Rent is crazy expensive despite super high vacancies. Rithm School was in person with a great office in the heart of SF and might be able to comment on this, but it's prohibitively expensive.
That said, my partner used to run a free bootcamp in the heart of SF that we paid rent for from our savings and some people got remote jobs anyways, but some people just met random engineers in person, which led to networking + jobs and it did help, but you can always just move to SF while doing a remote bootcamp and get a similar benefit.
Codesmith opened a NY in person program but the enrollment appears to always be lower/fills up slower as they have repeatedly pushed back application deadlines for it almost until a week or two before the program start.
Choosing a program based on outcomes is extremely dangerous. Outcomes should be used as a way to identify a small number of "legit" programs, but it's **extremely important** to look at outcomes of people with a background similar to yourself.
I chat with so many people that want to go to Codesmith or X because they like all the conversations with alumni from X but that Codesmith has the "best outcomes". For people who are doctors, lawyers, accountants, PMs, mechanical engineers, CS grads, I say sure because those outcomes are representative of people with your background. For people who have no "office work experience" you are better off finding a lower paying job that's a really good fit and Codesmith's methods are harmful to your development for most people - pushing someone whose never sat at desk before to get a mid level job and reject an entry level offer is not the right approac…
Posting salaries is really not useful and it's all anecdotal. I have an non-CS engineering degree and I made more money in a year than most Americans earn in a lifetime in my first job at Facebook.... does that mean everyone should do a 4 year non-CS engineering degree because it worked for me? Obviously not! Just because someone went to Hack Reactor or Codesmith and got a job making $120K, it means nothing. You will be mislead if you do something because a small number of people comment on Reddit about it.
I wouldn't recommend a bootcamp right now. Codesmith is a program that markets to CS grads and people with more experience and even their placements rates as reported from recent alumni have dropped drastically since last reported.
I have a few recommendations to look at... what works for you is ultimately a personal choice, but just things to consider:
1. Consider career accelerators: Formation.dev (disclosure: co-founder), Interview Kickstart, Outco, Pathrise, Coachable.dev, Scaler, are main ones to look at. These are all very different programs but they focus on fine tuning and enhancing existing skills and focus entirely on the job hunt. They pick up where bootcamps end basically.
2. Consider doing volunteer work at places like Hack4LA, or other Code For America branches. This is a way to get more realistic "volunteer work experience" that is a notch above a group project that you…
Codesmith slowly and quietly shut down the data and machine learning intensive? Anyone know why?
I noticed a few months ago that Codesmith had removed all future cohorts for the data and machine learning intensive from their website but kept the landing page up, and now the entire program is gone (it used to be here: [https://www.codesmith.io/data-science-and-machine-learning-immersive](https://www.codesmith.io/data-science-and-machine-learning-immersive#upcoming_program_dates))
Anyone know why?
I don't think this reflects poorly or is a sign that there are troubles at Codesmith as it was a new program. It's probably a good thing so that they can focus on placing people in the immersive during a really hard time.
EDIT: Someone DM's and I won't share the details because it was a private message, but the program evolved into a separate, more academic, project outside of the Codesmith b…
I PERSONALLY agree, but I still want to deeply understand why people who also agree have gone down this path after thinking they wouldn't. I feel it leaves me with a nuanced understanding to help people navigate... but this my job and my prerogative
I find the way that Codesmith itself defends the mid-level and senior target roles more bothersome because it puts pressure on people to do this and they too have seen thousands of people go through the program and deeply understand why they are doing it.
Dynamic and self paced is the way to go. You have to be in the driver's seat the whole time but there can be different routes to get from A to B! A bootcamp is like driving from NY to SF and there is one road you must drive down at EXACTLY the speed they tell you to, rather than choosing the path you like the most. Maybe you love southern food and want to swing by the south. Maybe you want to hit up Canada. Maybe you want to take the shortest route possible and speed excessively. maybe you want to avoid highways and go super slow, maybe you want to hit all the national parks along the way, maybe you want to try to cross as many states as possible.
Some programs that are self-paced let you go down that single path at your own speed - which is just one tiny small step towards the amazing, creative world we want where you can get to the same destination on your own journey!
