Timeline

Yeah, I'm playing devil's advocate and I agree it's not THAT hard. Practically speaking, people advertise their projects loud and clear, with their GitHubs and LinkedIns and you can grab all the contributors from os-labs repos and you can spend a few hours identifying all Codesmith alumni. I did this like a year or two ago now - after noticing patterns in people applying for Formation - and audited 200-ish people and the vast majority had no signs of Codesmith on their profiles, had 6+ months of SWE experience at their "projects", and contributed 2-3 commits over 2-3 weeks to their projects. I dumped all the data somewhere but I have a ton of real work to do but someone who really wants to see how people do could reproduce this easily.

I totally respect where you are coming from here, I probably jumped too quickly on the "boogeymen of CodeSmith are, because they don't exist" as a common thing I hear from students who didn't work in the Codesmith inner circle of employees and I want to make sure that people here the truth here. But I very much respect you sharing your personal points of view on Codesmith and thanks for doing the AMA.

I comment on many of those threads and get notified for every post in this sub, and it sounds like you are super bias already at the start. I don't see many people selling other bootcamps on Codesmith posts or steering people away from it. I see a few one off comments, but it's not the core content on most posts. In fact a very large number of alumni from Codesmith who do videos for them, are active here, and write reviews online with their names on them, actually WORK/WORKED AT CODESMITH AND ARE/WERE ON THE WEBSITE AS EMPLOYEES. Reddit is anonymous by default but it's not that anonymous when people give out a lot of information that identify who they are. I have a following of hundreds of people now - many of whom respect my extremely thorough and balanced view of Codesmith - and many of whom end up going there because of my recommendation after talking to them - and I criticize certa…

I have some insight on this as an outsider that has worked with a few dozen Codesmith alumni later on in their careers or immediately after Codesmith. This is going to be a polarizing comment thread for sure. PROS: - many alumni that get jobs credit Codesmith's job hunt support for helping them. they typically site: mock interviews, weekly office hours, their cohort mates emotional support making it feel less lonely, and Eric Kirsten's negotiation help giving them confidence to ask for $150K offers when they otherwise wouldn't - compared to many other bootcamps - which hardly do anything post graduation, I think Codesmith does a lot more than most - they give you "lifetime support", which means you can always go back and ask questions in the future, get resume reviews or even do peer mock interviews anytime in the future and some people have found that useful - one of the most powerfu…

Yeah, no one I talk to has ever heard of Codesmith - and it's why the OSLabs portrayal as work experience actually works at tricking people from companies that don't know any better. And when people I know see examples of resumes and LinkedIn, I haven't seen a single industry person that thinks the portrayal is okay. But, as you said, no one cares - my friends have crazy impactful jobs to do, the recruiters are hiring super senior people and don't care that much about people tricking their way in on entry level that much. I truly understand both sides of this and the only reason I talk about it so much is that the view that reflects how the industry feels about this is not represented well in this subreddit and instead people continuously tout their salary outcomes in a way that leads people who don't know any better down what might be the right or wrong path, but for the wrong reasons…

In no particular order these are generally good, but each is different and depends on you: Codesmith, Rithm School, Launch School Capstone, Hack Reactor, App Academy. I wouldn't judge too hard from CIRR reports - they are useful to identify if a school is legit or not - in order to investigate further, but CIRR is a business league established by bootcamps and it's not a super well written specification - with little details that steer in favor of bootcamps. Talking to recent alumni and figuring out which program day-to-day is a good fit for you is most important, and using data to identify which programs to investigate is step 1.

Codesmith is pretty controversial in the industry outside of the bootcamp-bubble - not that it's bad, just that it's polarizing in both directions. [Reference for controversy (it's an old post but still an ongoing controversy)](https://www.reddit.com/r/TechLA/comments/b7xl98/codesmith_coding_bootcamp_scam_beware/) I know their program extremely well and I usually recommend it for ambitious people who can commit 9am to 8pm weekdays + saturdays and who are typically successful already in another professional career. But it's not a place for everyone who just wants to make $100K and thinks getting into Codesmith is the golden ticket. The people who don't get jobs often feel like they shouldn't have gone in the first place because it wasn't the right program for them.

