people sharing it don't even realize this. I've accumulated a lot of information over the years and while I see a **A LOT OF GOOD THINGS CODESMITH IS DOING,** the outcomes have changed dramatically in 2023-2024 and these materials are not reflecting that.
**DISCLAIMER: these are my personal opinions using publicly available information and my own insights.**
**MODERATOR NOTE: any comments talking about my own company will be deleted, it's completely irrelevant to this discussion and while you should judge my words critically like you should anyone elses, this isn't a place to personally attack me when I'm posting in good faith.**
This has been going on for a while but let's dissect this recent post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dpq7kq/codesmiths\_outcomes\_for\_april\_may\_2024\_53\_job/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dpq7kq/codesmiths_outcomes_for_april_may_2024_53_job/)
>"Codesmith's Outcomes for April - May 2024 -- 53 Job Placements! Grads INCREASED salary by $54,000 on average! $119k average base salary (Industry average is $65k!)"
>"What's crazy to me is that a Codesmith grads average salary increase ($54,000) is almost as much as the entire first year salary for SWE grads from any other program.
>Almost 70% of grads also received ADDITIONAL compensation ON TOP of their base salary ($130,000 to $140,000 in total). this shit is bananas"
And this one
[https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dp28sk/will\_sentance\_codesmith\_ceo\_and\_brandi\_richardson/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dp28sk/will_sentance_codesmith_ceo_and_brandi_richardson/)
>\[NAME REDACTED\] (Codesmith CEO) and \[NAME REDACTED\] (Sr. Software Engineer, Microsoft and Google) ---- LIVESTREAM NOW
# My Notes:
1. No timeframes were provided on how long the people were job hunting, and some of these offers were people job hunting for over a year post graduation. These won't show up in CIRR for example. Does that matter? Personally, I think it's great people were placed, but the time it's taking people is much longer than it used to. If you are going to a bootcamp like Codesmith, make sure to give yourself 1-2 years post graduation to get a job. A couple of alumni have contacted me in the past week who have been job hunting for a very long time and they don't even check in with Codesmith anymore at this point, but they will NOT GIVE UP and will get a job eventually, it's just taking so much longer.
2. It appears to me from the data I've see and my opinion on interpreting it, that more of these placements have been non-SWE roles than before. For example, "customer support engineer" at Palantir, or "technical writer", or "project manager". Again, this IS GREAT AND THESE ARE GREAT ROLES AND THEY PAY VERY WELL!, but I think Codesmith should be transparent that getting a full blown SWE role is much harder than it used to be and you shouldn't expect to only get one going to Codesmith. This is not apparent in that post and the OP seems to only care about money and salaries and not what kinds of jobs people are getting and how that will impact their lifelong career.
3. Salary increase of $54,000. That's awesome! But based on the $119K average, that means the average person was coming INTO CODESMITH with a $65K salary. They aren't saying if this includes people making $0. If it does then the average salary of someone employed would be much higher to produce these numbers. If it's not including $0, then that means the average person STARTING CODESMITH already has a base salary equal to that of the OUTCOMES OF OTHER BOOTCAMPS.
What does this mean? It means that if you are considering Codesmith against bootcamps where the outcome is $65K, and you make no money right now, you might not be the "average Codesmith grad". If you are making $65K already in a decent professional job, then Codesmith might be a no brainer over choosing another bootcamp as you might be more like an average grad.
4. The person interviewed in that call is INCREDIBLE AND AN AMAZING PERSON. But she also says she interviewed at Microsoft as a 59 and was offered as 61 role. A 61 roles is a HIGH ENTRY LEVEL GOOGLE-EQUIVALENT ROLE and is NOT A SENIOR ENGINEER ROLE. The person then transitioned to technical project management and moved to Google and is not a Software Engineer at Google. **THIS IS AN AMAZING OUTCOME AND TRAJECTORY.** But the framing is not correct that she was uplevelled into a senior role during the interview. The fact that she was upleveled during the interview to a high entry-level/low-mid-level is INCREDIBLE and I don't want that to be lost whatsoever. But the marketing spin and further promotion by only positive accounts, could make that misleading.
