Uhh so this one is kind of funny but it is part of it. They obviously ask to confirm salaries and offer letters but they do check LinkedIn.
This is direct from the 2020 LA CIRR Report for Codesmith:
>Direct request of confirmation from Graduates regarding Employment outcomes and observation of LinkedIn profiles (the population was divided based on reported Salary quartiles, parameters were linked to stats which make up the report and students with salaries falling in a range determined to significantly affect stats whether directly or indirectly were included in sample).
[https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/eb6e615ccddf47e9a891a9c69f223025/1/Codesmith%20Los%20Angeles%20Full-Stack%20Software%20Development%20Audited-AUP%20H2%202020.pdf](https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf2047/r/eb6e615ccddf47e9a891a9c69f223025/1/Codesmith%20Los%20A…
\+1 to the 1-3 month out thing comment, you need to wait for six months and not hearing anything for 1-3 months means nothing. They can collect data throughout though and not just at the 6 month mark, and there is a process for documenting this data. I believe Codesmith has an internal spreadsheet to properly log the information that is easily auditable.
I'm curious if you know anything about the "if you fail the test you can be excluded". I'm trying to defend Codesmith in this thread that this is probably some misunderstanding, and even if it was done, that it wouldn't be a big impact but it would be sketchy, but since you work at Codesmith, do you have a response or more information about that or don't know what this is about?
I just took a peek at these sections of the CIRR standards and even if they can't "contact someone" (and they have to try FOUR TIMES to classify as non-responsive) then they can't be removed from the report, they just count as not contactable. So people who are not asked to fill out the surveys should still be included in the report.
The school has to submit a list of students on day 3 to the auditors to avoid students being removed from the lists later on.
So if this is is happening, my hunch is these people are just considered "not graduated". One of the weaknesses of CIRR is that the salaries are based on PEOPLE WHO ARE EMPLOYED. So the median of $125K is of the people who reported and are employed. The 20% of other people at $0 salaries who either didn't graduate OR didn't get a job, are not included in that stat.
So my hunch is there isn't something fraudulent going on and that t…
Yeah sounds like Codesmith or Rithm or another top bootcamps could be a good fit. If you can do full time, do full time... it will be intense for a few months but you'll get a job much faster than 9 plus 3-6 months.
If the workload and hours are just so bad that it would be detrimental to your personal life, then yeah look at full time with better WLB, like Rithm is a great one.
Hi, what is your background and current programming experience, what is your current job and are you working, and what kinds of companies are you aiming for?
I can give better advice based on that. If you have the time to do full time and just don't know about the workload, I would definitely look for a different bootcamp that is still full time but less workload.
I also recommend Codesmith to a lot of people (not as the ONLY option but as an option to consider, I think Rithm school is probably the most ethical bootcamp and the founders are just such great people) and I get a lot of flak from the "army of Codesmith supporters" anytime I say anything that could be interpreted negatively. Some of the people are actually undisclosed Codesmith employees too and I ignore it haha... that's what Reddit's all about! But anyways I'll be around with my real name and pros-and-cons points of view.
Hi! Sorry which figures are you referring to?
The numbers I mentioned above are for Formation, which isn't a bootcamp and is a personal trainer/career accelerator (in the same bucket as Interview Kickstart, Outco, Pathrise, Scalar). But it was meant as an example to show how much experience matters.
So I can speak for Formation that we work with people aiming for truly top tier companies that compensate very highly. [Levels.fyi](https://Levels.fyi) has some examples, and most people we work with are at the E3/E4/E5 level for FB/Google ([https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook&track=Software%20Engineer](https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Facebook&track=Software%20Engineer)).
I don't think that's a complete answer necessarily but happy to explain more!