Sorry, super…
One of the problems with this though is it is very non inclusive. /u/-procrastinate- I'm not sure if you have comments on diversity but it takes someone who is reasonable successful in a prior to job to have the money and/or support system in place to do 11 hour days + saturdays + extra study time for 3 months. Sure the people who put in the effort get rewarded, but statistically those people tend to be less diverse demographically and this kind of approach can make tech LESS DIVERSE long term. For example, mothers are still more often primary caregivers to their children, and with these hours it's very hard to be a primary caregiver and do Codesmith (or Hack Reactor) without savings for childcare, or a supportive family to help.
Bloomtech publishes diversity numbers and 75% of graduates identify as Male. Codesmith doesn't publish diversity numbers but I've hear they are dominated Male…
I see both sides of this working with alumni who are also conflicted. I agree with OP that it's not something trained as the key to success officially, it's more something people do because they see alumni do it and succeed, or they get stuck on the job hunt for months and day by day massage the resume a little more.
Some people do intentionally pride themselves in bs'ing their OSP under pressure and passing interviews, but not many.
I think the reason it's important to talk about is that it's a tool in a toolbelt. And when we talk about people tend to go to extremes defending or attacking this strategy. There are consequences to a lot of things in this world and there are consequences to this strategy. I think it's important people understand their tools and use them effectively instead of being sold on a magical hammer that can fix everything with no effort.
I have push notifications turned on for every single post in this subreddit yeah and I'm an inbox zero person where anytime, anywhere I try to check push notifs ASAP of all kinds (and I aggressively manage them so they aren't spam)
My day job is coding and the green boxes are the proof http://github.com/mnovati
My priority is helping Formation Fellows with advice, bug fixes, and new features and managing my team and I spend about 10 to 30 mins on Reddit a day (depending on the day)
I'm actually glad you asked, because a leader at Codemsith just assumed because I'm so on top of things on Reddit that I'm a 'dark disturbed individual who spends all day on Reddit trying to take down Codesmith' and it's always better to ask instead of assuming and making such strong conclusions.
\+1 to this, talk to people and ask what it's like.
Like zoomed out - people exaggerate their OSP on their resumes and in interviews - but it's not like Codesmith is like spending 10 hours a day teaching people how to stretch the truth without officially lying and that fact doesn't represent the vibe and feel of Codesmith as a whole.
I completely agree that more Codesmith conversations should be about the substance. I'm in a bucket where I complain about people not discussing HOW Codemsith works and instead just saying fluffy reasons to go there or fluffy and vague complaints.You need to know HOW it works to know if it's a good fit for you.
I'm frequently involved in controversial discussions on here to try to steer them to more concrete discussions and present more sides. If someone posts a vague positive or negative answer, you won't get more details and valuable discussion by yelling at them.
The most frequent DMs I get are 'I really respect your consistent and thorough comments' or 'I'm at Codesmith and can't believe how accurate and representative most of your comments are' and that's my goal.
1. Codesmith has a bimodal distribution, so there is a chunk of people making on the low side and a chunk of people making on the high side, and few people making in the middle.
2. But that $137K was Q2 2021 when a ton of people went to Capital One and Amazon, both companies with high base salaries (which is the only thing reported to CIRR) which bump that up significantly. It fell by $10K in Q1 2022 as those companies slowed down.
3. That is the median of PEOPLE PLACED WHO REPORTED SALARIES, not the median of all Codesmith grads, add in the 10 to 20% of people without jobs who have $0 salaries and that's not the median anymore.
I commented this above but copy pasting because it's important, I agree with the qualitative arguments, just an important note for the CIRR data:
Standard disclaimer: several people are mentioning average salaries, it's super important with CIRR data to recognize that the numbers at NOT averages, they are medians, and they are NOT the "average Codesmith grad" it is the median salary of PLACED CODESMITH GRADS, not ALL CODESMITH GRADS.
So it's the 50th percentile base salary of the 80% of people placed of the 95% of people that graduated. If you put $0 for the other 20% that didn't get jobs, the "average Codesmith grad" is making FAR less than this and the median would be shifted down to about 100 to 110K based on the CIRR distribution.
Just important to note, because I'm constantly on top of people who misrepresent CIRR outcomes.