There's a ton more dimensions to look at here but I'm giving some **REASONABLE CRITICAL ANALYSIS** to help people unpack information.
u/Real-Pie7993 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Dude you are a hater.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I don't think I am at all whatsoever, but whether I was or not, it doesn't mean I'm wrong.
A lot of Codesmith people love me and lot hate me and I try to build bridges with those that don't like me because we can do far more working together positively than apart.
But in a world of Lambda School have a lot of problems, you all need rational and reasonable looks at bootcamps - the GOOD and the BAD and not only look at the good. People are making huge life decisions and spending a ton of money on these things.
I've said this before but I posted a report about Launch School and no one cared because it was super boring. Codesmith stuff turns into mega discussions with anonymous accounts coming out of nowhere.
u/SubstantialAd9188 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
And which bootcamp isn’t doing it ??
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I agree that for profit business are companies and they have to make money, and they can make money in a win-win way that improves the overall economy and people's lives, but that marketing isn't something bad or evil or despicable, it's normal.
I have the same advice with reading any bootcamps outcomes. I'm very on top of TripleTen because their stats are carefully worded too (and also not lying or false, just worded well by a marketer).
We need people having reasonable and thoughtful discussions about these things openly to move the industry forward.
The bootcamp industry is barely surviving right now and using marketing to convince more people to join to keep it alive isn't going to solve the systemic market problems that are stopping bootcamp grads.
I've said this once or twice now but Codesmith might have a good angle with getting people into non-SWE technical jobs, or with leveling up their current jobs with coding and AI. Accountant -> Codesmith -> better Accountant and I would love to talk about these things openly. Maybe the best coding bootcamp shouldn't try to produce software engineers right now.
But Codesmith's leaders dig their heels in and just every time I bring up this discussing amplify their language about "senior placements" and "modern engineers" and "industry leaders", and it's just going in the wrong direction. I'm worried if they don't confront reality and are distracted by defending themselves they won't make long term.
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Look at his post history. Definition of propaganda. A moderator who posts DAILY and EXCLUSIVELY about one bootcamp. Many people on here saying it’s inappropriate but he whines he’s a victim 😂
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm happy you have the right to express your complaints, if you posted this in Codesmith sub you would get permanently banned and no one would be able to read it.
u/StrictlyProgramming wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The only logical conclusion I can think of is a fight to the death *in programming* among the top bootcamps' graduates to see which one is the best.
Since there aren't that many left and given how much some have fallen (App Academy), it'd be a fight between CodeSmith, Rithm Sc
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I think all three of those programs mentioned are very different and can co-exist rather than fight. Rithm is very small right now and I don't think they are fighting anybody haha. Launch School is heavily run by the founder Chris and is also small and capped size, and I think they will get by.
Right now, from my estimates (no hard numbers) Codesmith is about the enrollment numbers of Launch School (maybe 1.5X larger because of part time) but from my estimates has 5X more full time staff. So I'm most concerned about Codesmith surviving without more layoffs or without a major pivot.
Codesmith is the only one going big on AI, however there isn't any signal from the industry what AI skills they want, and interview processes haven't adapted to test for AI skills either, so they might be betting on 'Web3 blockhain' like Lambda School did. It's entirely possible that the AI skills companies end up looking for are nothing we have seen yet. If it works out they might win the bootcamp industry and all others will be gone. If they are wrong, they might not be around in a year. Big bet.
u/illustrious_feijoa wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Codesmith has a weird obsession with the word "senior." Calling an L61 a senior engineer for marketing purposes is not okay.
But nice job getting an L61 role out of bootcamp.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I saw a video once of Will Sentance from 7-8 years ago where he had almost the exact same language. I think it's one of those things that if you tell yourself the same thing for 8 years you believe it.