Yeah the whole industry has this problem, and it's not Codesmith causing the entire thing. A very common pattern is people who have "3 years of self employed contracting" when they were just on Upwork and never even had a single contract. Or they did volunteer work that they call "contracting work". I've seen everything under the sun and talk to my friends a lot about it. The way most Codesmith alumni portray their experience though is by the one that triggers most people and makes then have a negative view of Codesmith. "scam", "liars", "no integrity" are words used. The weakness in the approach is that all the code is public and anyone can read it - very few do - and those that do see how embarrassing it can be to portray those projects as months/1+ years of "experience". You're right that it is what it is is, and the industry and the market will adjust. It's why DS&A is preva…

This is a great example of how Codesmith's 4 week long OSP turns into what looks like a large project/company, fit with the website, logo, and it's posted all over the place. I looked at the code and this is about 1 day of focused work for a really good senior engineer (the core project, not the marketing and write ups) and it is not mid-level or senior engineering work from 4 people for 4 weeks. Obviously the ideation, planning, and marketing take a lot longer when you don't have experience yet, as expected, so this is not a criticism of the people working on it, but a criticism that the project is at the equivalent of months of work at the mid to senior level, as their chief academic officer has stated (presented to me as notes from lecture from a student that though this was concerning) This is one of the key ways that Codesmith grads, who choose to do so - not all, present themselv…

I don't have one answer for everybody. 1. I would consider a bootcamp if you have the time and finances to go all in, e.g. 12 hour days for 3-4 months (or part time where you have no free time outside of work and bootcamp). However, in this climate it's far from a sure bet that it will lead to a job quickly. 2. Consider lower-end apprenticeships/work to hire type programs 3. Do volunteering for non-profits like Hack4LA This is an extensive set of resources from Vanessa Vun, who learned self-taught but by diligently participating in many different organizations: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vanessas-tech-resources-faq-vanessa-vun](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vanessas-tech-resources-faq-vanessa-vun) (disclosure: while this resource has dozens of things, it does mention the program I co-founded Formation so I want to disclose to avoid it appearing self-promotion)

Plus 1 to market improving. Something subtle you said is also something I'm seeing myself which is that newer members are getting jobs sometimes faster than people who started in H2 2022. My theory is people who applied for jobs then basically had their resumes go into a black hole and ignored. And the people are so demoralized they aren't in a great place for chugging along. Whereas people applying fresh now have a better chance to get seen. For CIRR companies (i.e. Codesmith) I'm seeing some people get placed post 6 months so they will be excluded from CIRR even though they got jobs, which is another thing that can make CIRR not align with perception. BTW if you know why Codesmith's CIRR was restated, I'm dying to know, I thought they would publish an explanation because they are extremely proactive about defending Codesmith's stance on CIRR in their blogs.

Hi, so I can speak to changes we've made at Formation, which is not a bootcamp and was engineered to be dynamic and flexible, these are the things I remember in the past 6 months off the top of my head in the 3 mins I timeboxed to writing this: 1. Redid job hunt reference materials twice 2. Redid async resume review process so people can get reviews faster in general 3. Created 5 new group and mentor led session types around job hunting, networking, job hunt office hours, storytelling, and specially check-ins 4. Created dedicate peer referrals channel, which isn't working too well because of the market 5. Added dozens of industry recruiters for mock interviews and responses in chat 6. Created a book a recruiter call on demand flow self service on our platform for people in interviews 7. Added on platform referral request flows for people who are a good match for companies to request re…

Sorry I don't :(. I work/have worked with hundreds of bootcamp grads later on in their careers and most come from Codesmith, Hack Reactor, Rithm, Fullstack Academy, General Assembly, Hackbright, and some other ones that are escaping my memory, but not Coding Temple. There are a surprisingly large number of Codesmith STAFF, students and alumni on here who have over time contacted me as a well which gives me a lot of insight into their program more than any other.

UPDATE: 2023 Predictions check-in and updates! Hi all, it's halfway through 2023 and I wanted to quickly revisit my predictions from this post to give some updates based on how the industry is doing: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1226i27/bootcamp\_predictions\_for\_the\_rest\_of\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1226i27/bootcamp_predictions_for_the_rest_of_2023/) # New: What's left for 2023? The main thing I want to add is that outcomes for H2 2022 are going to go off a cliff. At first when we saw H1 2022 CIRR results come out they were better than expected, however Codesmith restated their numbers after audit and they were notably lower than originally posted for placement rates and high end salaries ([https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/14341x7/codesmiths\_newly\_posted\_audited\_version\_of\_their/](https://www.reddit.com/r/co…

It doesn't sound like you are making the most of your experience and using the resources available and it's our fault if you aren't making the best use of them or aware of all of your options so I really want to make sure you have all the support you are looking for. The premise of Formation is that there are tens of thousands of hours worth of free content out there and you are paying us because we consistently help people get to a top tier skill level efficiently and without having to think what to do all the time. We don't think you should pay a lot of money for content alone. So again, you should talk to someone internally about how sessions can be better. We can make all kinds of adjustments. You are paying for the engineers who built a highly adaptable system and to have a team of three full time support people in your dedicated channel and for check-ins and if you aren't communica…