CIRR outcomes don't include stock and bonuses so the…
Standard disclaimer: several people are mentioning average salaries, it's super important with CIRR data to recognize that the numbers at NOT averages, they are medians, and they are NOT the "average Codesmith grad" it is the median salary of PLACED CODESMITH GRADS, not ALL CODESMITH GRADS.
So it's the 50th percentile base salary of the 80% of people placed of the 95% of people that graduated. If you put $0 for the other 20% that didn't get jobs, the "average Codesmith grad" is making FAR less than this and the median would be shifted down to about 100 to 110K based on the CIRR distribution.
Just important to note, because I'm constantly on top of people who misrepresent CIRR outcomes.
CIRR outcomes don't include stock and bonuses so the actual median and average compensation is probably a lot HIGHER than what CIRR says, so I'm not saying this to bash Codesmith, I'm saying it to pro…
I'm familiar with Outco (disclosure, they are a competitor to my company Formation, and both of us are not bootcamps or directly comparable to bootcamps) and have also had some peope at Formation get super confused by their recent marketing thinking Outco was offering them a job, rather than coaching and mentoring that they were already doing with us.
I would give them the feedback that their new marketing campaign is sketchy. They are a very small company with only a few full time people, they don't have investors, and I don't think this is intentionally trying to be offensive. That said, I'm not saying anything about the quality of the training because I'm super bias and I don't disagree that it might not be worth $5000 for a lot of people... I can say that for many people having structure, direction, FEEDBACK, and practice are extremely valuable and a catalyst to a new job making \~$…
Open Source Project. 4 weeks at Codesmith are spent coming up with a group project, building the project, releasing it as a new open source project OR releasing a new version of an existing project, marketing the project, and then updating your resume to reflect the project.
The controversy around them is
1. Most people list the project as a company and as a Software Engineer (with very fine print "Project supported by a accelerator OSLabs")
2. Most people list the time spent on it as 3 to 18 months (the average being about 6)
3. The average person only committed 2 to 3 commits on the projects over 2 to 3 weeks in a sample of 200 GitHub profiles analyzed a year ago
4. The projects are supervised by a former student as a mentor who typically don't have any or much industry experience, but the projects claim they are "mid to senior level work equivalent"
Don't get me wrong, the project…
I've worked with (bias disclosure, co-founder of a coaching program for experienced engineers) a wide range of alumni from right after Codesmith, during Codesmith, down the road, people who work at Codesmith, and everyone is super professional, polite, hard working, and driven.
I've been the target of several attacks (where people have told me that posts were shared in both official internal slacks and unofficial discords) where alumni, staff, etc... have said some pretty mean things personal things about me but I think it's a very small number of peopel. Codesmith has been extremely defensive to things that I've called out. I criticized their "sponsored talks" for a lack of proper referencing of content and they staunchly defended that telling the entire student base that I'm wrong and incorrectly quoted laws that don't apply. All of that because a student blatantly copied the code sa…
I flagged this post for logging and it's insane how the upvote/downvote count is being attempted to be manipulated. Reddit has algorithms to prevent abuse and the way the upvote and downvotes are changing by +/- 10 when you reload the page is an indication that a lot of sketchy accounts are attempting to manipulate the post.
Hmm Philip Troutman is still listed as Head Instructor and Chief Academic Officer and most recently as a Senior Software Engineer as of Dec 2022, which was after this fork. I doubt they would do such a crazy legal risk without vetting it with an experienced lawyer or they just don't know the consequences of what they are doing.
Hi, can you confirm that the number for a reference on an OSP is actually a Codesmith phone number? My understanding is since June of last year, OS Labs Inc was forked as is an independent official charity that can't have conflicts of interest with Codesmith and must be run entirely separate by independent board members. The letters of reference I've seen are signed by Philip Troutman, Board Member of OS Labs and don't say Codesmith anywhere on them.
I've been consistently commenting on this, but in the past, bootcamps have always been not that great for learning and were being over credited for the results because of the hot market. We haven't seen bootcamps go through a tech downturn EVER.
All of the "There were a lot of challenges but I followed the advice to just stick with it because it works, and I got a six figure job!" .... are turning into "there were a lot of challenges but I followed the advice to stick with it because it works, and no one in my cohort is employed, what a scam!"