Either it's incompetence at not understanding the levels and confidently calling 61 senior - even though the speaker herself says 61 is "mid-level", or it's intentional manipulation. I don't think the CEO is incompetent, so...
And yeah, the talk was awesome, the alumni is awesome, it's sad she's being used for marketing in this way, she deserves better.
u/Solid_Appointment_24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'm a codesmith grad. I enjoyed working with my cohort mates, but it does feel like a cult and many lies . They do tell alumni to respond to reddit and fight "the haters"
The curriculum and what they teach is not even worth 1/4 of the cost of the tuition.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Your post went from +8 to -3 in 10 minutes... :(
u/Solid_Appointment_24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'm in the alumni group on slack... It's typical
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Was this shared there? What to people think of the arguments?
I don't expect people to like me, but still waiting for someone to point out what's incorrect about my analysis.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
This post has been flagged for heavy voting manipulation. Please be careful, read the contents and judge for yourself. Stay safe out there!
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I came to this subreddit as someone with a lot of years experience and having been in the industry for a while. I figured it was a place I could maybe give back a bit to a community that's helped me so much over the years. Wanted to hang out for a bit, get a feel for the space an
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
The history is that I was made a mod because it was becoming a cease pool of spam and negativity and I was tasked with improving it.
1. If you weren't here before then please explain how it got that way before I was a mod?
2. In the spirit of transparency, what's your agenda for being here if you 20 years of industry experience?
The fact that you calling this out without even talking to me has the same pattern as the Codesmith people
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Wow!! Thank YOU for speaking what so many feel ! 👏👏👏 I have never seen a SINGLE helpful post from this mod. Just constant toxicity in this subreddit it’s terrible. His last 7 posts have all been about one bootcamp and all vitriolic takedowns. Like we know the market is shit,
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Again, if you were in the Codesmith subreddit you would get banned and deleted, and all you would see are positive comments supporting me.
If you ignore me and don't discuss, you will be banned.
Do you think that world would be better, if all the negative comments (whether they support me or not) are deleted and the authors re banned?
u/NormalValuable5022 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Don’t go. Coming from an alumni struggling for many months to land even an interview
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Hey, it's taking people closer to a year right now, and even then it's a coin flip. Was that communicated to you by anyone?
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'd say your definition of REASONABLE CRITICAL ANALYSIS is incorrect. You stated everything is your opinion. Then it's critical analysis, then it's facts, then it's back to opinion. Pick a lane. Or are you trying to sway everyones opinion of something without people starting to d
u/michaelnovatireplied·
This is what I do all day: [https://github.com/mnovati](https://github.com/mnovati)
I have 25 contributions in the last two days, and that's where I spend my time. I'm not on Reddit nearly as much as you think.
Warning on personal attacks.
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'm sorry Mr. Michael, I didn't mean to make a personal attack. Great github, I'd love to see everyone in here encouraged and enabled to do the same
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
"I'd rather that then spend hours discussing some beef a keyboard warrior has with some random company"
I'm genuinely not here for hours, this is like priority 10 on my list
I felt personally attacked when you said that.
Maybe you can DM me and we can talk about this and you can see where I'm coming from? You're making a false connection that I have this been to promoted my company. It's just not true. I can see how you might see that if you just look up backgrounds, but without talking to me about it, it's not helping move things forward to the better community you are asking for.
u/Swami218 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Is there like a special channel for that? I just went back 3 months in the Alumni Slack and other than the constant stream of workshops announcements, there was 1 post about people Zoom-bombing CS events and 1 warning about people impersonating Will/Eric and contacting students.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I've received a ton of screenshots and texts over the years and I still don't have a good picture. I think it's a combination of the folllowing:
1. Primarily - alumni are the product Codesmith (i.e. the community IS the product, not the education) makes and the ones most bought in where the product works they protect Codesmith fervently.
2. Leaders share around some of my post and ask people or imply they should 'help out the community'. Or calling me a 'jealous hater', or that 'when you are the best people always want to take you down', stuff like that.
