That's absolutely aweful and appalling. Let me know if I can help in any way, I know a number of people who work at Reddit who might be able to help with reporting.
Anyone else reading this if you are participating in harassing OP, what the heck? You are all are adults and maybe this is wrong to say, but you should own up and apologize.
I appreciate your challenges and it gives me a chance to explain how things work instead of one offs and generalizations.
1. Just like Codesmith we give guidance on Formation and you can see that below, copy pasted from our notes (I think it can be improved but that's as of 12/7/2023) and I don't think this is misrepresenting in any way what Formation is or tricking anyone into thinking it is something else.
2. Adults are adults, we are not responsible for anyone's LinkedIns just like Codesmith isn't responsible for them. The reason I did my post was because it was a pattern of 92% of recent Codesmith placements.
3. If someone said that 92% of Formation placements were listing Formation as a fake job and people were all not following our advice and going rogue by presenting Formation some kind of full time software engineer job experience, and that was the reason they were getting jobs…
I love the last paragraph you wrote and fully agree with that.
Anyways, I'm sorry you feel attacked on this post, I don't agree with the tone of people calling you a liar or a paid ad and wish this was a much more useful discussion about how on earth you were the one of the only people out of hundreds right now to get a FAANG job post Codesmith because I'm sure you have a lot interesting things to say about your unique journey.
In all seriousness, the reason for Codesmith alumni's heavy, anonymous presence on Reddit is becasue people [exaggerate to get jobs](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis_of_52_most_recent_codesmith_offers/) and if they out themselves on LinkedIn or somewhere else or give more details about who they are, they risk getting "found out" by colleagues and losing those jobs. I talk to my friend at a recent hiring and asked them if they knew a specific Codesmith grad the company just hired a few weeks ago had no experience (obviously friendly and off the books) and they said no idea from the resume or interview. So it's totally in people's interest to not share their success in any way that might reveal who they are, if it's based on stretching the truth.
At Formation, we had someone start at Meta this week and she happily participated in a blog post about her job…
This is on the high side but when all said and done with base, signing, base performance, and stock, this is in that range.
But are Google and Meta hiring entry level engineers right now. I asked Meta recruiters and they only have a small number of return interns coming in at E3 right now. There are a number of REng (E4 rotational) starting this week but their pay in non negotiable and fixed (yes - truly non negotiable and it's not 230K, it's right about 200K because the signing bonus is split over 2 years.)
The E4 rotational program requires 2 years of SWE experience and it's firm. We work with their recruiters for that program and they won't take people under 2 YOE so if a Codesmith person with no experience lied, I'll give them a heads up to dive deeper into that. If someone lied to get into that program (OP said they have no experience) they should NOT be posting on Reddit because…
I can assure you I have the raw data to back that there have not been 60 placements reported in the past month and I crossed checked my number with people who work there.
If you make incorrect assumptions about my data sources then that's on you for spreading misinformation and people won't trust you on here.
This is a common problem with the Codesmith approach (not the majority, but it's a common thing to happen) and there's a number of people at career accelerators like Formation, Interview Kickstart, Pathrise, etc... as a result.
The Codesmith approach can really throw off your mental model of the industry because you hustle into roles many people are not ready for or the right fit for, and have a hard time understanding what to do next. It works if you keep the hustle going until you land a solid legit tech job, but it doesn't handle the other cases so well.
This market is making Codesmith grads learn quickly that you are not a mid level or senior engineer at top tier companies. So you get stuck with not getting these interviews, not knowing why, and then failing the mid-level/senior top tier interviews you do get. (This is the pattern I've seen).
