Bootcamps had 3 eras:
2015 to 2020: a lot of success stories, bootcamps had high bars and only let in people who had a high chance of success. They worked on at a small scale
2020 to 2023: COVID - bootcamps and remote work exploded and the successful bootcamps scaled over night and completely failed. Lambda School was the canary here - it showed us bootcamps can't scale by just multiplying their staff but schools did anyways. Instead of reflecting and strengthening during these boom times they just scaled and failed.
2023-Present: market cooled bootcamps reputations destroyed, no one is hiring bootcamp grads, no one is falling for it.
I follow Codesmith closely and look at the California official placement rates for six months post graduation: 2021 - 90%, 2022 - 70%, 2023 - 42%.... and they raised prices this year anyways despite knowing these numbers before doing so.
u/BigCardiologist3733 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I feel so sad thinking of all the people who did bootcamps post ZIRP and wasted their money 😭😭😭
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah add to the fact with higher interest rates, bootcamp loans are more expensive too and compounding the problem even more
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
OK -- but I've gotta respectfully push back on this a bit. You're a really smart guy, u/michaelnovati. Is it really that black and white?
>2023-Present: market cooled bootcamps reputations destroyed, no one is hiring bootcamp grads, no one is falling for it.
I don't think this
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I mean with the info that floats my way about bootcamps getting worse and worse by the day and loan providers, the SWE bootcamps industry as an industry is done.
I'm not changing my views that 20 person bootcamps will survive and can work for specific cases.
But if you are seeing bootcamps marketing to masses and making you feel like "you could be next", you have to run.
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I really am interested in your answers to my question. But I can also believe that maybe you don’t see anything outside of your specific experience at Facebook and companies like that. I’m not trying to market bootcamps. I’m trying to understand you.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
I'll respond longer tonight, I'm out and will when I have my keyboard
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
OK -- but I've gotta respectfully push back on this a bit. You're a really smart guy, u/michaelnovati. Is it really that black and white?
>2023-Present: market cooled bootcamps reputations destroyed, no one is hiring bootcamp grads, no one is falling for it.
I don't think this
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
ELABORATED ANSWERS:
1. No one is falling for it:
a - Applications and enrollments to bootcamps have absolutely tanked. I can't give too much away in my sourcing here but I have hot off the press anecdotes and it seems to be falling off a cliff from already painful numbers.
b - I don't know any company that his historically hired bootcamp grads that is knowingly hiring them (i.e. they aren't faking it and getting fake letters of reference) other than apprenticeships and the anti-DEI shift has diminished or ended a lot of those.
2. Market cooled:
a - it cooled for entry level SWE roles from 2020-2022 and particularly bootcamp grads
b - agencies don't hire for level and they hire for specific skills so I expect agency hiring hasn't changed much and wouldn't push back on that.
3. No one is hiring bootcamp grads:
Ok sure "no one" is too harsh. It's extremely rare to see job postings with requirements "or bootcamp grads" in them. The big companies have forgotten about bootcamps AFAICT.
I think you should focus on web dev and design, because maybe that section of the market has more opportunities and I would clearly differentiate it from SWE.
4. Multiple valid paths:
The key is reproducible. Are these paths working for 5 people here and 5 people there, or are they working for 20,000 people. The bootcamp **INDUSTRY** only works if there are systematic paths for TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, and it doesn't if we're taking a person here and a person there.
I reiterate that a program that is small and constantly fighting for the path for a couple people here and there, that could change every few months, **can survive,** but that doesn't mean companies should be giving false hope that the industry is saved.
I saw a Codesmith video from early 2024 and one of their leaders said '2023 was rougher, 2024 is looking better, the vc daily news is showing incredible funding, everything is bouncing bad fast, the future is looking great' and this is absolute bullshit and 2024 was a terrible year for Codesmith where the majority of their employees left or were laid off and it continues to fall apart. I get messaged every week from 2024 students who are like 'Michael you were so right and I drank the koolaid and didn't believe you their career services was a scam when I needed them most, I wish I could prevent others from falling for this' (this is rearranging words to protect identity of a message I got this week).
Like I love small placed like Launch School (no formal affiliation) and Perpetual Education (no formal affiliation) that that stay small and find paths for people, but I need to defend against larger programs trying to convince people that everything is great in the market.
u/BigCardiologist3733 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
they did not have high bar in 2015 2020 tho there were so many people that couldnt pass hs but got into bootcamp and got swe job
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah you're right, it was more like 2015 to 2018 for the in person ones in SF, like App Academy and Hack Reactor that kept the bar high. They started to slip a bit in 2018 to 2020 and COVID the wheels fell off the bus.