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You’ve deleted many comments of mine that critiqued your company’s marketing practices.
I said it was deceptive marketing to show one huge salary number on your companys homepage instead of average results,
You deleted it and said I was”threatening” you and said it was the sa
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I said that I repeatedly clarified things about my company that you did not acknowledge and kept saying the same things, which to me is analogous if someone says "stop doing X, it's bothering me" and you ignore them and keep doing it.
I sent those posts directly to the other mods and told them to examine them because I'm biased. They have yet to approve them...
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Can you clarify the rules:
- If I precursor things with "this is my personal opinion" does that make my critic better?
- This is a public formal, am I required to DM the mod to post rebutals?
I think if I need to DM you to understand where you're coming from then perhaps ther
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
This sub doesn't have explicitly clear rules so there is subjectivity in their interpretation. I often message the mod thread to discuss things I'm not sure about.
DMs are not required no, I'm suggesting it as a tool when there is conflict becuase it can help for both sides to see where each other is coming from.
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I don’t not anyone on this sub has to “acknowledge” what you claim.
Misgendering someone is not the same as critiquing an advertisement of yours or what your website displays.
Your statement “stop doing x, it’s bothering me” —- is called freedom of speech. Reddits TOS discount
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Maybe I'm taking it too literally, but in the exact same font size and UI formatting we have the average outcome right beside the number you're talking about. So to me not acknowledging that fact and stating that
>"I said it was deceptive marketing to show one huge salary number on your companys homepage instead of average results"
Now there could be misunderstandings, or we're not on the same page, but I've said this a number of times and you've said the same thing a number of times - which is why that starts to become harassment.
Do you have more questions about these numbers we can sort out if it's a misunderstanding and not harassment?
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You post the highest single salary. Beside it you post the avg “increase” in salary.
Both fail to capture overall student success. Neither of those figures are helpful. It could represent 10% of your grads and 90% never get jobs for example.
If it was repeated it was in differ
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
These are all good questions I'm more than happy to answer.
First, why do we have the average compensation increase and not the average.
we're working with people coming from all kinds of backgrounds and situations and we think the best way to capture their outcome is to show the change relative to where they started.
otherwise we would have to try to bucket people into a bunch of very granular buckets of similar type people and then show some average about how they did in absolute terms. We could try to do that but the buckets change constantly and the people we are working with now are very experienced. the people we worked with a year ago had maybe 1 to 2 years of experience on average and now the people have 5 to 10 years of experience on average. So because these buckets are moving and changing all the time, we don't feel that showing those. give you a pulse for how things are doing now and we feel that the average compensation increase captures more of the change that's happening as a result of Formation.
Second, we're going to be posting a H1 outcomes recap pretty soon on our blog and I'll take the feedback that you're telling to heart because I'm literally going to be reviewing it today and we can comments and I'll give feedback that you're saying, but you feel like there's lack of clarity on the average outcome.
Third, placement rates. This is one of the most important things for bootcamps because a bootcamp with a fixed length program and with a starting bar that is roughly the same can be judged and how effectively it takes people from roughly the same starting skill level to graduation to a job in a certain amount of time.
We Don't have any kind of curriculum. we aren't teaching anything! We set up group mentorship sessions to work through problems to practice, we give you a bunch of practice problems to work on based on your strengths and weaknesses and we measure those on an ongoing basis through benchmarking so we know when you can move on to new topics or not. most of the people we work with have full-time jobs right now. they're constantly changing up their schedule, and they don't have any kind of time, sensitivity or time is not one of their goals. for other people time is a goal and they want a job in a certain time. for those people having some kind of measurement of if we help them meet that goal or not I think would be really useful. We unfortunately don't have a way to distinguish that in a clear way to publish. somewhere around a third to half of the people starting right now are also starting on a month-to-month subscription where there is no concept of a placement rate whatsoever even in any world and they're just like literally coming here for practice like getting a month of personal trainer time.