The numbers I mentioned for Codesmith are available here: https://cirr.org/data
Specifically:
https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328…
hey! so this gets way too complicated to comment on Reddit, you can pull things out of context but this is like the topic of a multi hour long seminary or something. Let me throw a couple of things in here:
1. Having a good fit in your job and being at a very strong company will have more impact on your career than getting paid more in your first job. If you are choosing between a 2nd tier and 3rd tier job and one pays more, that difference in company is less important than going to a top tier company.
2. So once people are in a job there's a lot more going on that can impact trajectory, more training, more programs, more friends, etc.... so you can get the data, but it doesn't mean much. I haven't seen career tracking data other than Codesmith published a report of "where are they now" that has salary data from like 60 or something people from 3 to 5 years ago. The methodology didn'…
We don't have a curriculum but you get personal weekly training from us until you start your new job (or sign the offer to start that job). Afterwards you get access to chat, your past activity, and invited to some future one-off events. If you want to get another job in the future, you have to start again from scratch based on your new goals and new starting point.
You can apply if you authorized to work in the USA, Canada, Australia currently, including H1B and OPT (if you have 2+ years left). If you don't have an H1B we can't support you at this time.
There is no best or second best bootcamps objectively. You should talk to people at the bootcamps to figure out what is the best fit for you and how people of similar backgrounds do.
1. Codesmith. Great for ambitious people who work hard. People come in at a high bar. Alumni network is strong and supportive.
2. Rithm. Great intimate experience where the founders and leadership strongly believe in directly teaching students rather than scaling and growing.
3. Launch School. Self paced month to month and aiming to get into the Capstone path, which is more intense with strong outcomes.
4. Hack Reactor. Strong all around. Very strong alumni network of people a few years down the road.
5. Hackbright and Ada Academy: these focus on specific demographics. Tech is fairly male-dominated and some people might learn better in a more diverse environment.
Now separate topic, CIRR results because it…
People can and do study on their own yeah, there isn't one solution for everyone.
So I can only speak for Formation which is even unique amongst those competitors. But the reasons it adds value are:
1. Every week we create a schedule of 3-5 person or 1-1 sessions and tasks (pulled from thousands we have created) that is all based on your progress and what you need to work on that week. We asses you with tests, mentor feedback, self-reporting, etc... and create a new plan every week. Most of our people who get jobs at Google don't cram LC and study very efficiently.
2. Extremely strong mentors. You get to work directly several times a week, in 3-5 sessions or 1-1 sessions with staff engineers at Airbnb, principal engineers at Reddit, and dozens of people like this. Most of the competitors have recorded videos and sessions with 150 people that are not intimate at all.
3. Network, referr…
We are not focused on TC and don't really care about it as a primary driver. But we did update our stats this week if you want to see TC results, our AVERAGE person with 1-2 years experiences has an AVERAGE TC of $180K (which even excludes private stock and options which we do estimate in individual offers to help people make decisions but not in our published stats so they can be bulletproof). If TC is your driver and you are making 150TC it might still be useful to level up to above the average in the $200K/$300Ks but it depends on your and your goals.
We are primarily focused on getting peoples skills up to a top tier bar and helping them find the right companies for them that launch and accelerate their careers. We don't really care what your TC is now, because if you find the right place your impact on the company will be crazy and your TC will just happen to be astronomical as a r…
The ones I mentioned are all similar in that they tend to work with people who have jobs (or are "employable" already) and help them get better jobs.
Whether it is needed or not is a personal decision based on your goals and motivations and what works for you. For many it's not needed.
I don't know Scalar specifically and how they work internally, so maybe it's not as good as Formation, but I feel like Formation is very valuable if you need the services we offer. I use the "personal trainer" analogy a lot for fitness and getting in shape. For some people it's useful and some it's not. At Formation, we're building out a platform and methodology that we think will work for a very wide range of people, and eventually different price points. If we can't deliver value to people, our company shouldn't exist.
Oh to me this is a more of a paperwork/marketing type discussion, individual results vary and Codesmith is one of the top bootcamps undisputedly so you shouldn't freak out. You should always talk to people who did and are doing the program and make sure the day to day is a good fit and that your goals are aligned.
