More CIRR H2 2021 results out! Codesmith included - with a lot to unpack! Overall lower placement rates and much higher salaries of those placed, and a few more fun things!

More CIRR H2 2021 results out! Codesmith included - with a lot to unpack! Overall lower placement rates and much higher salaries of those placed, and a few more fun things! Where to begin, so much interesting stuff in the part 2 CIRR results, focusing on Codesmith as it's the most interesting to this subreddit. Overall interesting notes (incomplete but tried to select a few things I found interesting): * By far the most interesting thing in East Coast (EC, formerly NY), salary growths were super large. Median is up to a WHOPPING $140K but more interestingly in H1: 18% of people had salary $140K+ and now \~52% of East Coast grads made $140K+, that's a massive shift! And similar to FTRI there is a dip to almost zero in $150 to $160K with \~20% in the $140K to $150K bucket and \~20% in the $160K+ bucket. So my hypothesis on this adding in my industry knowledge is that \~10 to 20 people got offers at Amazon/Capital One - who has high cash comp and was on a hiring rampage H2 2021 to H1 2022. Literally 5% of people were hired at Capital One as well based on the job titles reported. * On the other hand.... while East Coast grew like crazy in terms of salaries, West Coast remains flattish around $128K and very similar results to H1... Really curious to know this massive change in EC while flat WC. **I know everything is remote now, but there is no reason for WC to be so much lower than EC**... most of the $300K/$400K/$500K mega offers at Formation are WC based companies with WC located people (or people that move to WC). * Placement rates dropped a bit, somewhat as expected \~ 5% and graduation rates dropped a few percent but this isn't that huge of a drop. Why does this matter? Well presumably people who aren't placed are on the "lower salary" side of things. So if the zero experience market dropped off and the experienced placements were all the same, the overall numbers would go up without anything changing. * Specific note: % reporting salaries tanked for PTRI from 100% to 85%. So what this means is the percentage of people who were counted as a placement that ALSO reported their salary. Someone can count as a placement in CIRR even if they don't respond to surveys, if they can be confirmed as employed via LinkedIn. PTRI has a large growth in salary to $138K median, but it's missing 15% of placement's salaries so it's kind of meaningless.... if those placements were all low salaries (presumably they are if the people ghosted Codesmith) that would bring it back down to the old numbers. Future Predictions: * So these are people who graduated almost a year ago, it's a long time now. I think salaries in H1 2022 will be fairly similar to H2 2021, maybe a tad higher. Amazon and Capital are still hiring so I expect those base salaries to remain high... and hopefully the West Coast will catch up. * H1 2022 will start to see some people impacted by the recent market freezes. So while salaries should remain strong, percentage employed might drop 10% more. If people are taking lower paying jobs, then the percentage might stay ok, but with a bump in lower salaries. * The bar is getting higher and higher to enter as demand increases and number of spots increases less quickly. This will impact H2 2022 results. FTRI: [https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/fd518e03d92f46e5bddd5338656f888a/1/Codesmith%20Central%20Remote%20Immersive%20H2%202021.pdf](https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/fd518e03d92f46e5bddd5338656f888a/1/Codesmith%20Central%20Remote%20Immersive%20H2%202021.pdf) PTRI: [https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/d9ebbc1262f34ddcbe072ece08474441/1/Codesmith%20Part-Time%20Remote%20Immersive%20H2%202021.pdf](https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/d9ebbc1262f34ddcbe072ece08474441/1/Codesmith%20Part-Time%20Remote%20Immersive%20H2%202021.pdf) EAST COAST: [https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/a5eb9860d00545759690cb3008fc459e/1/Codesmith%20East%20Coast%20Remote%20Immersive%20H2%202021.pdf](https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/a5eb9860d00545759690cb3008fc459e/1/Codesmith%20East%20Coast%20Remote%20Immersive%20H2%202021.pdf) WEST COAST: [https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/e0e304b47f9543a2bad82d755cd889f2/1/Codesmith%20West%20Coast%20Remote%20Immersive%20H2%202021.pdf](https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/e0e304b47f9543a2bad82d755cd889f2/1/Codesmith%20West%20Coast%20Remote%20Immersive%20H2%202021.pdf) I might add more notes as discussion evolves. EDITS: From comment, breakdown of placement drops NY H12021: 94.7% graduation -> 89.4% placed in 180 days = 84.6% people starting getting placed NY H22021: 92.8% graduation -> 83.6% placed in 180 days = 77.5% people starting getting placed LA H12021: 94.8% graduation -> 85.2% placed in 180 days = 80.8% people starting getting placed LA H22021: 91.9% graduation -> 80.9% placed in 180 days = 74.3% people starting getting placed

It means that a lower percentage of people were placed within 180 days compared to last half. It's more reflective of the job market I think than Codesmith because it's not that much different. What it does mean is the salaries are of the people getting placed only. So higher salaries across a smaller number of people. NY H12021: 94.7% graduation -> 89.4% placed in 180 days = 84.6% people starting getting placed NY H22021: 92.8% graduation -> 83.6% placed in 180 days = 77.5% people starting getting placed LA H12021: 94.8% graduation -> 85.2% placed in 180 days = 80.8% people starting getting placed LA H22021: 91.9% graduation -> 80.9% placed in 180 days = 74.3% people starting getting placed