With the exaggerations seen in most r…
I don't know what "support" means but.I can list out what I've seen people do. Codemsith adamantly claims to not help people lie so I assume they'd re not helping with most of this but it's possible they are and that is "support"
1. Stretch things, turning fast food-like jobs into technical jobs
2. Go back to school
3. Work at Codemsith itself, either as an instructor or another role
4. Be a fellow and stretch the length of time on that
5. Do unpaid internships or contracts that aren't documented as placements I told they can neither convert or get another job
6. Work on projects independent of Codemsith
7. Do another paid program afterwards, like an interview prep or career accelerator
8. Follow Codemsith networking advice
Codemsith will help any time with career support conversations so they offer those to all these people, but there isn't anything tangible that they do specifically f…
Those people have a really hard time, but they often do eventually get jobs by some way that seems to be unique for each one, or they give up and end up in the 20% of I graduated or unplaced people. Like Codesmith is just 13 weeks and you can do a heck of a lot in the 6 months to 12 months afterwards that your job hunting to keep developing and growing, heck, you could start your own company! Codesmith does not really support these people though to be very blunt and I talk to a number of them or work with them. But those who don't give up eventually get jobs.
It's definitely a let down for some because they expected a six-figure job and they are definitely some of the more unhappy people and maybe I'm biased because I talked to a number of these people but yeah don't know what else to say, very case by case. But it's one of the motivations for calling this out so often, many are misled…
This is one of the reasons why I so adamantly believe that people need to get appropriate first jobs out of a boot camp. what that means is different for each person but getting an entry level FAANG job that pays not as high as potentially some other jobs achieved through exaggerating resumes and pushing really hard, can be the path rapidly accelerating your career.
If Codesmith was really the ivy league like grad school for bootcamps they claim to be. they should be striving to place people in incredible entry-level rules that result in them making $600,000 in a few years and instead they are dismissive of those roles and pushing people to these exaggerated mid-level senior looking roles and pushing people to make the highest compensation they possibly can right out of the program.
I think they know that this is pretty much impossible because they can't reliably get people these jobs…
Sadly Codemsith has a "sister company" charity called OSLabs that signs letters of reference and does reference check calls.
I have evidence that they sign off on 4 months plus any additional time you claimed to have worked on the project (example letters of reference, and an employee confirming this publicly)
A grad claimed 10 months on LinkedIn and said it was because "people have the option of continuing to work on their projects" yet the project was untouched after the initial development window of about a month. I do not have evidence if Codesmith would sign off on 10 months of experience but this person seems to think they did 10 months and if they told Codesmith this, would they sign off on it?
Yeah absolutely even 2 people a cohort is like 5% of people and wouldn't surprise me at all that it's that or a bit higher, it's just not remotely representative of the entire experience and people framing this like its a typical case can be extremely misleading. No problem celebrating these placements with appropriate disclaimers.
Can you provide there have been 60 offers in the past month because there are doubts of that claim. The CEO and outcomes advisor have been saying that but people who work there and my own independent analysis could not support that claim and we independent came up with a much smaller number, about one per day.
Ask for proof of that number before believing them.
Yeah I see to varying degrees as well in other programs and it's most pronounced in Codesmith but I see all kinds of things with non traditional engineers and am very open minded 1-1 to helping people find their path.
The reason to call it out is because Codesmith is the only one claiming over and over that it produces "mid level and senior engineers" and signs letters of reference for their open source projects via their "sister charity" OSLabs to back up this open source work for background checks.
I think the last thing you said is the key, I wrote about that before and there are four buckets I've observed and almost all of them it is not the celebratory story, but a grueling first year of stress:
\- get fired, not a lot, but some people do
\- barely get by and leave before getting PIPed or because they are no where near progressing and want a more appropriate role
\- secretly put in nights and weekends to make up for their gaps and get by long enough to hang on
\- other: the jobs aren't really "senior", e.g. consultants at Google via contractors are "Senior Engineer", they are more mid level-ish and there is another set of outcomes there
The key thing with Codesmith is the entry bar is very high and looking for a very specific person - a person who tends to be successful in a lot of situations.
I mean the community is amazing, the people are just really well spoken, great and interesting people. There are a lot of reasons to go there!
