Codesmith Pre-Course Prep... Starting from 0? And Codesmith prestige?

RE: Outcomes. Combo of all three yeah and with a fourth important factor. 1. NY + SF matters, remote salaries have been good too but this still a factor 2. Roughly "a third" (Codesmith's words) of people have prior experience such as a CS degree or industry experience. Yes this matters a lot. Especially those with prior experience. 3. Alumni network isn't so much "better" but more committed. Hack Reactors is fantastic, Hackbright's is also fantastic, but their network is very engaged. 50+ of their current employees are people who just graduated Codesmith and they have a fervent following and support from alumni that is possibly unmatched. Very helpful and caring alumni! 4. The exaggerated work experience + "just ask for "$150K" negotiation strategy. This is very effective at helping people land higher salaries. Many companies recognize Codesmith projects on resumes and put them in the bootcamp bucket, but the ones that don't and see some "work experience", have budget for low-mid six figure engineers, and then get told "I'm expecting $150K" from the candidate. They might still end up offering $125K instead but something fairly high. I don't know any other programs that do this strategy but it's quite effective.

No! It's probably dozens of things but that is one of them. Codesmith alumni I've worked with are very well rounded and strong, solid engineers and good at talking too, under all the right circumstances, it can be the difference between a $105K job and a $125K job though.