They have not been transparent at all in explaining the problem at all and shame on them. Their founder would rather choose now to call me on LinkedIn instead of doing anything about the problem.
They made a number of failures but the length and escalation of the outage are consistent with the problem being that someone else's identity is on the AWS account and without their cooperation it could be impossible to get it back.
Instead of dealing with this like a real company would, they have had zero mitigation plans. Zero communications in a week after repeatedly saying they will get access back soon.
Zero ownership of the problem.
Icing on the cake is they have this fake account manipulating the arguments I'm having with them on LinkedIn and whoever is responsible will probably get their real LinkedIn suspended too.
It's indeed a disaster at a time when they were already on thin ice.
u/Visible_Turnover3952 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
What’s on the cover of their home page right now
u/michaelnovatireplied·
That person is a troll account that only comments the opposite of the truth for fun.
u/metalreflectslime wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>Director of Programs, Academics & Outcomes
Is this Annie? If not, who is this person?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Yes Annie left today. There are no leaders left except the new CEO.
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I don’t know exactly how their site is structured - maybe Zoom, dashboards, and databases are all tightly coupled? (maybe a student can weigh in) - but even then, you could throw the marketing pages on a new host in a few hours. Even if student data was temporarily out of sync, a
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
It took them 4 DAYS (which is absolutely absurd) to relaunch their marketing page on their previous temporary domain yeah. It's a .dev which AWS doesn't support so must be registered somewhere else.
But they should have fully moved over to a new domain on day 1, put the issue loud and clear there to explain, and redirect all inbound organic links at their source (or change url redirecting services) to point to the new domain.
I can't state enough how much incompetence is being demonstrated here.
I made a list and it was 15 things they did wrong and I wasn't even done and I gave up because it was just like so ridiculous.
Codesmith is done. Even if they get the domain back there is zero they can do to rebuild credibility now.
I even called them out on DAY ONE and pushed them to make a report of what happend.
The "report" was a set of MARKETING SLIDES that didn't explain at all what happened transparently.
They kept saying it will be back in hours, in a few days, in several more days, .... EIGHT DAYS OF SILENCE SINCE THE LAST NOTICE.
No engineer will every take them seriously ever again - so they are done.
If they don't gracefully shutdown then the rest of their staff will depart and they will implode and have class action lawsuits from students and none of the executives will be hireable ever again.
u/webdev-dreamer wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Nah, its all good. Just some AWS shenanigans
Their site is up here: https://www.become-irreplaceable.dev/
Doomer posts, begone!
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
1. CSX is not there
2. This is not AWS shenanigans whatsoever. Whatever drug your on, where can I get some, I've been having a rough week and need some delusional juice.
It's 100% their fault
1. Using a phone number for 2 fac
2. Not having other 2 fac backup options
3. Losing the phone number 8 years ago
4. Not having a monitored email on the account
5. Not updating a credit card for apparently 8 years because they haven't logged in for 8 years?
6. Not have multiple backup payment options provided (AWS allows for many)
7. Not having proper information on the account to recover it
8. Not separating accounts and systems for separation of concerns.
If they did ANY ONE OF THESE THINGS, they would not lose their account.
That is SHEER INCOMPETENCE and not AWS shenanigans.
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
\> there is zero they can do to rebuild credibility now.
I'm not sure if most people are really aware / or able to even gage credibility - are they? Doesn't seem like it to me...
\> they have ZERO IP of value in their program
I was thinking -- they could just send out an emai
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
If I was Will, I would have posted this on day 1:
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
"Codesmith community. I'm deeply sorry and I let you down. We have been so focused on delivering value to the community we make a rookie mistake with keeping our AWS account up to day, and we lost access. Not only did we lose access, but the our website, email, and all backend services are down as well. We don't know when we will regain access, and we will communicate daily updates.
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
In the meantime, we purchased [codesmith.org](http://codesmith.org) \[it's available for $10K\] and we will be moving our operations there ASAP, keep an out for more about that.
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
Most importantly, we are conducting a thorough activity log of what happened and what we will do to change our engineering team to prevent it from happening again. We will be having three industry experts review the report, comment, and release it publicly with the set of steps we will take. Then we will follow up in 30 days with an auditor sign off that we completed the steps
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
I again want to deeply apologize because this shouldn't have happened and it's my fault. I want to make sure that the rest of the team isn't penalized for my mistakes and I take full responsibility.
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
Our team is here to support you in your journeys and we will continue to do everything we can to make that happen at the quality bar we strive to deliver."