If you are cruising Reddit late at night pondering a career switch and stumble upon Codesmith and see $120K placements and think "sign me up!", definitely slow down and learn about how it works and see if it's what you want first - same goes for any program!! And you'll find a lot of more legit reasons to go there, or not go there, depending on what you want.
https://youtu.be/SkWYanfkfCY?si=d7jFHlVV0grjKuPN&t=1980
"There's this one guy Eric Kirsten, who has a silver tongue and he will teach you how to say anything. You tell him this is my background, how do I present it to an employer to where it doesn't look like I just decided to switch careers \[\] and he will give you a great way to say it"
By lying :(
The people I know from Codesmith basically had to have resumes that showed 4+ years of experience to qualify for "senior" at Capital One and they 'worked with Career Support Engineers' to help make that happen.
There's a tight crew at Capital One and they even help each other out, like one person did a wink wink 'hey how many years of experience do you have' - candidate said 2 - person said - make it 4 to qualify for this role. And somehow they got the job.
Maybe I'm being too negative, because it doesn't come out of thin air. People turn their past jobs into 'engineer-sounding' jobs. Illustrative examples like Auditor -> Technical Analyst. Teacher -> Technical Instructor. Customer Support -> Operations Engineer.
They have a outcomes advisor that one grad said has a "silver tongue" and can make anything sound good who can help with these kinds of things.
lol I'm glad I can have some amicable discourse in here.
Codesmith has a number of amazing placements out thousands of Alumni, there are a few dozen at Amazon, a dozen or two at Google, a smaller amount at Meta, a handful at Apple/Netflix.
100 (being very generous/rounding up) canonical FAANG placements out of THOUSANDS is an edge that people should not be using an as example nor should anyone be making decisions off of.
But that doesn't change the fact that a number of incredible people go to Codesmith and do incredibly well in their careers and I both encourage them to go there, support them while they are there, support them after they are there, and that's how it should be, I'm not hear to tear anyone down or bash on their achievements.
So Codesmith has like 50/60 or so Capital One placements ranging from Associate to Senior Associate to Senior SWE. Senior SWEs make about 160 to 170K base + a base performance bonus (say 8%) + signing bonus (say 30K) + maybe the perosn is including 6% 401K matching. It could get to 230K for first year TC on the high end yeah, but I could see it getting there.
Entry level FAANG is around 200K right now that I'm seeing and mid level is around 300K I'm seeing, so these "senior" alumni are kind of hitting "mid level"-equivalent Capital One roles.
Analysis of 52 most recent Codesmith offers LinkedIns and trends on who is getting a job right now and why. Summary: an average of 11.7 months of experience claimed for 3 week long projects (lacking evidence of additional time spent). Majority claimed to have prior SWE-adjacent experience.
Hi all, I was recently made aware of the 52 most recent reported Codesmith placements (not saying when this was provided to protect identities, but it's from a window within the past couple months) and did a summary of how those people present themselves on LinkedIn. Please note that this is an UNOFFICIAL ANALYSIS based on an ordered list of placements during a 2 month time window. I won't be DOXing anyone on the list, and because this is just my personal analysis and not an official study, you should use this information for illustrative purposes only. There are numerous ways you can try to reproduce…
I'll run in through several sources and see if it checks out. In my sources personally, I haven't seen FAANG placements from Codesmith for a while, so I'm curious what "recently" means, and what "FAANG" means.
Someone got a job paying 400K at Netflix, that wasn't a SWE role and was in the same field that the person had 8 years of background as a high performer in.
There were one or two Capital One placements that could be 230K TC, but that's not a FAANG company.
Yeah I did analysis of how people present themselves on LinkedIn. Codesmith's placement numbers themselves in their CIRR are accurate. The numbers their senior advisor throws around are less so more like mischaracterizing.
My data shows that the average recent Codesmith placement (reported job in past few months) claimed to have 11.7 months of experience on their LinkedIn from their 3 week group project.
So while the outcomes themselves are good, people might be exaggerating or mischaracterizing their backgrounds to get there.