So our philosophy on this is that we want to give people an individual time expectation when they start so every person is presented with a starting roadmap. This road map is the areas we think you need to work on and approximately how long we think it will take you to get through all those areas. and then we will give you an unofficial ballpark of based on how the market is now based on how people are doing and based on different parameters. like if you're going to be full-time, job hunting or just part-time some rough amount of time, we think that it might take you to get a job. these are all super personal, but we feel like this is more useful to someone than trying to deal with all of the problems from the previous paragraph and giving people some average number that is useless and might be misleading to them because we know for their personal situation it won't apply.
To give some examples, have people who really want a job in 2 months and they don't get it and they're stressed and we're trying to help them get a job as fast as we can. we have people who want a job at Meta and will wait up to and just go at their own pace. We have people who come to us for just one month and try to cram in as much practice as they can and don't even really want a job. We have people who are expecting to get a job in 6 months and they are planning towards that and then they suddenly get interview loops after 3 months and we scramble to help them make the most of that and try to set up other interviews to get them the best option but they might have preferred to get a job after 6 months instead of 3 months and this was like not pleasant surprise but a unique opportunity they had to take.
I'm sitting in a lot of the personal channels that each person get and following all of these paths and journeys and it is a really wide range.
and it absolutely is doing a disservice to my own company that we can't communicate all this without me trying to write multiple paragraphs explaining it to individual people. It's something that our team is working on and trying to figure out and will continue to keep adjusting how we communicate things and trying to give the most insights We can to help people figure out if it's a good option for them or not based on their circumstances.
u/frenchydev1 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Not sure how this managed to change from a dis (is that how you spell that word?) of Codesmith to an overview of Formations merits. I'm going to avoid the red flags here and just ask: is this conversation helpful to the community? Or is it just moving to a shit throwing fight?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm answering the person's question like any other comment. This is what I consider a conflict. If you want this place to be more positive look in the mirror first and then spread your positivity to others.
u/adby122 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Sorry for the essay, I don't normally write so much, but this post just feels so targeted and unfair.
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise (or controversial in any way) that an organization's subreddit exists to generate positive discussions and promote their news, people, st
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
This is a totally fair comment so it wouldn't deleted and you shouldn't feel that way. I think it's an excellent comment with a tone open for discussion, I wish more of them were like this!
1. Codesmith's co-founder Alex Zai, told me to clear the record that he is not currently involved in the AI curriculum and hasn't been since DSML shutdown, and specifically that Zoox is not involved in any way in the curriculum either nor has he worked on since working at Zoox.
He told me that he asked Codesmith to not represent that he is working on this currciulum.
I don't have an analogy for you but maybe it's like Juliard saying they have a brand new course created by Adam Driver, when Adam Driver created some materials years ago when he was TA'ing and those materials were used inside of this new course.
I think that's wrong.
2. My data is showing about 45% of people in H1 2023 getting jobs within a year, not the majority. I don't know the actual numbers, but that is a major difference from it being 80%. All I'm asking is that this be **acknowledged**. Codesmith hasn't changed it's pedagogy so it's a statement about the market and not them, but people need to know that going in.
u/Electrical_Sand_6250 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi all,
I’m one of the moderatosr over at r/codesmith and speaking to clarify on behalf of Andrea. We’re a community run sub for folks in both the CSX community (Codesmith’s free training program) and Codesmith’s residents to stay up to date, have discussions and share free reso
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hi, unlike in your sub, I'm not going to ban you and delete this for "lies" because I want to try to get more on the same page. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk more because this comment is making me really sad the way you are characterizing what I'm saying and we're on very different pages.
1. I'm sorry Andrea feels that way. I honestly have no idea who she is, other than that she's a moderator of the sub and I apologize if she felt attacked by that statement.
I do stand by the statement, that it was shared as the official rules and the entire body is written as "we". I have documented the post for myt archived and think that a reasonable person would interpret this the way I did. If she didn't mean to post on behalf of Codesmith, she can edit the post to clarify that as well. I'll also edit my copy to remove references to that post to help reset that.