If you're already in Formation, ping me internally! I can give you more qualitative estimates based on other people with similar backgrounds right now. Like since the end of 2022, people with no experience are taking a lot longer to place at top companies, but are getting jobs are less strong companies. People with a few years experience have started getting FAANG-level offers in the past monthish, and even earlier to today, but overall are taking longer because of the lull in late 2022/early 2023. So it's really a personal conversation I'm happy to have based on your specific goals and background. If the real timeframes don't align you have a team of people who are around to help you figure out what kinds of changes you can make to accelerate based on new company goals, or to help you get motivated, or to help figure out what's not working. The more you give the more you get at Formati…

Thanks for sharing thoughts! Placement times range from 3 weeks to 18 months and counting. One of the main reasons we don't publish time to placement data right now is because people don't understand what Formation "is" yet and we don't want people to look at numbers that would compare us to a bootcamp or even our competitors, like Interview Kickstart, Outco, Pathrise, Coachable, Scaler (all of which don't publish much data). Your program is truly unique to you, the person who is still here after 18 months has done hundreds of sessions, almost a thousand tasks, a few dozen mock interviews, and keeps chugging along. Some people even do contracts and part time jobs and ramp down Formation and then ramp back up again when the contract ends (I can't comment on specific people, but it might contribute to the people who have been here longer). I completely agree that someone looking at Fo…

How would you answer that given the above restrictions? I would love to answer it but we just can't in a way that is actually clear and transparent? 100% of people adjust their schedules and time commitments throughout Formation (at least once, the majority adjust every week) so what would you do if someone goes on parental leave? What about if they go on a lot of vacation? How do you compare the time it takes for someone training 50 hours a week vs someone training 10 hours a week and the majority of people change their workload several times throughout? If someone is stressed and needs a mental health break, or needs a physical health break, that will impact their training time and unlike a bootcamp we don't kick you out or "defer" you for these cases. As I said, the majority of people fall under these kinds of situations so it's not an edge case that will get averaged out in placeme…

Hi, Formation isn't a bootcamp, doesn't have "graduation", doesn't have cohorts or start dates, doesn't have a expected amount of time you will spend in it, doesn't have a curriculum or topic list you will study. In addition, most people train in Formation part time and have jobs, and ramp up or down their commitments to suit their own needs rather than along our fixed timeframe. Finally, people come from all kinds of backgrounds and start at different places, so it's very hard to look at data and guess what your time and outcome might be like. So in conclusion, CIRR makes no sense for us at all and we can't even answer basic questions like "how many people graduated" because the question itself doesn't make sense for us. We have published average outcomes and a list of companies placed at in 2022: [https://formation.dev/blog/2022-formation-fellow-placements/](https://formation.dev/blo…

I randomly stumbled on this because of a random comment talking about something I was looking for. Four days ago you yelled at someone for talking about H1 2022 results because you said they didn't apply anymore but 16 days ago you were touting cherry picked results from H1 2022 to promote Codesmith. Source https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/14341x7/comment/jna31yd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 I'm flagging just so others can see this in the future when evaluating sources.

I totally understand how my view here could come across elitist or disconnected for not just the average but most people. The reason is that inequality is a huge problem in the US. People who are starting off lower almost never make socioeconomic jumps to catch up to the people who start off higher. And the above argument is a reason why. A kid born to millionaires expects to make a "measley" $200K as a fallback in case they fail out in life. Whereas someone born in the lowest income bracket might dream of having a stable job and making 60K. To address inequality I'm pushing people to all have the same expectations and trying to create paths for people to make the jump even if they don't see a path themselves or have the confidence they can do it.

From my experience, people are very happy and proud to drop their names in the spreadsheet and cheer on their peers outcomes... and a lot more reluctant to talk about how hard it is on the job and the failures that come with it. I think this is the reason you see so many Hackbright and Hack Reactor and App Academy alumni at FAANG companies 5 years down the road, and while you see a good number of Codesmith alumni at FAANG too there is a greater number 3 jobs in as "senior engineers" at unknown non-tech companies pushing $200K. A mid-level Google offer though is $300K and I reiterate that an appropriate first job -> FAANG mid-level is a much better outcome down the road than what most Codesmith students do.

Yeah exactly, students are pushed towards "mid level" roles at less strong companies that pay $120Kish. It's one of my criticisms of the career services product there, that most bootcamp grads are better off at top companies as entry level engineers and they discourage people from looking for those jobs. The "Codesmith way" of doing things is particularly impactful at less good companies that don't realize the resumes are exaggerated or look into was OSLabs is, and I think that's a factor in why they encourage this. These strategies don't work at top companies and Codesmith grads just look like any other bootcamp grads to them.

