DEVELOPING: Codesmith 2024 California Government Outcomes report is out today. Only 12% are placed within 6 months with reported salary (50% including 'no salary information available') but press release also out today says '85% to 90% placement rate within 12 months' 'CIRR verified' (no time frame)
DEVELOPING: Codesmith 2024 California Government Outcomes report is out today. Only 12% are placed within 6 months with reported salary (50% including 'no salary information available') but press release also out today says '85% to 90% placement rate within 12 months' 'CIRR verified' (no time frame)
SOURCE: [https://bppe.ca.gov/webapplications/annualReports/2024/document/98d87f0e-23c1-4af7-aabf-7c91d4ea7312](https://bppe.ca.gov/webapplications/annualReports/2024/document/98d87f0e-23c1-4af7-aabf-7c91d4ea7312)
I can't legally comment much on this so instead I ran it through a neutral AI with the following prompt:
"Summarize this document and compare it to information about Codesmith you can research and flag any good things and flag any concerning things. Summarize in 5 bullet points."
* **Completion is very high, but placement is not.** Codesmith’s Software Engineering Immersive shows **94–98% on-time graduation**, but only **42% (2023) to 50% (2024)** of graduates are **employed in-field within 6 months**, which is much lower than many people assume.
* **Public outcomes vs. regulatory outcomes use different clocks.** Codesmith’s marketing often cites \~**70% in-field placement within 12 months**, while the BPPE fact sheet uses a stricter **6-month window**—both can be true, but the gap matters for student risk and runway.
* **Salary data is largely missing.** **\~62–67% of employed-in-field graduates have no salary reported**, making salary distributions (including $100k+ claims) incomplete and not representative of the full cohort.
* **Some outcomes rely on non-standard employment.** A noticeable share of “employed in-field” roles are **self-employed/freelance or institutional (school-related) jobs**, which aren’t inherently bad but deserve scrutiny when evaluating job quality and durability.
* **Costs are high and financing is private-only.** Tuition is about **$19–20k**, **no federal student loans are available**, and newer programs (AI/ML, DS/ML) currently have **no outcome data**, increasing uncertainty.
This press release from today: [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/top-ranked-ai-training-company-brings-silicon-valley-excellence-to-washington-codesmith-selected-for-118m-irs-contract-302674440.html](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/top-ranked-ai-training-company-brings-silicon-valley-excellence-to-washington-codesmith-selected-for-118m-irs-contract-302674440.html)
Says "Federal selection followed rigorous evaluation of Codesmith's independently verified outcomes: 85-90% of graduates placed within 12 months, two-thirds promoted within three years, and an average starting salary of $130,000."
Something isn't adding up but I can't speculate or comment, I can just state as a fact that the numbers do not add up.
u/michaelnovati wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
SOURCE: https://bppe.ca.gov/webapplications/annualReports/2024/document/98d87f0e-23c1-4af7-aabf-7c91d4ea7312
I can't legally comment much on this so instead I ran it through a neutral AI with the following prompt:
"Summarize this document and compare it to information about Cod
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
I'm proactively commenting this because a number of Codesmith-adjacent accounts (staff, alumni, etc...) have been going after me this past week with no substance and referring to this article about me: [https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/](https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/)
I vehemently disagree with the conclusions the blog post comes up with and the examples used not being representative of the real discussion happening, or of both sides.
I think that any discussion that's not about the facts is a distraction from critical conversaion.
Now more than ever we need to be able to argue, debate and discuss facts without insulting me, name calling, threatening, harassing with nick names, and assuming my intentions.
**Discuss the facts, not the speculation about my intentions and motivations.**
u/lawschoolredux wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
While I will still wait for the 2025 graduate report which should be coming soon I imagine, I must admit that, As someone who was still hoping codesmith still has the goods in this climate, I am kinda wary of them from the aug24-jan25 data they posted on their site, because at no
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
The report that's coming out in April-ish is the 2024 report for CIRR, which includes nationwide students, not just California (which was about 200 students) and CIRR also has 12 month placement numbers.
The 'did not respond' rate for CIRR last year was similar to the 2023 CA report (about 40% did not) but this year's CA report had an increase in non responders.
So that's the number to watch.
This is a rough example, but if you have 100% students start, 90% graduate, 63% had jobs in a year, and 34% (of starters) approximately reported a salary.
So the 'median' salary of $110,000 includes about a third of the students, which is fine, but it's not a median salary of 'students' or of all 'graduates'. Since the data is pretty clear on this, if people feel like this representation of 'the typical grad makes $110,000' is reasonable then I think it's important to call out the qualification that this is of people who report and not remotely close to the median of all graduates.
u/michaelnovati wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The report that's coming out in April-ish is the 2024 report for CIRR, which includes nationwide students, not just California (which was about 200 students) and CIRR also has 12 month placement numbers.