2. A number of people who received that email from them did contact me because they felt like it was required. The CEO calling these posts "applications" adds to that. If it's not required and optional, again, they should make that clearer in the rules. I have thoroughly documented the posted rules and believe my interpretation is very reasonable even if you disagree.
That said, if my interpretation is reasonable legally, that doesn't mean I don't want to help bridge the gap here. If it's indeed optional I'll bad down from that, but I would highly recommend Codesmith clarify this. One of the people was considering asking Tech Talent Pipeline about this for example and it would help if they clarified.
3. Assume good intent. Just because I'm making a critical point that doesn't mean my intentions are bad.
4. For someone to lie you have to have evidence that they knew what they said was false and said it anyways to hurt people. I haven't lied once in here and it makes me feel bad that you are characterizing it that way. Just like Andrea feels bad and I'm making some changes because I don't want anyone to feel bad, can you try to do the same in return?
My entire mission is about increasing diversity in tech and helping people from non traditional backgrounds in tech have a seat at the table. Some of the gap is systemic and some of it isn't, and I help by helping people address their gaps at getting that seat and having a strong voice in those discussions.
u/CarlFriedrichGauss wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I don't necessarily disagree with what you say, but your clickbait titles and **bold AND ALL CAPS** formatting don't really help your case and make your posts come off as tabloid-style yellow journalism rather than thought provoking analysis. You'd probably get a lot warmer recep
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah that's fair, will consider as feedback for future posts.
u/NormalValuable5022 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hey, nothing specific in terms of timing, but they did note it was taking longer than previously.
I actually wrote a post writing about Codesmith because I wanted to share my positive and negative experiences, but my account is new and that may be why it has not yet shown up on
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah Reddit has strict filters that probably took your account down.
u/Status-Remove559 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi,
I noticed that the op (also the moderator) auto-collapsed the very reasonable response from one of the people that was referenced in op's original post.
u/michaelnovati auto collapsed it, which is a moderator tool which means it isn't shown automatically. This response is
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I didn't auto hide anything and I didn't touch any settings for this post or any comments or any users.
Reddit identifies and hides accounts it thinks are sketchy and maybe that's why the comment was collapsed. Our subreddit at the top level has typical Reddit filters on and they have been improving their algorithms over the past few months.
u/Status-Remove559 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
But you just deleted my comment, you are trump.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yes I deleted your comment
u/Solid_Appointment_24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I can attest to calling you out specifically in one of the calls and they said something along the lines " we are going to deal with him"
What bothered me about that comment is some of them are not open to constructive criticism
u/michaelnovatireplied·
A staff member said that or an alumni?
u/Solid_Appointment_24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Staff
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I've worked with a lot of alumni that love Codesmith. Both officially and unofficially and some more directly than others. I have no idea if they like me as person but I think they understand better where I'm coming from once actually getting to know me.
It's really sad that the staff are so locked in. I was talking to Eric Kirsten over email a bit but that died off when Will yelled at me for 3 minutes straight in a public talk and banished me from the community forever.
u/Solid_Appointment_24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I'm not kidding when I said my experience there felt like a cult. With all that said there are some staff and alumni that do acknowledge the bad side of codesmith and the misleading marketing. But in my personal opinion, those are out liners .
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I think it's about 10% of alumni and it's because they credit Codesmith with changing their lives. And I don't argue it didn't. Something can change your live and not be perfect.
The people that just can't acknowledge that are going to have a lot of problems later on in their careers, lots of struggles with progression. Codesmith is far too early to see that yet.
With $130K salaries come layoffs at the drop of a hat, and other negative things that will need to be confronted.
u/Solid_Appointment_24 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Do you mean 10% who actually say they had positive experiences at codesmith?
My experience is that 90% of people who are active or that are in zoom meetings (stand-ups, group, study, prep groups etc) defend codesmith and make it an environment that you feel afraid to criticize
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
10% fight publicly for it, work there, keep in the community, keep doing talks and calls, etc... and "stay in the family"
Many more are positive or neutral-positive about Codesmith, thought it was worth it because of their outcome but not the content or the advice and they move on after settling into their careers.
