u/Disastrous-Speech-31 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I just wanted to share a small win, especially for anyone who’s been stuck in the endless loop of courses and tutorials. For a long time I kept paying for programs that sounded good on paper but never really led anywhere. A lot of theory, a lot of watching videos, and at the end
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Bootcamps work for a lot of people!
Look at CIRR data and the latest for Codesmith showed like 40% of people getting jobs within 6 months of graduating.
Launch School has like a 70% ish placement rate within 6 months.
These are the source of the massive negativity right now;
1. Trends are tanking and down. The trend is more important than the absolute numbers.
2. Salaries are down in these reports, despite inflation and SWE base salaries being up. This indicates more people taking worse jobs or tangential jobs instead of the SWE jobs.
3. Ghosts. Launch School doesn't have this problem but Codesmith's data shows about half the people NOT RESPONDING TO SALARY REQUESTS. Meaning that of the 100% of people who start, 90% graduate, 40% get a job, and 50% actually submitted a salary, so the "median graduate salary" for 6 months includes 18% of students. Historically far more people got placed, got higher salaries and reported their salaries, making the data very hard to compare.
4. More people who get jobs have strong networks OR related degrees OR tangential experience. The market is forking and people without these have less and less of a chance of getting a job. So posts that 'it worked for me' need qualification more than ever.
5. AI is completely flipping the market and the role on its head. You might have a job now but not in a year.
6. I spot checked recent graduates who have open source projects and placements seem even worse in 2025 than the public data above. Launch School says their data is about the same as 2024 so far. But all of the above isn't getting any better.