Timeline

69 featured entries in Feb 2024 · of 2,441 featured / 6,269 total archived

Page 1 of 2 · showing 1–50 of 69

Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I agree yeah generally speaking, but they removed the times from the website so it's not entirely clear if the times will change. They have been soliciting feedback on the times for a while. FEEDBACK FOR CODESMITH (OPINIONS): 1. The blog post should have had more logistics for the students impacted instead of half defending how great Codesmith is before discussing any of the changes. 2. The website should have been updated in tandem because it's very confusing right now 3. Staff should have been around when the blog went out to assist and support people 4. Will should have written a letter in his name about all that Codesmith has accomplished over the years as a preface to alumni and to the public, and then a SEPARATE LETTER from a Shanda about the program changes written to students and future residents about logistic changes that was more tactical and less marketing.

Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah I know some instructors and I REALLY hope they have a transition time because the ones I know are amazing and I know will find great jobs outside of Codesmith but might need a little bit of time to ramp up and compete in this same market as the Codesmith grads. But yeah eliminating two cohorts is 6 instructors (2 leads, 2 instructor, 2 mentors) and a number of lead fellows and fellows, I agree there might be some people looking for jobs. Even if they are promised their jobs will survive and morph, I would be looking for a new job given the state of things... DISCLOSURE: I am actually bias on this because Codesmith instructors coming to my mentorship program is decent option to consider and they are at the lower end of our acceptance bar, but still a viable option. I know we're only talking like a few people and my comments above aren't meant to be an ad, but I'm just disclosing t…

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Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Launch School is a little smaller and has always been smaller, and follows a vaguely similar idea to Codesmith. You spend a lot of time preparing to go to Capstone via the Core. Difference being Core is paid and more committed and CSX is free. Capstone is a little longer and the projects - also open source products - are a little more polished and legit. So TLDR: depends on what works for you. If you like Launch School Core go to Capstone. If you like CSX and Codesmith public lectures go to Codesmith - although note I would pause and wait to see what's going on with these changes before locking it in. I'm sure everything will be totally find, but just calmly absorb what they tell you and process it, I'm happy to be a sounding board 1-1 if you are nervous about something they tell you to chat it through with an independent rational look at things.

Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Oh wow, I assume they would have told you or will tell you any second now and have people ready to respond all night, that's what I would do. That would be a huge miss if they announced this publicly and left all the March people hanging :(. That said, I would just take a deep breath though and wait to hear from them, they are already small and shrinking but they seem committed to providing a good consistent experience, so I would cautiously wait and not get too worried yet and give them a day to explain everything. Hopefully they let you know soon and let me know if you find out the answer! I'm really busy too and not proactively trying to find out, just surfacing and summarizing what comes my way.

Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
Similar to another comment, all of the day to day details haven't come out yet and it's why I temporarily paused my recommendation until it is sorted out. I've also seen in CSX Slack a number of people super excited to join in the next month. The new times are very different. Like 7:30am to 5:30pm PST Monday through Saturday, and some people might have to change up their schedules. My COMPLETE GUESS FOR NOW is that the March NY cohort will run "hybrid" style as a "co-working space" where the instruction is remote and the same as all others in the cohort, but a group of people happen to be in person for as much as they want to be. I'M JUST GUESSING! I want to know too

Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
They didn't say explicitly but what they did say: - The March 4th cohort sounds like the last one that will run the old way - I would guess they will have a transition time where the instructors of all these cohorts are kept on to wrap things up and co-teach the first 1-2 cohorts before moving on to other things outside of Codesmith. So maybe as they transition the first "new" full time remote cohort will be taught a little differently with multiple lead instructors? No idea, good question! **This is exactly why I'm pausing recommendations until all the day to day details are out** and we see what happens - All the cohorts are still on the website through July, but staff were removed from the upper section and the new times were placed there instead. So it seems only partially rolled out.

Codesmith is Transitioning to Fully Remote · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I made a whole post to summarize my comments, they couldn't fit in a normal comment: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1b2q8ck/codesmith\_due\_to\_declining\_enrollment\_shutting/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1b2q8ck/codesmith_due_to_declining_enrollment_shutting/)

Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati posted · ★ FEATURED
Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions. SOURCE: [https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech](https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech) DISCLAIMER: The following is my top to bottom analysis and personal opinions. I always disclose this and hopefully it's not boring. These are my personal opinions. I've not new to the sub and I have been giving my opinions on bootcamps for almost two years now, daily, from the FAANG angle, and also having worked with hundreds of bootcamps grads. I'm the co-founder of an interview prep mentorshi…

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Codesmith posted an "Early Look" into 2023 outcomes w/ 2022 comparisons. My personal opinions and anlysis. Notable to me is both that median salary was $130K in 2022 and that it was $115K in 2023. Placement rates are missing, but I would guess much lower, for a double whammy 🥺 · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah they are preparing to release 2022 outcomes any day now so that means they just use the data you self submitted in the form. The auditors don't check everything and they are just checking Codesmith's math and processes that they are following CIRR, they are not actually auditing that your salary is what you say it is. It's one of the misunderstandings of CIRR. CIRR allows self-reported salary data without specifying how it should be verified so the auditors make sure Codemsith is following CIRR and ultimately involves a heck of a lot of self reported data.