I'm also bias there because the people that move on come to be too lol. The largest groups of people coming to me on a weekly basis are current students or recent alumni venting about something, and then older alumni who trust me because they feel like my analysis is spot on and want my advice about the industry.
u/NormalValuable5022 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thanks, hopefully it’ll get posted at some point.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
FWIW I don't see anything from you being removed so it may not have posted at all
u/Puzzleheaded-Row9244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
u/michaelnovati I'm unable to post this as a new thread for some reason so I'm posting these as comments. Frustratingly my post is caught by Reddit spam filters for whatever reason, but I'm allowed to post this as a comment.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah, I mean they are increasing AI based stuff and mods don't have that much control. They collapsed someone's comment about me because she was flagged as a highly suspicious account likely trying to break the rules. I don't know how they determined that whatsoever and cannot do anything about her comment.
u/Puzzleheaded-Row9244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thread (3/3)
I’m aware that Codesmith staff are coming in hoards to downvote Michael Novati who has been critical of Codesmith and from what I read is permabanned from their subreddit. I’m aware he has his own company which some on this subreddit claim to be in competition wit
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I 100% agree people should respectfully question me and push me. I'm one of the most responsive people on Reddit and I'm here to talk reasonably.
My company works with people later on in their careers and the more people that go to bootcamps, the more people that come to us. So I feel like I have major bias to promote bootcamps and not take them down.
Now others seem to feel I'm here to take down bootcamps so my company is the only option left.
I strongly disagree with that but people can share their opinions, all I ask is that people can see all sides fairly and judge for themselves and that people present evidence for their beliefs for why they feel that way.
Prove that my involvement in the sub has boosted my business. Prove that people are leaving Codesmith or other bootcamps in droves to come to my business. They aren't so there is no proof! Just people trolling.
u/Puzzleheaded-Row9244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thread (2/3)
I am not going to claim that these reviews are necessarily fake, but I would be inclined to believe that those who submitted the 5-star reviews are those that have already landed jobs from years prior who want some free merch. As a grad myself who feels like they
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I have careful documentation of all of this too and it's desperate. Codesmith is not doing well, not filling their cohorts even though they have reduced them significantly.
They lowered the price of JSB and CSPrep to get more people into them even though JSB Flex videos are entirely free anyways in their website (unless this is an engineering mistake, there are so many odd engineering choices and user information being shared out from their website all over... I'm operating the assumption that this is all intentional because it's so widespread and pervasive it would be incompetent otherwise)
Before attacking me, look into the mirror Codesmith. If Hack Reactor was setup this way would you think they are the best of the best and maybe look within and fix things before coming after me.
Alumni: if you hate me at least try to understand what I'm saying and think about it s bit.
u/Puzzleheaded-Row9244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
If I may offer my perspective of Codesmith as an alumni: (this is a thread - 1/3)
As a Codesmith grad, I can say we are absolutely struggling to get jobs. The tech industry is a shitshow right now with grads with no experience barely able to secure a phone screen, let alone la
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Codesmith paying for reviews was something I knew about and documented but no one has shared with me the exact text.
You might be doxxing yourself with that date and maybe should edit it to XX because they told different people different dates to stagger the reviews and they only sent this to people placed.
Thank you for publicly sharing because this was something people talked about in confidence and I could share yet.
I spent too much time trying to people but if others want to DM about this, I'll do a top level post sometime when I catch up a bit over the weekend.
u/Puzzleheaded-Row9244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Pretty sure any alumni graduating in 2023 and after agree with you anyway. I searched Codesmith in this subreddit and almost all posts in the last year or so are from grads/students who are telling people not to make the mistake of attending.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
They're definitely some successful alumni who graduated in 2023 the number of people getting really good jobs from my personal view smaller than in the past but it's not zero.