Ah yes, the CIRR ambiguity and you have to do some math on your own. So the only hard number is "Number of graduates included in the report: 91" The rest of the numbers are all percentages and honestly the numerators and denominators aren't specified super clearly in the reports. Even the CIRR spec isn't 100% clear. "Graduates included in report" in their worksheet is based on a column "Included in placement data?" which is an AND formula of 1. intended to get new job within 3 days of starting program and 2. has work authorization 3. "effective" graduation date was within the six months window of the report. So I'm interpreting that this actually means someone graduating late, might be included in a later report. So my formulas above are estimating when someone signs a contract what percentage graduated on time and then getting a job within the expected 180 days. Basically trying to estimate when someone starts on day 1, what percentage of people get a job on the expected timeframe they were projecting. But the reports are missing the raw data needed to get definitive answers I think. Do you think it would be more correct to just take the salary percentages directly off of the graduation number? I feel like this doesn't account for those who never graduated or graduated super late. Some people swear CIRR is the golden source of truth and yet they way they aggregate hides a lot of little nuances, a little bit hear and a little bit there.

CIRR's "percentage employed in 180 days" is accepted offers / graduated, correct. And is 100% misleading not accounting for people who don't graduate. As I said above, "Percentage of job obtainers who reported salaries" also lets you remove people from the salary counts, which still including them as placed. Why would this happen? I'm not accusing Codesmith of this, but Tech Elevator is 100% and I don't know why Codesmith is missing salaries for people counted as placements. My theory is people who ghost but can be confirmed as employed from trustworthy data.

Yeah definitely would love to know who has experience going in versus no experience. They continue to raise the entrance bar to people who know recursion, OOP, etc... I'm also curious because I thought they are a bootcamp for people starting at a low level.

Interesting yeah we will have to wait until a year from now to see haha

I think it's very unlikely they will sell. They have a good thing going and are printing money right now because it's 100% upfront. They have about 80 former students on staff who are paid like 50K a year or with gift cards and have scaled that very well. I think the only risk is if they scale too large or too broad. They benefit from being very selective and their weaker students don't have as much success. So they will either have a cap on how many people meet their bar, or they will have to invest in training people beforehand to get them to the bar. I also think it's a risk that someone catches on to the exaggerated work experience issue. I haven't talked to one non Codesmith industry person who thinks that's ok and if they get large enough and people catch on it may not work anymore. I know this is controversial. They are experimenting with a machine learning cohort and we'll see how that does!

+1, when you are full at capacity and people don't want it, you have to prioritize your time spent

I'm including alumni who do part time instruction in there too, and alumni who do mock interviews for free or gift cards (that number might be much higher actually) Going off the about page. But there are also several people on LinkedIn who claim to work at Codesmith not on the about page so no idea how large this number is.

I agree that I should be more precise and appreciate the pushback and I did a deeper dive. A larger problem is most big tech do not allow you to have another W2 job in the tech field because their contracts cover all your IP created in the tech space and the OTHER W2 job usually has a similar contract and hence the conflict. Agree on 52 Fellows, 3 months W-2 @ $1K per week. 17 prep instructors who have full time jobs elsewhere (I don't know the compensation, it's not gift cards but I don't what it is and I would somewhat expect it to be something hourly yeah, I shouldn't bucket them into the 50K a year - I just don't know but I didn't think it was equivalent to the full time instructors and have ZERO basis to believe it's lower, just guess) 15 engineering mentors who have full time jobs elsewhere (these are the people who I thought were not paid W-2 but paid with gift cards - or equivalent) for helping. Maybe they are on payroll too? 8 hiring support engineers who have full time jobs elsewhere (my understanding is this job is like a Fellow but for the career side only, so again assuming it's paid at a lower rate or with gift cards as well) 7 technical interviews who I thought are people paid in gift cards but I know a lot of non-listed people doing this, so maybe these 7 people are paid cash more consistently and the others are gift cards off the books. But I assume the rate is somewhat similar and lower. So that's where I got the \~80 number from (it's 99 rounding down because I'm assuming some of these people are paid higher in more involved roles and a small number are not alumni... I'm making a lot of assumptions and again appreciate the pushback to call them out) There are also 34 people who are instructors, including the 17 prep ones above, but I'm assuming the other 17 non-prep instructors are more likely paid higher and didn't think about them in that that statement but maybe they are as a lot of them seem to have full time jobs So of the 163 staff listed, approximately 116 are Codesmith graduates either working at Codesmith or working in industry and part time involvement. I still maintain that like having more of a balance of previous students and industry people would be better. But if they hired people from the outside that were really strong that would drastically increase costs and would be much harder to control the delivery of teaching materials (which they care about a ton) So fellows alone lets say it's perpetually 50 fellows. 50K \* 50 = $2.5M of salaries. These are "$120K engineers" doing this work, so replacing them with outside people at $120K is $6M a year. I don't want to make more assumptions about all the part time people but if there is a similar savings this adds up. If you have 1000 students a year = $20M of revenue. That $3.5M in savings is 17.5% of margins alone. Instead that can be used to reinvest in improving and growing Codesmith, hence why I call it a massive advantage.

Sure, so people are reporting the entrance bar getting more selective. For example, basic recursion is required, and OOP is required. So there are a fixed number of slots, and presumably more applicants than can fit, so they are choosing stronger and stronger applicants. They have added an in person cohort and have 4 cohorts now on a 7 week cycle. So they have been adding capacity, but presumably not as fast to server everyone. So what this means is the incoming people will be more experienced and stronger than in the past, and will get better outcomes - both speed to outcome and compensation.