Yeah for sure, here's a job post from BloomTech (aka Lamba School): [https://jobs.lever.co/BloomTech/bc039ed3-2ba8-4e4f-a434-616f75ef667d](https://jobs.lever.co/BloomTech/bc039ed3-2ba8-4e4f-a434-616f75ef667d)
"You will be responsible for managing and executing various marketing campaigns across multiple channels to drive engagement, brand awareness, and customer acquisition"
"Implement and maintain marketing operations tools, platforms, and processes to streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and enhance campaign execution."
"Develop and execute multi-channel marketing campaigns across email, CRM, Facebook, and TikTok to achieve marketing goals and objectives."
\------
VS Codesmith:
"Foster positive relationships with Codesmith enthusiasts and leverage advocates to amplify the brand message."
"Proactively participate in discussions to influence the narrative around Codesmith…
This doesn't inspire me to share, bootcamps manipulating discussion in this subreddit.
Job posting: [https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead](https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead)
>\- Foster positive relationships with Codesmith enthusiasts and leverage advocates to amplify the brand message.
\- Proactively participate in discussions to influence the narrative around Codesmith.
\- Strong understanding of online community dynamics, with experience managing brand perception on platforms.
Like this: Codesmith is also hiring someone to manipulate Reddit full time: [https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead](https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead)
>
\- Foster positive relationships with Codesmith enthusiasts and leverage advocates to amplify the brand message.
\- Proactively participate in discussions to influence the narrative around Codesmith.
\- Strong understanding of online community dynamics, with experience managing brand perception on platforms.
I'm sure as more grads are used to "amplify the brand message" and "influence the narrative".
An alternate proposal: I would stop being so suspicious of success posts about people with "no experience" making $130K, if they stopped looking the other way when 48 out of your 52 recent placements list their 3 week long OSP as an aver…
There is a lot of negatively directed towards the job market and not the bootcamps themselves IMO.
Chris from Launch School said it well, their outcomes in later 2023 will likely be lower than in the past, but the education is the same, the experience is the same, and the graduates have the same technical bar, it's the market that's changed.
The programs complained about the most were often complained about even in the good market.
I did an analysis of the 52 most recent Codesmith placements (which I might publish soon) and people are getting jobs! But that average person claimed their 3 week group project was 11.7 months of "experience" on their LinkedIn and the majority (about 2/3) claimed to have some kind of relevant past experience (systems engineer, developer, tech project manager, data analyst, etc...) so I'm sure people are still having great experiences, but clearly the bar t…
It's Formation ([formation.dev](https://formation.dev)). It's for people with 1 year or more SWE work experience (and typically MUCH more) but a lot of people we work with are doing their 2nd, 3rd, 4th job transition. We're not a school or education program or teach anything, rather it's practice and mentorship experience to get interview ready at top tier companies.
Here's a great job post from Codesmith, they are looking for someone to manipulate social media on their behalf
-Foster positive relationships with Codesmith enthusiasts and leverage advocates to amplify the brand message.
-Proactively participate in discussions to influence the narrative around Codesmith.
Its also news to me that they have 5000 immersive alumni and hundreds of people in FAANG jobs.... I count a lot less.
https://codesmith.applytojob.com/apply/8cJdwgcb9g/Brand-Architect-And-Content-Lead
Don't DOX anyone, but can give general cases:
1. We haven't offered ISAs for like 7 months now so it's going to be a smaller and smaller number of people in that bucket. But someone on an ISA who lost their job, their ISA stop the second they lost their job. If they don't get a job within another 12 months then it's nullified, if they do, it continues where they left off when they were laid off.
2. If they were not on ISA, then they paid upfront. They could return to Formation, likely with a discount, case by case and depending on the circumstances. But many people would choose to leverage the alumni community the best they can and not pay to return because their skills are still fresh enough.
Layoffs are very personal and happen for all kinds of reasons and don't happen that often, so each one is case by case, but that's a generalization.