The 'did not respond' rate for CIRR last year was similar to the 2023 CA re
u/michaelnovatireplied·
27 views from USA, UK, Ireland, New Zealand and a -6 downvote. Noted.
u/Real-Set-1210 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
And the 12% that get placed, are they in full time salaried swe jobs or just the usual internship to make LinkedIn look pretty?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I would guess that most of them are SWE jobs or SWE adjacent jobs (like Sales Engineer). Generally the people placed from Codesmith are solid placements. But if the vast majority of people aren't reachable to confirm the placement, it's hard to judge from LinkedIn alone.
My opinion is that I think the 12% are solid mostly SWE or SWE adjacent placements yeah, and you can see a good number of those in the $100K+ bucket in the report.
u/Real-Set-1210 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Hmmm I've seen bootcamps call "a full time job" as working for them as a tutor.
With me witnessing cohorts going with zero job placements, I can only express my extreme disgust that there is any type of encouragement in these bootcamps.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
In my opinion, these numbers wouldn't encourage me personally to go to a bootcamp, but it's also a fact that some people get SWE jobs via bootcamps as well.
The conditions are important. I agree on more transparency about what jobs, where and what backgrounds people is critical for any individual who is trying to figure out if they are one of the few it will work for.
However I have to be careful because Codesmith published an official press release on the wire that claims they have a "85% to 90%" placement rate of the "5000" graduates, "$130,000" "average" salaries, "all outcomes verified by by CIRR". So that has to be assumed as fact because stating incorrect information on a press release is a whole other can of worms to deal with.
So you can't make assumptions really.
u/Real-Set-1210 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yup. Man if only that sticky comment got pinned but hey I also enjoy saying "I told you so" lol.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I tell people that I'm a centrist so I can generally speak to everyone on all sides but then people on the extremes don't like me as much.
u/Humble_Warthog9711 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Even the so-called legit bootcamps will lie without reservation. In good times they just get more believable leeway to lie.
Color me unsurprised.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
There is no evidence anyone is lying because lying requires proof of intent and it's extremely hard to prove intent.
I have been accursed of all kinds of "intentions" on Reddit and I'm just one person, acting as an individual, and I can yell loudly what's in my head, but it's hard to prove that, and it's hard for someone else to prove my intentions when I'm just commenting from my brain directly too.
But yeah just be careful to conclude intentions or guess them and give people room to explain. If you disagree, disagree as a matter of opinion and not fact.
Unless you have conclusive evidence of intention to deceive.
u/starraven wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
For people to still be coming here asking about bootcamps daily/weekly shows how they relied solely on marketing without outcomes. It’s extremely difficult to be profitable if your graduates don’t get jobs. I get that. But to continue to lie to prospectives, gaslight students, an
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I think there are more evil things than that.
If a generic bootcamp were to try to encourage students to push the marketing narrative even farther and to encourage the community to silence fair criticism that tries to call attention and evaluate those claims.
u/Humble_Warthog9711 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
At this point I'm even very skeptical regarding their placement claims during the peak 2015-2020
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I mean there are anecdotal spreadsheets, and you can pull up GitHub and LinkedIns and get more insights.
The key thing I'm watching right now is the number of 'did not respond' entries. That used to be almost zero, which means that the data was based on most people's reported outcomes that got audited.
Things went downhill last year in 2023 and got worse in 2024 where that number skyrocketed. The first sign I called out was the H2 2022 numbers that were obfuscated into the full 2022 report with reverse engineering.
This number means that we have placements counted based on their LinkedIns. All those 'self employed' people could people people putting placeholders on their LinkedIns for all we know because there is no methodology on how LinkedIn verifications work.
I criticized CIRR about this and they updated the spec without changing this and instead just adding to the reasons allowed for excluding people from the counts (which favors bootcamps).
But look into it yourself. I feel like no one cares enough to do it and thinks it must take hours and hours and it's really just "simple" connecting the dots to me... maybe I'm not normal? haha.
u/Humble_Warthog9711 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Fair point
How about if I had to guess, id bet that someone lied along the way?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
People can say incorrect things with good intentions.
Problems happen in two cases:
1. You have bad intentions (these are the words like 'fraud', 'defamation')
2. You are negligent in verifying your statements. This one is trickier because people with good intentions might say false statements and not realize it. If you do that a few times and you promptly correct and you act in good faith... that's called being human. If you make the same mistakes or typos over and over and over despite being corrected in the past, or you repeat statements that a reasonable person doing reasonable research would not consider hard facts but you call them facts, then you start entering the gray area.
\#2 is most of Reddit. People who think they are right and they probably aren't. Bootcamps that make math mistakes and they didn't mean to.