I would probably break these down more granular in retrospect
u/BigCardiologist3733 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
explain more plz
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
The three eras to me are defined not necessarily by dates but by bootcamp trends.
The dates in my original post don't align super well and I have to spend more time thinking of the dates if they matter at all.
1. Era 1: super intense in person bootcamps for super smart people that had to prove themselves to get it, worked crazy hard, and got very good outcomes.
This was very non-diverse, a lot of young single professionals with a lot of savings and no families or who could pack up their lives to move to SF.
This is where bootcamps came from when they started out.
The canonical one here would be the earliest days of Hack Reactor.
Big tech was hiring these people if they passed interviews. There weren't a lot of grads for a broad trend but some made it through!
2. Era 2: DEI. Big companies realized that non-traditional sources of talent could help increase diversity because CS grad demographics were fairly consistently not representative of society.
Big companies started supporting bootcamps that promoted diversity. They saw that bootcamps might possible work skill wise from Era 1 so they gave bootcamps a shot to provide them with more diverse talent.
The NON-DIVERSE person from Era 1 was still succeeding in Era 2 but a ton more people started going to bootcamps and were being let in with a lower bar to increase the diverse talent pools.
What ended up happening is people no longer met the bar - but showed potential, and then companies started making Apprenticeship Programs to be like long internships to help these people make it full time.
Examples: Hackbright, Ada Developers Academy.
3. Era 3. Hyperscale
So now we have the bread and butter Era 1 style bootcamper that is still succeeding. Codesmith showed up and started being a big name here for this type of bootcamper - non-diverse, ambitious, lots of savings, previous experience.
We have these Apprenticeship pathways from Era 2 that are doing ok - not amazing, but not a waste of money either.
And then we have COVID, where the world turned upside down.
Some bootcamps started scaling way too fast. Codesmith 4X'd their cohort offerings in about a year for example.
Lambda School hit 2000 students in a single year.
The stories we hear were a shit show of all of the above - like random people from Era 1 placing at $150K jobs, random people landing Dropbox and Pinterest jobs (as apprentices) from Era 2, and then all of these stories fueling interest in bootcamps that were spending THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS **PER PERSON** TO RECRUIT YOU TO SIGN UP.
People faking their resumes and companies not really knowing how to handle it because interviews all moved remote and everyone is a bit confused.
It was working until 2023!
4. Era 4. Present CRASH
COVID hangover, interest rates are back up, AI is making senior more efficient so we need fewer juniors.
Things are relatively back to the norm **as if bootcamps never existed**. Go to a top tier CS school, do top tier internships, get a great job, and progress in your career.
At big tech right now it's like literally as if bootcamps never existing.
u/peppiminti wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I graduated CS in 2023 and my cohort, the one before, and the one after me had 60+% placement rate for 6 months post grad. Everyone who didn't give up applying got jobs eventually as well. A lot of us don't respond to their alumni e-mails so numbers aren't reflective. People grad
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Thanks for sharing, that would help explain why they had 65% of placements 'non response but verified via LinkedIn' for 2023 grads in CA.
Questions:
1. Are these people getting SWE roles or taking adjacent jobs?
2. If people are not responsive to Codesmith, how do you know the cohorts have 60% placement rates? Are you using LinkedIn yourself or are you using the unofficial channels.
(I ask because the alumni that have messaged me in the past few weeks have universally called their alumni channels "ghost towns" (they are 2024 though!)
3. Why do you think so many people are no longer responding to the emails compared to in 2022?
u/peppiminti wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
1. They are all SWE roles.
2. LinkedIn, unofficial channels, and I personally keep in contact with a lot of them and know they did not report.
Some cohorts are a lot closer than others so I'm not surprised some channels are ghost towns.
3. Idk, I wasn't there in 2022 so there'
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
Oh ok so you are a 2022 grad for CIRR purposes even though you job hunted in 2023.
Yeah your placement rates in CIRR were 70% in 6 months and 80% in 12 months so those are pretty consistent yeah.