Codesmith posted an "Early Look" into 2023 outcomes w/ 2022 comparisons. My personal opinions and anlysis. Notable to me is both that median salary was $130K in 2022 and that it was $115K in 2023. Placement rates are missing, but I would guess much lower, for a double whammy 🥺 · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
My understanding is that your offer details form IS what they use for CIRR. Their auditor contacts a random sampling of people to confirm the numbers they have for you are what you told Codesmith originally and that's the extent of the audit With the new CIRR rules, which have t been published yet (which isn't great because the outcomes might come at the same time as the new spec, not leaving time for anyone to give feedback on the spec, other than the 3 schools remaining in CIRR) so I can only speculate, but if you graduated in 2023, you might not get contacted until 2025 with the 12 months cycle. So try to remember exactly what you told Codemsith haha if it comes to an audit.

Codesmith posted an "Early Look" into 2023 outcomes w/ 2022 comparisons. My personal opinions and anlysis. Notable to me is both that median salary was $130K in 2022 and that it was $115K in 2023. Placement rates are missing, but I would guess much lower, for a double whammy 🥺 · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
It's a classic sales funnel. It's a pre-arranged cold outreach sequence. It's like a sales funnel to sell yourself as a candidate and is leveraging the fact that cold outreach sales funnels have decent conversions. They don't call this a special method and it's not a secret what the steps are and how they work.

Looking to change careers into something coding related · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I would love to interview you and see how much of the "workings of React" you absorbed in a bootcamp. I've interviewed a bunch of people from Codesmith one of the top bootcamps, with a Facebook-level technical behavioral interview, and within 5 mins their technical abilities fell apart, all of them. What I observed was the people were learning how to appear to understand things for an interview but people didn't actually understand things the way they portrayed they did. People would have been better off portraying less understanding and actually having that understanding than portraying a deeper understanding that they don't have. It's nothing against bootcamps, it's just true expertise takes a lot of time, and takes different paths for everyone. A fixed length bootcamp where you absorb as much as you can in the allotted time just isn't an environment conducive to expertise and is…

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Codesmith posted an "Early Look" into 2023 outcomes w/ 2022 comparisons. My personal opinions and anlysis. Notable to me is both that median salary was $130K in 2022 and that it was $115K in 2023. Placement rates are missing, but I would guess much lower, for a double whammy 🥺 · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
Yeah great point! These outcomes are still very strong and consistent with the industry changes in bootcamps. My analysis is on the tougher side because Codesmith doesn't call itself a bootcamp, and it compares itself to the top grad school programs in the world so I'm anlyzing against the top in the world bar. A student pasted some data shared with the alumni in a session and it showed that the median person with an offer sometime last summer was making $70Kish BEFORE STARTING CODESMITH. But this post isn't about "who should go to Codesmith", it's just an analysis of the data.

Codesmith posted an "Early Look" into 2023 outcomes w/ 2022 comparisons. My personal opinions and anlysis. Notable to me is both that median salary was $130K in 2022 and that it was $115K in 2023. Placement rates are missing, but I would guess much lower, for a double whammy 🥺 · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati posted · ★ FEATURED
Codesmith posted an "Early Look" into 2023 outcomes w/ 2022 comparisons. My personal opinions and anlysis. Notable to me is both that median salary was $130K in 2022 and that it was $115K in 2023. Placement rates are missing, but I would guess much lower, for a double whammy 🥺 SOURCE: [https://www.codesmith.io/blog/early-look-2023-outcomes-and-analysis](https://www.codesmith.io/blog/early-look-2023-outcomes-and-analysis) DISCLAIMER: These are my personal opinions about the data. I'm human and I make mistakes, but I'm giving my quick personal thoughts and opinions the most open and transparently I can, comments and corrections with sources are appreciated. I have a long history of being around this sub and giving my opinions from the FAANG angle, and the bootcamp angle (having worked with hundreds of bootcamp grads from all kinds of bootcamps over the years). I'm the co-founder of an…

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On My Experience at Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I'm acting as a moderator because there is an ongoing conversation that OP is involved with making very large claims about Codesmith with I've seen first hand evidence of some of those claims. Some public messages called out certain individual Codesmith employees resulting in the account being suspended and the person appears to be trying to steer the conversation in a constructive direction with this new post. It sounds like you made the right choice going to Codesmith and it's a fit for you. Some people don't like the "cringe moments" and some alumni, as they get real industry experience, feel like people there don't "know their shit", but instead know how to portray that they "know their shit". You won't be able to judget that until you are in the industry for a few years, but regardless, it doesn't mean the experience can't be effective at helping the right people find jobs. Where…

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On My Experience at Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah I agree it's a fine line. Like if someone is a leader of a company and touting their industry expertise, they also can be called out as a result (obviously in a fair way that's not liablous), and that's the nature of the job. I feel like if you are publicly an instructor at a bootcamp who is present in the public domain on the bootcamp's behalf, LEGALLY it might be more ok (idk, I'm not a lawyer), but just on a human level, I personally would be more sensitive because not all lower level employees might realize that job they are signing up for like leadership would.