The people who are getting placed, though are not super keen on broadcasting into the world because they know that some other best friends and people who they were in the trenches with during the immersive didn't get placed and I think that's actually holding them back from talking. I also know some people who wouldn't recommend Codesmith at this time who got pretty good jobs eventually, but wow, it was a rough journey. Finally, I know people who are really exaggerating their resumes and they just don't even care or feel bad about it anymore because they have absolutely nothing to lose and they would just leave the industry entirely otherwise.
... I guess shit show of the market pretty much summarizes all this these... People don't really know what to do so they're kind of running in all directions.
At the end of the day, though this is Reddit and like dozens of people are maybe reading these posts I don't know it's like not really many people reading it and the enrollment drop has been so drastic that clearly people are getting information from multiple sources, including recent al so surprise me that many people who graduated in 2023 aren't recommending perspective people go in this market.
u/Puzzleheaded-Row9244 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I censored the date, thanks I didn’t know, but also I gave so little info so it’s whatever.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Someone who worked there said they have people good at "finding people" specifying more details, and they try to track you down and correct.
Someone wrote a fairly negative view on here "anonymously", they found the person and offered them a high paying contract job at Codesmith, which the person accepted. This was shared with me by the person themselves and not second hand information. I'm sure the job was actually good intentioned to help someone struggling, but the person perceived it as being paid off.
u/adby122 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Okay, so I didn't really know the ins and outs of everything you went into in your original post to be honest, it all just seemed quite intense and overly thorough.
But, I thought it was kinda odd when you said he told you that he "asked Codesmith to not represent he's work
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I messaged him after Codesmith declined to comment on if Alex had Zoox's approval to do the curriculum yeah so I put even more work into it. But time-wise very little time.
Yeah doesn't have a problem being connected to his DSML work, he just doesn't want it to be implied that he is currently working on it or recently worked on it as it's fireable and worse at Zoox to create IP relevant to your job without permission.
I sent him all of the links that made it seem like he was more recently involved and Codesmith has since modified those, including the blog you linked to, that was modified as a result of this.
The title of that blog post changed from containing Alex Zai's name, and you can see the remnant in the url.
Jared's name was not mentioned nearly that much in marketing materials it was all Alex Zai and a little James and Jared had significant involvement in DSML.
But the recent curriculum that I've seen, the first two lectures, sem like mostly James Laff reviewed by Will. No Alex.
u/DentistRemarkable193 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I don’t even have an active post in the Codesmith sub and I was banned from it from making a comment in here. They are trying so hard to frame a very specific narrative they want people to see. It’s truly cult tactics.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
Can you post this at the top level?
u/DentistRemarkable193 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Reposting for visibility because I know I’ll likely be downvoted, as often happens with any dissenting opinion in this sub on Codesmith:
For context, I don’t have an active post in the Codesmith sub and was banned, without warning, for which reason I cannot tell except for makin
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
I mean like as a post in the sub
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
Moderator note: Codesmith, Alumni, and others - if you share a link and ask for voting, responses, or a "let's fix this" response, that violates Reddit's ToS and you are risking having your accounts not only banned from the sub but banned from Reddit.
u/adby122 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Oh so you went to Codesmith for comment? How did you do that btw, they don't seem to have a press office, who did you speak to?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I didn't ask for formal comment no. I can't remember but I think it was either a codesmith account on Reddit, a comment on LinkedIn thread, or that I commented on or it was in a live stream over the past few months as they have been showing slides with Alex Zai giant face teasing the upcoming AI/ML.
It wasn't for official comment no and I wouldn't say that I asked formally enough or clearly enough to expect them to reply though.
I am banned from Codesmith's community, Slack, events, entirely so I have limited avenues as I intend on fully respecting their ban. Although they started sending me emails inviting me to events so I'm not sure anymore haha. The whole operation just has so many issue in executing the details you know and I'm always confused if they are intentionally sharing so much data (which common sense says they shouldn't) but then they acknowledge the problems.