Like Codesmith people get jobs and they get good jobs compared to the other bootcamp options, like I cannot fathom that a significant number of people are excluded from CIRR and that there is a big secret coverup.
I just want to know the mechanics of this because I love diving into CIRR and working the numbers. I'm a person who memorized cereal box nutritional labels and baseball card stats and stuff as a kid :D
Wait so they can choose to "not ask you to fill our their CIRR", as in they like "accidentally forget to email you" wink-wink?
I mean to be completely transparent, I've heard of some sketchy things that OTHER BOOTCAMPS do, but the threats, personal insults, and backchannel badmouthing I've gotten from Codesmith employees, alumni, and students when I even talking about the pros and cons of the CIRR results is pretty crazy if this is the case and it's systematic.
Are you sure this isn't a one-off or anecdotal? Or if you have any proof or evidence can you DM me? Or report it to CIRR possibly would be a better action.
Can you explain the CIRR thing a bit more? I've heard this thing about Codesmith excluding people from CIRR for failing tests from three people now but the people didn't fully explain or know the details. CIRR doesn't have provisions for excluding people for not passing tests). I did notice that their "graduates included in reports" on CIRR is lower than number of cohorts graduating times 35 (I don't know enough about their logistics and could be wrong here but people have said every cohort is full and waitlisted) but it did seem like people are missing, but they could also be people dropping out right or not choosing to answer the CIRR questionnaire?
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hi there, I'm the co-founder of Formation, and feel free to ping me with your name/email if you want some more advice on areas to work on. Our bar is high and our assessment process is hard and you shouldn't feel bad. I want to reiterate that most people we work with (70%+ as of our last count) have worked for at least a year in SWE jobs so it should be expected to be hard as a bootcamp grad.
Our assessment is not an objective test so much as it's meant to help us pattern match you against other people we've worked with. We want to get a baseline of where you are at, and based on a meeting about your goals, if we can get you to where you want to go. If you got a perfect score you might not even need our help!
Anyways feel free to reach out regardless with maybe your LinkedIn and a little more info and I can try to give you some more advice!
I'm curious to hear CS students and alumni stance on this from the inside.
I can speak to the broader market and economy. It's quite an interesting time. Salaries and hiring were hot for the past 3 months and things are definitely freezing up right now. Two months ago, Google outreached to bootcamp grads inviting them to interview, getting inundated with thousands of applicants, and now Google is freezing hiring and reshuffling priorities and some people think there will be fewer L3 slots - yet to be determined. The companies that are hiring are aware of the "FAANG-Freeze" and are not negotiating as much and they have more leverage. I'm also seeing some interviews get cancelled or offers being "delayed" out of hesitation, and this can be demoralizing if you are super close to a dream offer and it gets put on ice. So regardless of the result - be ready for a potentially rougher time.
Th…
Sorry kind of replying to the whole thread here.
This is a normal thing I've heard too. I know alumni who felt similarly even during OSP. If you are open about it you get a "trust the Codesmith way, it worked for alumni" response and that has motivated people to keep going as they see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Throughout your career you'll feel overwhelmed a lot. Admitting it means you are open minded to learning. When senior engineers feel this way they sometimes fall back to what they know, even if it's not the best solution for a new problem.
I'm biased (no bootcamp, eng degree, ex FB 8 years, run career accelerator program) but I strongly believe in learning the fundmamentals rather than any specific technologies, or memorizing DS&A.
You want to be like a handy person that can do a heck of lot with a couple of beat up old tools by being just knowing all the different wa…
I don't think Codesmith is a notch above the rest, but it's absolutely one of the top bootcamps to consider. I've posted before about the reasons for why they effective relative to other top bootcamps but to repeat:
1. Higher barrier of entry, similar to how ivy league schools have good outcomes, the entry bar matters. It's not the only reason obviously, and the teaching has to be great, but it's a factor.