1. It's so important to learn HOW a bootcamp works to see if it's a good alignment for you. If people say "firehose", "hard learning", "just follow their advice" then you should start asking how it works at all and what people are actually learning. If they are "learning how to learn" or vague things like that, dig deeper and be honest! At Codesm…
Yeah the OSP posts that get tons of engagement have also been controversial. On the one hand, an incredibly supportive and engaged community. On the other hand, Codemsith steers that raw awesomeness and it comes across people spending almost more time promoting their OSP with posts, websites etc.. than they actually spend on the OSP itself and then get celebrated for it.
I also think some of that fear above is misplaced. Like it's very very very rare someone disappears out of the community (from what I've heard) but people seem to really really want to do what Codemsith tells them to do because the community is so close and the remote possibility of losing touch is so scary that people are super cautious.
I mean why the community is abnormally strong is for you to decide. Some say it's a family who have "family dinners" every week and some say it's unintentionally cult like.
I watche…
I've spoken with several people who are currently in Codemsith or recent graduates concerned about identifying themselves for fear of being removed and shutoff from the community. Codesmith staff monitor this sub closely and if you give any info that could identify your cohort or OSP project and they find you, you might get in trouble. There was a mega AMA thread recently that disclosed a ton of numbers and info that was allowed but it was very positive.
So I agree this won't be useful without the why, but the OP might have reasons.
This is true for the most part. They are working on updating their materials by having alumni in the industry give official feedback. The ethos of education is "hard learning" and they want you to learn how to learn when overwhelmed, so I don't think they care that much about the curriculum. But enough people have complained I think they are looking into it.
I kept a close on on the staff backgrounds since I was shocked to see the vast majority of alumni exaggerating their OSP experience in number 4.a. I investigated after numerous staff members where I work didn't realize Codesmith alumni had no experience based on their resumes and the people were not super clear in their interviews either :(.
There are about 80ish +/- a lot out of 130ish employees on their website that are alumni of Codesmith itself (it fluctuates a lot, check for yourself!)
50ish are TAs/Fellows, 15ish are career…
By web developer I mean people who are doing just HTML and CSS and primarily working in tools like Webflow, or doing custom Shopify websites or marketing emails.
Someone in that role is a common person to do a more advanced program to level up to. “Software Engineer” role
Codesmith is aiming at getting people legit software roles and it’s one of the reasons outcomes are high. A lot of bootcamps place people in support roles or customer analyst roles or developer roles… again why it’s so important to find the right program for you because depending on your goals, do you want to choose the right path or you don’t wanna just go to Codesmith because the numbers on paper so high
In general, the bar is set so you kind of have to figure it out on your own. Whether that means leveraging the community, self studying, googling, hours of trial and error, finding pair programming buddies, etc... Codesmith selects for people that can figure it out on their own and it's a trait that will help you succeed as an engineer.
While in Codesmith you have access to more people for support, but oftentimes it's peers and recent alumni who are TAs and many describe it as a firehose of constantly feeling behind (which is what staff say is expected and normal). So if navigating a state of constant confusion isn't for you then it might not be the best program for you... not saying it isn't, just suggesting to consider if it's the right program for you vs wanting to get in because you think it's the best program.
Some possible things to consider for help:
1. Ask in Slack - don't just…
Codesmith is a top bootcamp yeah and produces arguably the best results of any bootcamp.
But it really matters most if it's best for YOU and how it happens is more important than the raw results.
It's more like they only let in people who are more likely to succeed and hence more people succeed than other program.... rather than anyone who gets in has a golden ticket to success.
Reason why they are really good:
1. Very high entrance bar and only let people who meet the bar
2. Excellent alumni network who stay close to Codesmith
3. The founder cares a ton about teaching... I bet he would love to just teach all day and not deal with the business side haha.
4. They are extremely good at helping people leverage their ambitiousness to present themselves most strongly for jobs
1. This is often controversial because some people feel they support you in lying on your resumes to get past…
I've been keeping my eye on the NYC Codesmith one and their in person demand is much much much lower than remote despite in person being a really powerful experience there. They even held open enrollment for the next cohort until much longer than normal and were pushing applications on their channels.
Can't wait for scientists of the future to analyze how COVID changed humanity.