==== HYPOTHETICAL MESSAGE - NOT A REAL POST ====
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
[tempcodesmith.net](http://tempcodesmith.net) is probably $12 too ; )
u/michaelnovatireplied·
[codsmith.com](http://codsmith.com) is available if they want a fish theme
and [cultsmith.com](http://cultsmith.com) if they want to go a different direction.
u/buttholewax wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy
This is Codesmith 3 years ago when I started sounding the alarms on this stuff.
https://preview.redd.it/wyv9hard7igf1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=b0e0ce6521b45ff7f17fa24ddd5167ff5467fee0
u/portugese_fruit wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
So Alina is the only person left in the entire leadership? Even Phil Troutman left? and Will is hands off?
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
1. Alina is CEO
2. Phil left almost a year ago
3. Eric K is still there as an advisor
4. Will is doing a visiting fellow program at Oxford so he's still involved but not in the same way as before.
5. There are only 4 full time admin team left: admissions person, program manager, events person, outcomes person + Alina
6. All of the instructors are recent Codesmith grads, most within months, and one about a year. No more head instructors or senior lead engineers to head of engineering or CTO etc..
I did criticize them a year ago that they had like 6 directors and needed 1, but I didn't expect them to go down to 0.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I received a tip that Codesmith claims that they are making progress and expect access very soon.
My understanding is that they successfully removed the 8 year old phone number from the account, however they can't login or recover it yet and have to proceed with account recovery.
No matter what they tell you - keep in my that this is not normal.
If you have an account properly in your name and company, you should be able to recover it in fewer steps with proper identification.
My suspicion os the account is not setup properly and they cannot restore access based on the name/ownership and they are trying to get back in via creative approaches.
For example, by proving they pay the bills and that the two factor phone number is invalid and getting it removed, it removes one of the hurdles, but if they can't get access to the email address on the account, and someone else's name is on the account, then it might take a very long time.
No one would have to speculate if Codesmith transparently explained what was happening and the fact that it's not clear is proof that they are not being transparent.
The fact that they tell you are they are being transparent when they aren't, is what makes me so upset.
u/portugese_fruit wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
have they lost teachers as well? How long do you think till it's house of cards time ?
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
1. Well a lot of the more tenured teachers resigned or were laid off recently. They then promoted newer people and filed out the rest with people who just graduated.
2. Well Codesmith is saying they are getting access back soon and that seems to be at least 24 hours ago now... so... these people clearly have no idea what they are doing and what's going on. It's kind of sad that I've been calling them "delusional" for years and they are showing that to the entire public about getting their AWS account back - they don't understand the magnitude of what happened.
To me Codesmith is dead and it's because they haven't APOLOGIZED ONCE for this. No responsibility.
I'm shocked anyone calling themselves an engineer would support their behavior right now.
u/portugese_fruit wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yeah, that makes sense.
\>>>no secret how embarrassingly bad their infrastructure was AND how unaware their team was in even understanding it and what was going on.
Wait so no one was like let's do a large scale refactor, we have several glaring issues we need to take care of?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Nope, I've been telling them about problems publicly and privately for years. They have problems with their platform, whenever it comes back, that a credible org would never allow to be live and they shouldn't turn it back on even if they get their domain back.
I can't speak to what happens inside Codesmith, but people who have worked there have told me they have complained about it. They had a code freeze for a year or something because they had no competent engineering leader so none of the "engineers" that worked at Codesmith during that time actually did anything.
Some of the issues I pointed out it took them several attempts to fix after repeatedly telling me they were fixed each time.
I know my tone is extremely offensive to them so I see why they act defensively instead of open minded to it, but seriously, I got this way because the sheer incompetence breeding incompetence breeding incompetence is crazy.
I truly thought their new CEO would change things but she hasn't apologized either.
People in the community think this is AWS's fault instead of their own fault.
Instead of apologizing, their founder been posting all over LinkedIn, passive aggressively tagging investors, encouraging people to go after me by liking their provably false comments and tagging more Codesmith loyalists on the comments. Supporting people mocking my appearance.
He has no idea that I get most of my information from things he's shared himself and the guy needs to exit tech and move into something else he's good at - like teaching. He's great at teaching and lecturing. He should do that and stop pretending to be a tech leader.
u/Fool-Frame wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
DSA is part of the core curriculum, at least when I went. We did LC every day.
Also of the people from my cohort that got hired, probably only half of us had to do LC as an interview round, so idk.
I don’t recommend Codesmith any more, for what it’s worth. I graduated end of
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
There are a few days of DS&A. I'm possibly one of the industry experts in DS&A and it's laughable to call that sufficient. It's the equivalent of a "sneak peak" without even really getting started.