2. Codesmith resumes are crafted to turn 12 weeks (full time) of curriculum into a resume that looks like someone with about 1 year of work experience, and omitting Codesmith from the resume, which helps get more interviews than other bootcamp grads as their resumes appear strong. This is a more controversial point. Some people see this as misleading, others see it as a means to an ends as long as you can do well on the job. You'll find extremely strong opinions on both sides on Reddi…
Hi, I lived in Regina for four years so stopping by to say hello! I have an engineering degree, went to Facebook in the US out of school in 2009. I know a lot about American bootcamps, not so much about Canadian bootcamps, but I can try to help.
Since you have an CS masters you should be able to get a TN visa status and work anywhere in the US as an individual contributor engineer.
Another route could be working for "FAANG" in Canada first and transferring.
It's a bit of a wonky time to only target FAANG but it's certainly possible to get a FAANG job in the USA with a CS masters if you can get interviews and then pass the interviews (which are hard)
I wouldn't do a bootcamp at this point unless you basically forgot everything from school, I would look at more career accelerators (disclosure: I'm co-founder of Formation.dev which is one such thing) like Outco, Interview Kickstart, S…
Just FYI and for anyone else reading this, we are working on publishing more numbers so we have been crunching different stats, and around 7% of people have 0 experience (no bootcamp or no CS degree), and 70%+ have at least 1 year of professional full time SWE work experience already. We are friendly with most bootcamps and some Fellows teaching at their former bootcamps (not just Codesmith, but several). We have friendly chats with bootcamp founders about collaborations.
We also work with people for an indefinite amount of time, adjusting people's work week to week, people can pause, resume, ramp up or ramp down. A bootcamp is short, intensive, structured and that is not what Formation is at all.
So yeah, not a bootcamp and not trying to advertise to people who want to go to them.
Hi, we work with a lot of bootcamp alumni (something like 40%, close to but less than half have been to bootcamps in the past) so I thought this might be applicable to alumni or soon to be alumni.
Our advertising is similar focused and not advertised towards people looking for bootcamps. If you visit our website you might also get ads as well. Or do you mean me talking about Formation at all. You can look at my entire comment history and Formation is mentioned a lot but most responses don't mention it at all.
But point taken for sure, and will add a +1 in the remove category haha
For those interested, Formation is hosting a panel on FAANG engineer levels (junior/mid/senior/etc...) tomorrow
Hi all, some of you know me as an active commenter in this sub, I wanted to share an event Formation (disclosure: I am a co-founder) is hosting tomorrow at 8pm EST online. I'm not sure if everyone is interested but I know some people here are either on the job hunt now, or have graduated from bootcamps in the past and might find this perspective on levels, career progression, and how to approach job levels interesting. It's a topic not often talked about and we're hoping to share valuable information and answer questions directly.
[https://formationenglevelspanel.splashthat.com/](https://formationenglevelspanel.splashthat.com/)
We are going to chat about things like: what are engineering levels, why companies have them, how you are leveled during interviews, strategies for…
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "advanced" and how advanced you mean. A lot of the top bootcamps do have fairly challenging entrance tests, e.g. Codesmith tests on recursion just to get in. So like if Codesmith, Hack Reactor, App Academy, all seem too easy then you can look into the career accelerator group of program.
The more "career accelerator" type programs are roughly the same cost as bootcamps but focusing on people with "employable skills" get jobs, rather than teaching people things from step 0 or 0.1. I'm the co-founder of Formation.dev which is one option and then other other programs are Interview Kickstart, Scaler, Pathrise, and Outco. At Formation, most people we work with have 1-3 years of experience already (and the other programs are similar) and we work with you for as long as it takes to get a job you love (with most people targeting truly top tier companies).…
I know a lot of recent grads and grads a few years later and can list some observations.