I was talking about people who STARTED in the years above. The placement rates for people STARTING in 2023 and job hunting 2023 -> 2024 was 42% in their CA data with 65% of people ghosting.
u/peppiminti wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
1. They are all SWE roles.
2. LinkedIn, unofficial channels, and I personally keep in contact with a lot of them and know they did not report.
Some cohorts are a lot closer than others so I'm not surprised some channels are ghost towns.
3. Idk, I wasn't there in 2022 so there'
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
Do you know why people aren't reporting though in your opinion? I've heard the opinions and perspectives of a lot of people so I'm curious to hear your view.
u/peppiminti wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I don't get why you deleted your last response to me. I started in 2023 and graduated 2023. The bootcamp is only 13 weeks. People start AND graduate in 2023.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I deleted it because I misread that you started in 2022 and realized right away.
u/peppiminti wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I mean COVID started winding down and people had more things to do in life so maybe they don't care to fill out a survey anymore.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
You said like you know for sure that people are not responding to the surveys which to me implies you've discussed this with people and they explicitly said I'm not responding to the survey.
I might have misinterpreted and maybe you just meant that you think that placement numbers are higher than their official numbers. therefore, people must not be replying to the survey. is that what you meant?
u/peppiminti wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I responded all SWE in my reply. Not sure what else you want me to say.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
A lot of people tell me a lot of things on an ongoing basis. So lots of people have sent me lots of information about placements about things going on there etc for the past 2 to 3 years. so I'm asking you questions to correlate your answers against other answers without revealing any actual information that would bias things.
so like if your answers don't add up then I flag you as someone who might be playing games on Reddit and if they do align then I might ask more questions or rely on your information more
u/peppiminti wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Well it's up to you what you want to believe. I'm just telling people my personal experience.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah I get that and I totally take your personal experience I just have to super diligently normalize the information I get because people seem to have different interpretations of different words and different concepts and different dates and all kinds of things. so I have to be absurdly diligent to be able to make the claims that I'm making.
the cohorts are quite isolated and you only really see the information before and after. and one of the reasons I'm able to make interesting observations is that people from all different cohorts contact me and I piece things together.
u/peppiminti wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I get the due diligence thing but it does feels like you're a bit biased towards trying to prove my experience wrong. Don't love that you would edit your messages AFTER I responded and I wouldn't have noticed it if I didn't go back to reread. You don't really do that for people w
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Every person got SWE jobs in a bunch of cohorts was the thing that stood out yeah. It's quite inconsistent with three of my sources.
I have a ton of typos because I use voice to text and on my phone so I edit a lot of messages to reword but I agree with you to watch out on editing.
So the scope of what people say matters and how they say it.
If you say something is an option or observation then it's different from saying something is fact.
If you say something is a fact I will diligently review far more than if you say it's an opinion.
Many opinions that align can be useful even if it's not a fact based conclusion.
And sometimes one very specific fact.... like evidence Codesmith paid someone to go after me on Reddit can mean a heck of a lot even if its limited to a specific situation.
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
part 2: Dang. Sorry. haha. I didn't want to write this much - or for you to have to read it...
What's particularly interesting is that you seem to be holding bootcamps accountable for something that isn't really possible. You're essentially saying that the best way to get a job
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
yeah, we've had conversations in the past about people going to boot camps to learn rather than to get a job. unfortunately with the market right now, the people who are going to boot camps are people who have done a lot of research and are going to get a job.
like the people who are complaining to me so much about Codesmith right now is a mix of that. their teachers are recent graduates that don't know as much as they do because they were like super prepared and went there just to get a job. and then people who got a job or didn't get a job but are complaining that of way more people than expected in their cohorts did not get jobs yet and that they're very upset with the support they're getting, like cutting off mock interviews this month for alumni according to one person, something they promised for life.
like I hear so much about just one program because it's spiraled over the years and because they've pushed back so much it's resulted in more and more people just coming randomly to me out of the blue.
but this is a program that claims to be the best of the best and whose data showed that it was extremely strong during the good times. so it's a very good proxy to me of the whole industry.
but it's showing me that the argument that people should be going in with the right expectations might have been true when boot camps were really popular and people were going for all kinds of reasons and it was like hey hey go there for the right reasons. for right now for whoever's left who's going? they are going to absolutely get a job and I can't convince them otherwise.
u/keel_bright wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Man, I am impressed by your knowledge of bootcamp lore, im curious how you have such depth of insight.