I lot of bootcamps incorporate DS&A practice into the programs, AA, Hack Reactor, Codesmith, for starters. That said, I don't know of any bootcamp that actually teaches fundamental problem solving with DS&As. Codesmith spends under a week on all the theoretical concepts for DS&As and even though they assign you a problem a DAY they don't actually teach you how to solve them. I've worked with numerous Codesmith grads that can flail through a LC Medium problem but wouldn't pass a Facebook-level interview because the thought process demonstrates a lack of deeper understanding. I'm the co-founder of Formation, which is a program for experienced engineers that focuses on DS&A, SD, and behaviorals, and it typically takes most people - including graduates of HR and CS - 2 to 5 more months of pure DS&A focus to get to the top tier bar. So it takes the entire length of time you spent in a boot…

1. +1 the Lifetime career services at bootcamps aren't helpful because they are meant to help bootcamp grads get jobs. When you have a job and want to get a better job, they don't support you as much as you could. I've heard people say "\[my bootcamp's career services\] helped me negotiate my next offer and it's a gift that keeps on giving".... but what they don't realize is that if they sought help from others that specialize in experienced engineers (disclosure: co-founder of Formation which helps and hence I'm very biased) that you might have made wayyyyy more. The average person placed after Formation increased their first year TC by $96K (see website for how we calculate). So if you are super thankful for "free" help to you increase you compensation by $50K, you could have paid $10K to make almost $100K more... Anyways, this isn't an ad for Formation - Formation has lots of concerns…

I agree with this in general. The CIRR standards have no requirements for verification of salaries, other than asking a person. They also allow LinkedIn verification to be used to confirm employment but without any more qualifications on how to do that. So if someone works as a self employed Uber driver on their LinkedIn and ghosts bootcamp staff, that could as a "confirmed placement" but with "salary not reported". The one thing they do have more qualification on is the start dates, and the process for verifying with a letter. Even there, they have subjectivity if someone has multiple jobs within the 6 months, to choose a job or the other. Anyways, all in the spec, don't have time to write all this out yet again, but the TLDR: it was written by bootcamp marketing and outcomes people and not lawyers.

I have it locally and it looks the same to me. It only has about 30 people in it so it makes sense. ONE placement is over 3% of the class instead of 0.3% But I guess that means swings this large means there were numerous errors in the full time one :S If this is a submission error of the report itself or the auditors audited the wrong version and signed off that's even worse because it destroys trust in the CIRR ecosystem because it means either Codesmith got away with publishing false data - and might be legally liable - or the auditors signed off on the wrong report and obviously can't be trusted. So it's actually better if this was human error in the spreadsheets that the auditors fixed.

Codesmith's newly posted AUDITED version of their CIRR H1 2022 show discrepancies from their initial report published a month or two ago (... and a reminder about blindly trusting CIRR) UPDATE (June 25th 2023): The Auditors re-released a correction and they republished the original report as the final audited report. This is all very confusing how such mistakes and errors could pass audit to begin with, but I believe the "original report" is the final numbers and the "audited reports" contained errors that were originally signed off on. One of the misconceptions about CIRR is that results are audited before being posted. This is not correct and rather they are audited once a year and then updated after the fact. Codesmith recently added their **audited** report to CIRR and it has worse outcomes: [Link to original report](https://static.spacecrafted.com/b13328575ece40d8853472b9e0cf204…

Hi, my partner and I both have many years as staff, principal SWE's at FB and Nextdoor. My partner left Nextdoor and ran a free coding bootcamp for a year or two. After seeing how good intentioned people were trying over and over to "fix bootcamps" but had numerous quality issues, she wanted to do it better. She did, and the people she worked with have great careers now, but it didn't scale beyond a number of people she could train herself (\~10 at a time). What she realized though is that the brokenness of bootcamps was resulting in tens of thousands of new engineers who were employable but lacking fundamental skills needed to grow in their next career step. So we joined forced to start Formation - which is a personalized and dynamic coaching and training program for experienced engineers. If you want my advice - be ready to run a company and not to create a coding bootcamp. Almost all…

We run ads for our program (not a bootcamp but have experience with ads) Honestly, with good quality ad targeting it's impossible to know. It might FEEL like a company is spending millions of dollars and you see the ads every place you go.... inescapable... but the company might be spending very little and just optimized how to target you or their audience very well and not waste money on irrelevant people. So it's possible that the more you see a company, the better their marketers are. It's also possible they are spending a ton of money. You'll never really know though and advertising is the main way companies find customers so almost everyone does it. The ones that don't spend money, hire people to create public content and "free" workshops. They end up spending MORE MONEY on those people's salaries and running those than they would on advertising. Codesmith is a good example, a…

I see people interviewing at all stages of companies at Formation (disclosure: co-founder) and they haven't changed much recently. Larger companies that have complex proprietary technology continue to do generic, stack-agnostic, problem solving (i.e. "Leetcode") problems. Smaller and less tech-focused companies that expect you to show up on day 1 and contribute in a more generic stack continue to have more practical questions, realistic work.