1. This sub has a ton of people looking into Codesmith and currently in Codesmith. As it should because it's on of the top bootcamps. I have seen a few alumni pop in every now and again, typically when Codesmith is directly mentioned in the original post. I don't think alumni frequent this sub otherwise.
2. Codesmith has forked outcomes, meaning the people with experience who get 140K or more salaries highly likely are not in this sub because they are already somewhat connected to the industry. The 20% of people making under 110K who have much less experience probably are more likely to be here (or be here as alumni when they get jobs). And the job hunt is not easy for any bootcamp grad so I could see people hunkering down during the job hunt.... why spend time here. I'm sure some people will hap…
I would try contacting people on LinkedIn that recently graduated Hack Reactor and ask these questions - they are great questions btw. This sub reddit has a lot of Codesmith people in it and leans that way so it's great to get those answers for Codesmith.
I agree with the other comment here that Codesmith is super intense (9am-8pm M-F/9am-3pm S) and has great outcomes and if you are super ambitious, hard working, and ready to hustle, it should be a top contender.
RE: outcomes. So with hiring freezes and the direction of the economy, I wouldn't hold any past outcomes going forward and would choose based on the answers you get to the questions above and as the other commenter stated, go in with reasonable expectations.
(I can talk more about the hiring market based on my observations and experience, but I don't want to derail the thread)
If I understand correctly you want to do a bootcamp without the intention of getting a job? If you are just starting college, you want to focus on getting top internships each summer as your goal and set yourself up to have the best fit company for you upon graduation lined up.
A lot of bootcamps are very focused on getting a job, so most wouldn't be a good fit. Like Codesmith, for example, is one of the top bootcamps for getting a good job, but you spend most of your time building out stuff that is meant to look good on a resume, which won't help. Similar with other bootcamps focused on getting a job.
I might consider something like Launch School, where you can work through things at your own pace and ramp up or down.
Or maybe just get a head start with some Coursera courses? Google and Facebook have some courses through Coursera. Or work through FreeCodeCamp, OdinProject.
If yo…
Hi, depending on what you mean by coding experience and what your goals are with this job, we might be able to help at [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) (disclosure, I'm a co-founder). We help people get jobs at top tier companies (for example, 25% of people placed are at literally the five F, A, A, N, G, excluding Microsoft, people turning down FAANG, and other FAANG-level or better companies) and we typically work with engineers with 1-3 years of work experience to level up. We have a smaller number of people with no work experience (self taught or came from a bootcamp) but a high enough skill level to have a path to top tier companies.
I need a lot more info to help assess if Formation makes sense, but we have some alignment. We work with you with our full support for as long as it takes to get a job you love, whether it's 2 months or 10 months. Whether you have a rough job hunt…
I mean this is Reddit after all and everyone is anonymous so you should always talk to people who went to the Bootcamps and try to see how people similar to yourself progressed. Focus on the "how" and not just qualifiers like "awesome, supportive, depth", like "how" does the day to day work and really get in there. There are some very good Bootcamps that are never even mentioned here as well!
1. Codesmith has a high bar of entry, and is very intense, but if it's a good fit for you, they have very solid outcomes and very solid placement rates. They really have the process down for being competitive on the job market.
2. Rithm School is good for an intimate bootcamp with lots of instructor access. You do a mini internship with a real company/client/project.
3. Hack Reactor is fairly well rounded, hard to get into, rigorous, strong network.
4. Launch School is a monthly self paced approach…
I probably wouldn't quit entirely right now given the economy.
You mentioned Leetcode so I'm going to give options for DS&A focused top tier companies. But if that's not your goal, ignore all this!
If you want to go the unpaid/cheap route, I would look and practice the Blind 75 after hours. When you are feeling good, do a mock at Interviewing.io and see how you do and then re-evaluate your options.
If you want to go a paid route, I know this is going to seem like a giant ad, but I'm also the co-founder of [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) and you should seriously look into it if you are aiming for FAANG-level companies in Canada (we support Canadians). You can prepare part time and not waste time. Don't want to say much because it will come across scammy but check it out and do your own research, and it's not cheap but it works.
