Current Codesmith residents/recent alumni: how has Codesmith delivered on promised improvements announced earlier this year?
Hi all, I've been talking to a couple of residents recently and wanted to get a broader view on how Codesmith is doing towards it's suite of announced improvements from February (five months ago).
At the time I said I would revisit how they did in a few months and time flies, it's already been five months!!
Please comment (or DM me uncomfortable to comment and I'm happy to need your messages confidential) if you have insight into if any of the following have happened:
(From [source](https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech))
1. Are in-person co-working spaces available in NYC and SF?
2. TypeScript integration into the curriculum?
3. Next.js integration into the curriculum?
4. AI copilots and testing tools integration into the curriculum?
5. Hands on work with LLMs and GPT APIs?
6. System Design curriculum?
7. Improvements to Data Structures and Algorithms curriculum?
8. New job search workshops?
9. New alumni added to the faculty and teaching staff?
10. 50+ in-person events run this year?
11. Announcement of new official hiring partnerships?
12. "Dons" - every resident being assigned a dedicated mentor called a "don"?
13. Smaller groups for projects?
Let me know which of these things you have observed changes to, or if you work or worked at Codesmith and have seen/not seen these changes, feel free to confidentially DM me.
u/metalreflectslime wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Is a Codesmith resident a Codesmith teaching assistant that teaches a Codesmith cohort?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Codesmith resident is a student
Codesmith fellow is a student hired back - they expend their graduation dates for CIRR which violates the rules but no one seems to care.
Codesmith mentor used to be a Fellow hired full time - they eliminated this position for cost savings, increasing the work load for instructions
Codesmith instructors are mentors promoted to be the primary teacher for a cohort
Codesmith lead instructors are instructors that get promoted to run a cohort.
I can try to make a diagram, it's like a pyramid shape.
u/maximai03 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Pyramid scheme?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
It's not a pyramid scheme because you are paying for services and people are aiming to get jobs outside of the pyramid. People don't go to Codesmith aspiring to move up the pyramid and get to lead instructor, they aspire to get out and get a job.
The pyramid shape is more about control.
One thing Codesmith did well that no one else did was keep fairly consistent as they scaled like 5X in a year (now they are smaller than before they scaled but because of the market). The consistency came from having this unprecedented control over this instruction hierarchy. Almost all instructors worked as SWE outside and so they followed what the people above them told them. The handful that went to work on the outside and came back didn't last too long because they brought new perspectives on things. They realized that 'correction sessions' to fix someone's bad attitude and turn it positive, were maybe a bit weird and not something SWEs do other places, but had to tow the line to progress up the hierarchy.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I got a spike in downvotes since this morning and no one has commented - so I guess that answers the question :( ?
u/SlowestTriathlete wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Probably - I'm sure there were good intentions and lots of talking, but execution is never easy.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah I was excited to see the changes proposed and I made a post about it. Then I got flack from alumni for temporarily pausing my recommendation to go to Codesmith to see how those things play out and make sure that they get implemented.
So now I'm giving them a chance to show that they've implemented all these things in a very long amount of time to do it so that I would even consider restoring my recommendation. but if they haven't actually done anything other than add 5 lectures on AI, then I'm not going to. I might even actively discourage people from going there now sadly if that's the case and the concern about layoffs and cutbacks not giving them enough horsepower to make the positive changes people need to succeed in this market came to be.
Like I went from recommendation to a neutral no recommendation and now I might tell people to not go there actively and I've given a completely fair chance to change that.
u/Swami218 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Seems like Codesmith folks aren’t that interested in engaging with you in this sub anymore. I only know about alumni stuff, but several of these are started or implemented. There’s a System Design lecture happening today.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
But is it new material? or just their SD lecture offered sporadically for slumni?
u/CoastLongjumping6491 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Unless I’m somehow mistaken, the 5 lectures on AI are not even new. They’ve shown up as an “optional extension unit” on the syllabus for at least two years.
Anyway, I’ve seen no evidence of any of these changes other than apparently adding coworking spaces in NYC - which are on
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I think there might be having some instruction turnover and other instructors might leave so that might not be an add.
Is the new person a past alumni too?
u/SlowestTriathlete wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I haven't attended, but whatever is going on right now is SD for Alumni
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I'm not sure how you feel about this, but I talk to a range of alumni for various reasons and contexts, and people are not appreciating these minimal efforts being portrayed as 'all you need to succeed'-vibes.