I think it's _worse_ than "back to normal" now though. Im meeting so many kids from high tier CS schools not getting jobs. It's heartbreaking, especially because they are not o
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah, it's peak hiring season at Waterloo for summer co-ops! I ran a 48 hour hackathon at Waterloo for Meta, I didn't sleep, had my first alcoholic drink ever, and a student stole a Meta laptop, a witness saw it, and the employee hunted him down with the help of students to get it back.... ah the good old days.
Anyways:
1. I'm very serious about what I do and I'm extremely disciplined and rigorous. I've collected a lot of information from bootcamp grads over time (I work with a bunch of them later in their careers)
2. My partner ran a free in person bootcamp for 2 years and met a lot of bootcamp founders
3. I interviewed a lot of bootcamp grads at Meta when they were experimenting with bootcamp
4. I watch YouTube videos and Podcasts on Tech all day in the background and absord a ton of stuff
But the short answer is at Meta I felt like an outsider who didn't fit in and I found what I'm best at and I went all in on that, so this kind of thing is my jam.
u/MathmoKiwi wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
> Man, I am impressed by your knowledge of bootcamp lore. Im curious about how you know so much!
I'd imagine not just u/michaelnovati but simply *anybody* who has been around for a decade or two and has been having their eyes open observing the general market trends would come t
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah, I would say anyone at FAANG, heavily involved in hiring entry level talent, during the early 2010s would have a similar view for those eras.
The 2020s I think I have a bit more of a unique perspective by working with bootcamps from tons of bootcamps (specifically: Hack Reactor, FullStack Academy, Codesmith, Launch School, General Assembly, Flatiron School, Lambda School) I have a lens into a bunch of different programs and the strengths and weaknesses of people from bootcamps compared to degrees. As well as a unique view to compare bootcamp grads later in their careers VS cs grads.
u/NaranjaPollo wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Why did you feel like an outsider at meta?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm from Canada and I was always interested in programming from a young age, like 10. I saved up paper delivery money to buy a half broken laptop and people thought my interest in tech was a novelty or 'cute'. My parents literally refused to drive me to the store to buy it because they thought it was a waste of money. I tried to start like 5 "businesses" in my early teens, all around tech stuff, and people also thought it was 'cute' and patted me on the back.
I worked really hard in school, had really good grades, was #1 in high school, got into the hardest program in the country to get into (the Engineering Science sub-program within Engineering at UofT), I was #9 in college.
Then I show up at Facebook for my summer internship.
I was roomed with 4 CMU students. I talk fast and they all talked faster. They were just sitting around talking about algorithms and the most efficient ways to solve them. Some of them were top CMU students who competed for coveted TA'ships and were talking about how they earned it.
I barely understood half the things they were talking about.
Then I met more people from Stanford and MIT and it was similar vibe. The MIT people generally were hardware focused, one person was talking about how a dorm built a functioning rollercoaster illegally on their lawn as bonding moment with other MIT students.
I had nothing. I wasn't as smart as these people and being smart was my identity in Canada.
So I had to adapt.
What made me successful was actual my work ethic, speed, and determination. So I went ALL IN on that. I was indeed faster and worked harder than all of these people :D. So I found my success that way.
I realized that a top performing (like literally best in the world performing) team needs different superstars. Much like a professional basketball team. I had my role and I could be the best in the world at it and not feel bad for not being the smartest person or the tallest person.
u/PaintingOrdinary4610 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Your first era actually started even earlier. I went to a bootcamp in 2016 after being inspired by some of my startup coworkers who attended them in 2013-2014. It was a very niche thing at that point but absolutely a thing.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah Dev Bootcamp was 2012 right?
u/crimsonslaya wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Dude can't make one post without mentioning codesmith. lmao 🤣🤣🤣
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I edited to add Launch School. Believe it or not, I respect that Codesmith at least tries to publish consistent data on a consistent cadence and I didn't want to put it side by side with Launch School which makes Codesmith's placement rates look way worse.
The problem this is Launch School has every single graduate accounted for and a ghosting grad isn't included. Codesmith includes LinkedIn verified ghosters in their data.
What would you recommend I do, just only publish Launch School's in this case?
u/CoBuddha wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
gauntlet is finishing strong
im sure it won’t scale but it’s an interesting data point
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yeah I've been following it and I went from coin toss to "I think this can work by selecting for high IQ people who work insanely hard".
I think it's ultimately limited by the number of high IQ people who work really hard but there are probably enough of those people who want a path to jump into AI that this can work at least to some scale yeah.