Other paid programs you can look at are [Outco.…
There just happens to be a lot of talk about Codesmith in this sub. There is almost zero talk about Hackbright, BloomTech/Lambda School (who I know several former execs and is one of the largest bootcamps in the world), Springboard, all of which I'm fairly familiar with as well. There's a little bit of talk about Rithm, with whom I'm talking to the founder next week to catch up, and I talk about on here very neutrally no different than anyone else. I know a decent amount about CIRR and the early bootcamp founders.
We're early stage, we're relatively new, as the Codesmith alumni chug along through and share their experiences I hope you can have an open mind to figuring out what we are, the painting is not done yet and I am a small part of Formation. We have a crazy awesome team of people working their hardest to help each Fellow achieve and exceed their goals.
Sophie (founder) used to r…
Awesome thanks for adding details.
I have posted extensively elsewhere but you can't get mid level FAANG SWE jobs (e.g. Google L4) with no experience. I worked at Facebook for 8 years, did a ton of early career recruiting, observed hiring committee reviews. The levels are calibrated company wide and sacred, based on people's previous scope of responsibility and not on your skill level. If your skill level is super high, you come in entry level and then get incredible performance reviews (making more comp the you would at mid level anyways). So someone with no experience trying to be a "official" mid level FAANG is doing the wrong strategy. Happy to explaon this more. People have said "but I know someone I swear"and every case is a miscommunication or misunderstanding of the level (Google's entry level is L3 for example), or based on salary (since entry level FAANG can hit $200K), or a…
Do people without experience not find the Codesmith residency enough on its own to build that base though or is this to try to move from the "under $110K" bucket to higher? Like the harsh way of looking at it is the Fellows are paying an extra 17K from what they thought they would to get the 120K job. The positive way is that people are investing addition resources that pay back in better jobs.
Thanks for clarifying top students. So the top students who have work experience don't become fellows. Then the next tier of top students might get jobs faster. THEN the ones who don't might be fellows?
The 20% over $140K base salaries generally have more experience, which is very opposite from the bottom 20% under $110K with no experience.
I heard that from one other person now but I thought it was a mistake, that seems low no? People have said it's a very intense full time job and only for the top students. But top alumni are making over $120K salaries, so saying: "you're one of the top students and should be making at least $120K but instead you should do this for $52K a year". I'm probably missing something or factually incorrect about something, so listening for some people that have done it to explain.
EDIT: One theory I had was that I could see it being a great thing to do while job hunting and better than doing nothing, but someone said that they are so busy they don't job hunt (could just be that person 🤷♂️), and it's clear they are expected to do a three month contract and not leave early (which I've heard a few times in various ways but that like any at will, W-2 employment, you can leave early, and fellows h…
Yeah there are a small number of people who get FAANG jobs out of Codesmith and I would strive for that over a higher title, or even higher base salary.
We're splitting hairs because both paths are better than a lot of other paths haha.
The benefits of FAANG-level over other companies:
1. Generally higher talent bar and experience level of coworkers, so you learn from stronger engineers.
2. More structured ramp-up. A lot of FAANG level companies have bootcamps/onboarding/very structured rampup, so you learn more faster.
3. Exposure to some leading edge infrastructure and industry leading ways of solving and scaling that you might not see at smaller companies.
4. Generally more users and larger scale products. You can't learn how to build product for a billion people without having a billion people using something.
5. Engineers have more influence over decisions. It's just more fun wh…
With my FAANG-hat on, If you don't have any experience you should be aiming for entry level roles for truly top tier companies. The Facebook/Google/Dropbox/Apple/Netflix/Microsoft/etc.... bar has multiple levels of cross-company calibration going on to make sure your level is based on your work experience and scope of responsibility and not on your raw skill level. If you are very skilled you will get very good performance reviews and bonuses at your level and take on more responsibility quickly to get promoted faster. But levels at FAANG are based on scope of responsibility.