The idea of hack hours is great, but they are a waste of time because it's you and recent alumni going over problems and no true expert guidance.
So you are wasting your time.
People who have a natural affinity for DS&A don't need this and would be much better off NOT paying $22,500 and learning on their own.
I really wish I could articulate this more - so many things at Codesmith are about putting on the appearance of something legit and I get where their DS&A motivations come from they have to acknowledge how much it sucks.
Instead they celebrate it as the reason people get great jobs.
I've spent SO MANY YEARS really studying all aspects of Codesmith - I know more about it than their current CEO.
There are three factors and only three factors that resulted in their outcomes:
1. Smart and ambitious people
2. Who lie on their resumes (from minor lies to major ones)
3. ... and take advantage of supply-demand imbalance that completely ended in 2023
\-----
Now we're seeing:
1. Lower bar to entrance, removing several layers so people can enter much more quickly
2. Even larger resume exaggerations.
3. And zero market opportunities.
From my very well informed math, there are in the dozens of people placed so far in 2025, down from hundreds.
Their website being down for now 15+ days and them being delusional about the timeframe. It's been 36 hours or so since they said they are getting it back really soon with only one small hurdle to go.
Down to the very end, they are still twisting and misrepresenting the truth.
I'll bring my tone down a notch when they apologize for this mess - which they have yet to do once.
u/Fool-Frame wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I love you you can’t say anything remotely even possibly conceived as a positive regarding Codesmith, (which isn’t even something I was trying to do), without triggering Michael to write a novel.
Sorry dude I’m not reading all that.
Honestly dude I have been seeing you rip on
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
This is what I do all day. I spend ridiculously little time on Codesmith: [https://github.com/mnovati](https://github.com/mnovati)
I explained everything to their new CEO in a video call a few months ago and told her face to face the full truth from my mouth.
Their founder keeps going around perpetuating false narratives, paying people to post on Reddit, encouraging people to mock my appearance, some fake LinkedIn account is now in on the game.
Like I'm angry but I'm right and even though I'm just me, I'm not going to tolerate any bullying from the "team" as they call it.
u/Fool-Frame wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I stand by what I said. Just let it go dude.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I told Codesmith's CEO I would let it go if they apologized publicly and I said I would apologize for my tone publicly. They declined.
u/TheWhitingFish wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I dont think he will let go. I’ve been following the bootcamp thread and see that the number of posts he write about codesmith and the number of words he wrote for the past 3 years is insane. It’s like codesmith killed his entire family or something and that he wanted to revenge
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I don't want 'revenge', why do you think that?
I'm pissed off because their leaders have been gaslighting me for years and now that their website/email/AWS is down for like 3 weeks almost and counting, you all can see what kind of garbage was going on behind the scenes too.
I'm frustrated that their leaders don't acknowledge problems or issues and they have been driving their business into the ground and it pains me to see that impact the people who pay $22,500 to go there.
u/TheWhitingFish wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Because you’ve continuously bad mouth codesmith for 3 years. If it wasn’t for revenge, i couldn’t think of any other reasons. I like to see you try not talking about codesmith at all (good or bad) for 3 straight months, but i doubt that will ever happen.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
You realize I recommended people go there until Feb 2024 and they had massive layoffs and cutback their cohorts like 67%. And even then I paused my recommendation and didn't remove it.
Things got bad at the end of 2024 and I removed my recommendation entirely.
There's a lot going on here.
u/Fool-Frame wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yeah. Like I said I am not an advocate for Codesmith and it is fucking shameful that their website is STILL down.
But like god damn it’s sad to see Michael spending so much effort on just saying the same stuff over and over. I really don’t get it.
Imagine being him, relativel
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I spend very very little time on Codesmith. It might appear that way but it's all relative. Instead of assuming I'm spending a lot of time on it, try just imagining how much code I'm writing on a daily basis.
Like other than a couple of threads that blew up, I'm genuinely not spendong s lot of time here relatively speaking.
I use a lot of voice to text a lot too while causally walking around which is why I have so many typos and edits.
u/smells_serious wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Your account is 19 days old and I know for a fact that you needed to go WAAAAY back in my history to know about anything I've said about Codesmith.
Or the burner acct doesn't reflect your commitment to the "battle against Codesmith"™ and you are a lifer with a memory of an eleph
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Many new accounts get flagged yeah but some are like hard removed and some are just flagged.
I pay close attention to new accounts that we allow to post.