It's creating distrust, like people believed that when they went to Codesmith 2 years ago and got a job, but now they see it for what it is and it breaks trust.
I know I'm bias because my company helps people specifically with system design, and it's offensive to me when Codesmith tells people it's SD is all you need, when it's absolutely not all you need. It's not even an overview of all you might need.
Anyways here's a great free resource from a semi-competitor to us that is 10X better than the Codesmith materials I've seen on SD: [https://www.hellointerview.com/learn/system-design/in-a-hurry/introduction](https://www.hellointerview.com/learn/system-design/in-a-hurry/introduction)
u/SlowestTriathlete wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I haven't attended, but whatever is going on right now is SD for Alumni
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Someone sent me this: [https://app.codesmith.io/coding-events/documenting-a-system-architecture-with-will-sentance/3595](https://app.codesmith.io/coding-events/documenting-a-system-architecture-with-will-sentance/3595)
Did they discuss all of the fundamental architecture flaws with the Codesmith website and why they chose to make those decisions?
Seriously disappointing.
u/CoastLongjumping6491 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yes, a former resident and fellow, and supposedly last worked as a lead engineer at a startup
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Is the startup an actual startup or an OSP or project portrayed as a startup?
u/duchessviolet wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hi Michael, could you please shed some light on the privacy flaws in Codesmith part? Thanks!
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Not publicly no, it's ethically wrong. I have been permanently banned from the Codesmith community for comments I made during a live session so I don't have avenues to responsibly report them.
If you have some connections DM me. I need to discuss this stuff under an agreement because it's quite bad and they might have to legally notify all their people about one or more of these issues and I do not want to be involved and would rather not say anything at all honestly.
My personal opinion is that I would not apply to anything at Codesmith with personally identifiable information.
u/Parky-Park wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
It looks like it was a genuine startup. You can find the repos for the take-home challenges he completed right here lol:
[https://github.com/jdvplus/stealth-helpdesk-frontend](https://github.com/jdvplus/stealth-helpdesk-frontend)
[https://github.com/jdvplus/stealth-helpdesk-b
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I didn't want to share but I found that too and was like what Stealh Startup is public on GitHub and called "Stealth Startup" haha.
Do you have evidence the person was fired from a real startup?
I think it's reasonable for people to not make it for all kinds of reasons, even if they lied about their background and couldn't make it at the level they were expected.
But I think it's offensive and absurd to portray those situations as successed to be celebrated. I've seen potential students who don't know any better asking a "senior engineer" representing Codesmith at an official event questions about hiring and management, that the person was NOT QUALIFIED to answer but answered anyways with bull shit answers... and the potential students were impressed and appreciative. It does such harm to those people to keep the charade going.
It catches up to you and that's what we're seeing now. Any prospective student that talks to current students is not getting the same kind of wooing that they got in the past. Codesmith 's CEO blamed me publicly for the turning tides... completely ignorant to the problems right in front of him that have nothing to do with me... so sad.
Rant over haha.
u/Swami218 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Seems like Codesmith folks aren’t that interested in engaging with you in this sub anymore. I only know about alumni stuff, but several of these are started or implemented. There’s a System Design lecture happening today.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Someone reached out who attended this talk and I now actively encourage no one to go to Codesmith...
Any alumni who attended - this doesn't seem like a system design talk but rather Will trying to learn about a system he doesn't understand well.
Did he talk about pros and cons of different approaches?
Did he talk about the decision process for each piece?
Was the system large scale and in need of complex decision making?
Are the APIs between components discussed in great detail?
Are the schemas and data model decisions discussed in great detail?
Was there any discussion of a technically challenging problem solved and how they overcame it?
Did the system make sense and were good decisions made? Like if someone reviewed it and thought it would just be one service instead that would be a no hire or fire.
u/Swami218 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I didn’t attend the talk. But all of those questions you asked are in the regular curriculum and also serve as talking points for interview prep.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Sorry I should clarify the recommendation is because Codemiths system sounds like a HubSpot website with API integration and they don't seem remotely aware of any of the massive problems with their service and apparently Will doesn't seem to understand the architecture himself in detail.
Their lead engineer left and I don't think anyone does. I chatted with someone who corroborated this.
Like I would not be comfortable giving them any personal information personally based on my judgment.