About CodeSmith

cc: u/Yak_Overflow as well, RE: ISAs. I can give my perspective on ISAs in general (they aren't unique to coding bootcamps), this might be a bit long and boring but it's a very interesting topic and a lot of ISAs are full of problems. TRANSPARENT DISCLOSURE: I am the co-founder of a non-bootcamp training and mentoring program that successfully offers ISAs. "Scam" is a strong word, but most bootcamps that offered ISAs have stopped offering them because they are absolutely terrible for the company, especially when a lot of bootcamps don't have great placement rates. Lambda School (BloomTech) used to be a pioneer of ISAs and recently stopped offering them. About 50% of people who start BloomTech get a job within 6 months of graduating, so 8 months + 6 months = 14 months for HALF of the people that started to even START paying for their education. Meanwhile BloomTech has to pay its staff and for its operations. It's a really bad model. So these programs resort to financing their ISAs and borrowing money against them. But then if only 50% of people who sign one get a job, the banks aren't exactly willing to give a lot of money upfront for the ISAs. And quickly things fall apart. We've used ISAs successfully, as does Pathrise, and Outco.. The reason it works for these companies is that they work with people **until they get a job** and the entire program is built around efficiently accomplishing that. So you sign an ISA, you don't pay anything, you take whatever time it takes, then you get a job and you can always pay the ISA! The only way this fails is if someone gives up on their job hunt and leaves a program early and gives up on job hunting. Overall, this is great incentive alignment and when your work with people who are hirable and you help them get a job, the ISA model actually works. If I were going to a bootcamp that doesn't have this kind of "work with you until you get a job" aspect (genuinely and not just saying that in their marketing), I would strongly advise people to not get an ISA, because you should see the bootcamp as paying for education and the time the school is spending training you, rather than a magical way of getting a job guarantee. I've only heard of one company (a school) offering an ISA requiring HR/payroll to be involved, which is absurd in my opinion and would make a company run for the hills. An ISA is a private contract between two people so if that is part of an ISA agreement I would run away fast. There is pretty good discussion about ISAs here as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/uf1ksg/isas\_and\_a\_lot\_of\_bootcamps\_are\_usually\_a\_scam/ I have more to say if people want to hear it, but that's a quite summary of when ISAs work and when ISAs don't work.