To answer the question, at Codesmith there are are combination of different things going in the "non-entry level" statement:
1. Somewhere between 10% and "a third" (different people have said different things) have some experience before Codesmith. Those people might be able to get "FAANG-level" mid-level roles de…
Hi! I'm combining my take on things into a top level comment. I started working at Facebook in 2009, right during the end of the great recession. I started interviewing and doing university recruiting in 2010, shortly after the great recession. I know some some people might have also lived through that time, but I can share my view working in tech during that time. I also have hundreds of colleagues and former colleagues who worked through both that recession and the dot-com crash of 2000. I also work with a lot of experienced engineers now, helping them get jobs at top tier companies and am very familiar with the market, and know people at almost all the top companies.
I know a lot of people have opinions in the other comments, I'm just presenting my perspective for a different point of view for anyone reading.
1. Tech is not going away. The efficiency improvements to all aspects of l…
This got downvoted and I'm not sure why. But I ran some numbers this evening as we are trying to figure out how to explain our numbers and one stat stood out showing the differences more: 25% of placed Formation Fellows accepted jobs at LITERALLY the five FAANG companies - Facebook/Apple/Amazon/Netflix/Google (this doesn't include Microsoft, which is another chunk, and doesn't include some additional people who got FAANG offers and turned them down, or all the people at top-tier/FAANG-level companies as well).
Just for anyone else reading this because my first stab might not have hit the mark on the difference in audience.
Hi, we worked with someone that had a similar background at Formation (CogSci -> dropout -> HackReactor -> back to school -> Formation -> Job) and you can try reaching out them about their experience as a cog sci breaking into the industry. [https://formation.dev/blog/fellow-spotlight-carlitos-willis/](https://formation.dev/blog/fellow-spotlight-carlitos-willis/)
It really depends on you. Since you have a degree and took some CS courses, you can get a foot in the door without a bootcamp. But if your skill gap is really large then a bootcamp could be good.
If you get a six figure job at a top tier company the relative cost of different programs might not matter. The time variance it will take to get a job is so unpredictable that the lost/gained revenue between 1-3 months at a top tier company, would be the cost of a five figure program.
My advice would be to reach out to people from a…
Just to clarify for other people reading this. Codesmith vs Formation is not a choice for most people. The vast majority of people are Formation are working as engineers and doing it part time, or have worked for 1 - 3 years and taking a pause). We have one person I currently know of that felt Formation was a better fit than Codesmith, and 10+ Codesmith alumni at various points in their careers. Most of these alumni come in at a middle of the road junior DS&A skill bar, slightly above the minimum we are confident working with but still clearly in the middle junior bucket and that is our lowest experience bucket. So the vast majority of people before Codesmith aren't choosing between the two. I recommend Codesmith to a lot of people who have no experience a couple times a week in DMs.
I do believe there are a very small number of people at Codesmith (I heard recently one or two in each c…
I'm sorry you feel that way.
I understand and acknowledge that there's a reason/"agenda" for me to be active on this sub. My life's mission is to help software engineers from non-traditional and underrepresented engineering backgrounds break into the top tier impactful roles. I was at Facebook for 8 years, from 2009 to 2017 and saw such hard working people were building products for billions of people but lacking a more diverse set of voices in doing so. This is an industry wide issue. Sophie first created a free bootcamp called Buildschool to help people get their first jobs. In getting to know bootcamps and meeting their founders, she realized that the broader bootcamp industry has already helped tens of thousands of brand new engineers, from diverse backgrounds, get started in their careers with their first jobs, but most lacked fundamentals, rigorous practice, and interaction with t…
Always reach out to people who did the program and ask for specific details of day to day and specific anecdotal outcomes for people with a similar background to you.
Humans are humans and the adjectives we use to describe things are relative to our experiences. So rather than just "this was amazing" you want to know examples of why it's amazing.