The problems happen if you make math mistakes every time you publish numbers, and it's called out and you fix it and then you keep making math errors, then that could actually become negligent even if you didn't mean it to be.
u/TheWhitingFish wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
This guy won’t ever stop his vendetta on Codesmith. What a sad individual
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited★ FEATURED
Facts and accountability are foundational. You can troll all you want, but facts are the facts and your assumptions about my intentions are not facts.
The press release I quoted says that "Federal selection followed rigorous evaluation of Codesmith's independently verified outcomes: 85-90% of graduates placed within 12 months, two-thirds promoted within three years, and an average starting salary of $130,000. Unlike competitors, Codesmith relies entirely on word-of-mouth referrals rather than advertising, with all outcomes verified by the Council on Integrity in Results Reporting."
Website: "Codesmith has proven this thesis true with 5000+ alumni. 90% of graduates get hired within 12 months, most land leadership roles within big tech & AI labs and many directly contribute to the world’s largest open source projects"
**There is nothing at CIRR that says that 85 to 90% of the 5000 graduates got jobs in 12 months. And there is nothing in CIRR that is an "average salary", only median salaries and the latest one is $110,000.**
The official reports that Codesmith itself have published prove that that is not the case.
If you publish a press release without sources, without qualifiers, and the data can't be verified, that needs to be identified and it's a very serious thing to sort out.
u/Low-Cryptographer-64 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I developed [https://devlog.ist/](https://devlog.ist/) to help with this problem. Would you ike to work together?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I'm not personally in the bootcamp space or working on this problem so I'm the wrong person to ask.
Good luck!
u/TheWhitingFish wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
This guy won’t ever stop his vendetta on Codesmith. What a sad individual
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Is my comment factually right or wrong and stick to that?
If you going to continue to harass me after numerous warnings I may take action.
u/TheWhitingFish wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
You are very funny dude. So you can post and make comments on others, meanwhile I am not free to express my thoughts?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
You’re free to express your opinions.
That said, your comment history toward me consists largely of sarcastic remarks, name-calling, and repeated accusations of bad faith over an extended period of time. I don’t view that as substantive engagement.
I understand that some people in the Codesmith community strongly disagree with my tone or conclusions. That’s fine. What matters to me is whether the underlying facts, sources, or interpretations are wrong. To date, no one has meaningfully challenged those. Recently, I haven’t seen rebuttals of the data, alternative analyses or arguments to discuss, or disputes over methodology, only personal commentary.
I’m here specifically for fact-based discussion. If you believe something I’ve said is incorrect, misleading, or unsupported, I’m open to that conversation. Point out the specific issue and explain why it’s wrong, and I will review it and correct it if warranted. I’ve done that consistently, publicly and privately.
If you believe I’m mistaken, that’s understandable, everyone makes errors. I do my best to distinguish facts from opinions, to state my assumptions clearly, and to engage in good faith across all forums.
I’m here because criticism grounded in evidence shouldn’t be dismissed or silenced simply because it’s uncomfortable. Disagreement is healthy. Personal attacks aren’t a substitute for addressing the substance.
u/TheWhitingFish wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
After going through your comment history on codesmith, along with reading this article that the journalist and his team did a thorough analysis on you:
https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/
I came to conclusion that you indeed has a vendetta on codesmith.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
That person does not call himself a journalist, he calls himself a "marketer" and that is labelled as a "blog post" by the author.
You are just doing exactly what I stated you are doing that I perceive as harassment and you haven't pointed out what's factually wrong with my points.
u/TheWhitingFish wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
That is your opinion. My opinion is I standby that article. My position has also been legally reviewed too.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Please share any evidence that Lars has described himself as a *journalist* or that this piece has been presented by him as a *journalistic article*, rather than an opinion blog post.
Based on what I’ve seen so far, the piece appears to be a personal blog post, and third-party references (including platforms like Muck Rack) describe him as a blogger rather than a journalist. That distinction matters, as opinion commentary by a non-journalist is treated differently from reporting published as journalism.
If there are statements, bios, or representations where Lars explicitly characterizes himself as a journalist in connection with this post, I’d like to review them so we’re aligned on how the piece should be framed and evaluated.
Absent that, my understanding is that this should be treated as an opinion blog post, not a reported news article. If you have information that suggests otherwise, please share it.
u/TheWhitingFish wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I made the assumption that he’s a journalist base on how well written the article is with concrete proofs and timeline. Let us not focus on nitpicking the words and going off course which you certainly like to you whenever someone makes a negative comment about you.
I still stan
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Characterizing a negative piece as a journalist’s reporting when that characterization is inaccurate materially changes how it is received and can independently harm my reputation, regardless of the substance of the piece.