Programing is not magic and an array is an array. So what makes one program better. Why are Codesmith's CIRR outcomes actually better? with examples. Not just "we teach people depth and how to think". Like what is it objectively that makes those outcomes happen. For example, this is more specific ''We test and oberseve what job hunt strategies work for alumni to get jobs and we double down on them and adapt, so we are always teaching people the job hunting strategies that are working and guide students on how to implement fhem'
Sorry for t…
Hey, the applications go into a tracking tool, and a team member will reach it out probably sometime this week if you just applied. Depending on your background and how well you did on the assessment they will either give advice to improve and try again later, or do a call to see if you are a good fit for the program.
If you DM me personal information I can also double check on the backend that everything is moving along smoothly.
From what people have told me there is a paid one (that is 75% off for alumni) and there is a like self service guide an alumni made (which I've read). There is A LOT of content, guides, opinions out there (some paid, some free) to get ready for DS&A interviews and these are honestly are fairly similar on par.
Obviously I'm bias, but we (Formation) have people who live and breathe 24/7 how to train people on DS&A, SD, etc..., thousands of tasks, hundreds of assessments, dozens of mock interviews with senior+ engineers people who have done hundreds of interviews, all the stuff is living and breathing and changing daily. So I have a high bar for DS&A courses because we are creating something magical here.... but we're very expensive and it takes everyone a different amount of time. Most of these courses above are a few weeks and static.
I left out the community support in my post below/above, I also hear that often about Codesmith. So most bootcamps have alumni slack/discord/etc... where people talk about jobs, referrals, etc... But Codesmith alumni are really bonded with the bootcamp and come back to do mock interviews and give advice. Like I heard about several attempts at creating advanced DS&A courses for alumni that were driven by alumni just wanting to help out and contribute.
So there are paths for bootcamp grads, like top-tier apprenticeships (Dropbox, Asana, Twilio, etc...) but it is hard. The top bootcamps after widdling down people who actually graduate, have 70 to 90% placement within six more months.
I don't know about the outcomes of a short degree from WGU. Having a legitimate degree can help your resume get past screens. But a few years down the road, I'm not sure.
If you have a natural propensity for coding, are super ambitious and hard working, I think a bootcamp can accelerate things.
I wish there was a simple answer to this because I get asked a lot.
It really depends on you. How do you learn (e.g. by reading, by doing, with people, alone)? What are your starting skills and how much programming have you done? What kind of job do you want? Where do you want to work?
For a high school student who has the opportunity to go to a top 10/20 CS/engineering schools, I would almost always recommend going the college route and doing top tier internships each summer. 1. you get to try working at different places and find the BEST job for you and not just A job. 2. you meet a lot of other people who will go one to other top companies and in other areas as well.
If you are going to go to a less well respected college just to get a degree on paper, I don't know if it's always worth it over other things, like bootcamps. This is where it becomes more personal. Codesmith is 9am to…
Yeah totally, when I bring this up people think I'm like calling them out and I'm really very much in the middle. Their work is a lot better than what a lot of bootcamps do. Their alumni are relatively successful. So I hope it doesn't sound like I'm making a judgment call for everyonI'm just trying to answer the question from my perspective as someone with a ton of industry experience who works with a lot of people who went to bootcamps in the past.
Codesmith is really focused on efficiently doing things to build up a resume that appears really good on the surface. They also do a good job teaching, but I just mean the priority is to make it all look good to help people get jobs, i.e. getting resumes past screens.
One thing is the open source projects that a lot of people ambiguously label as Software Engineer jobs at companies. The projects have websites and all the Codesmith people like and promote each other's projects to build momentum. Not bad stuff, just very focused on making it look good. The actual projects don't have outside people working on them and are like really really good college class group projects that got portrayed a little more like company like engineering work. And there is a playbook for every project that is the same flow. The Codesmith way.
Another thing is these tech talks that people do. They prepare…