On My Experience at Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
I personally support productive conversation about bootcamps and I agree with OP that that shouldn't involved calling out people by name that you had a bad experience with on Reddit. There isn't a different between "reviews" on review websites and "reviews" on Reddit, but Reddit has rules against DOX'ing people (other than public figures) to protect against anonymous harassment - which I totally support. I have the impression OP plans to continue to share their experience but without naming people, not that they are being silenced or not wanting to share that experience.

Any recent Codesmith graduates? · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
\+1 to "It is 100% not "imposter syndrome" when you don't know what you're doing." Hit the nail on the head there. Sometimes people just don't know things and it's not imposter syndrome haha and with engineering it's often a little of both: you don't realize what you do understand and you have no clue what you don't understand, and you need to figure out how to get by.

Do Not Go To Codesmith · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Hey, thanks for sharing your experience with everyone, two follow up questions in bold below. There's a lot of common stuff I hear about career support at Codesmith (in terms of response times and the idea that they don't really care if you give up after a year because it won't impact CIRR numbers anymore). Additionally, people often report that alumni mentors tend to regurgitate the lectures, repeating the same solutions and people who get it, do well and people who don't just get told they are "hard learning" and to figure it out. **I have a follow up question, which is how many people in your cohort do you think were in a similar boat, i.e. what was your approximate placement rate within 6 months?** Codesmith aggressively markets that their alumni are mid-level and senior engineers and bluntly, I saw [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis_of_52_most…

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📌 Netflix x Formation Program is back for 2026 grads in the USA aiming to do SWE internships at Netflix in summer 2025. It's a free part time program over the summer (paid for by Netflix) and the goal is land an internship at Netflix! Applications close Feb 16th. · r/csMajors

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Their goal is to hire you as an intern next summer, but it's fine to do internships this summer. However, their goal is also to improve people's skills in hiring them and not just hiring people who are already at the bar. Formation is 15+ hours a week meant to improve you as an engineer, so they want people who are all in on that and not appearing to possibly trying to find a shortcut to get to Netflix. So if you are committed and want to work at Netflix and ready to juggle Formation and an internship it probably can't hurt.

I wish I never went to a coding bootcamp · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I don't know but Codesmith is one of them, also don't know who the new president is. If the new president is from Codesmith then it basically makes CIRR a marketing tool to validate their outcomes, just like GRAD for Hack Reactor and Rithm 's own standard. Which is totally fine just have to realize that. There are no bodies and I don't expect one to happen because CIRR had more force than anyone and failed to get schools on board.

CS theories · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah Codesmith has a sister charity called OSLabs and that charity does background verification for your time at Codesmith plus additional time you worked on your main project afterwards. A letter was forwarded to me and it doesn't say Codesmith anywhere. It's "X was a software engineer working on Y as part of OSLabs"

CS theories · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I know a ton of industry companies that don't hire bootcamp grads for these reasons. So bootcamp grads have gotten creative with resumes to try to get by. And companies have raised entry level experience requirements to 4 years. Codesmith is the one that stands out where grads [tend to do this](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/s/QfiCldAoPA) but they also tend to not get fired - some do, but I know many that have struggled to ramp up and not found it easy to catch up, the gaps become very evident but some people are able to fill them.

📌 Netflix x Formation Program is back for 2026 grads in the USA aiming to do SWE internships at Netflix in summer 2025. It's a free part time program over the summer (paid for by Netflix) and the goal is land an internship at Netflix! Applications close Feb 16th. · r/csMajors

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah it's certainly interesting. It's more of an object oriented systems design than bug scale systems. Netflix historically hasn't hired junior engineers at all so it's relatively new to hire interns and new grads, and I think that is why they look for some of these things - it's a culture biased to senior engineers. The highest score is 1000 but it's not linear. hello@formation.dev!

📌 Netflix x Formation Program is back for 2026 grads in the USA aiming to do SWE internships at Netflix in summer 2025. It's a free part time program over the summer (paid for by Netflix) and the goal is land an internship at Netflix! Applications close Feb 16th. · r/csMajors

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
No, you'll also need systems design topics covered. In terms of getting accepted, having a good video is a start! Reaching out to team members won't help and all applications will be reviewed fairly. But if you are nervous about the application or have logistical questions please reach out to the team.

📌 Netflix x Formation Program is back for 2026 grads in the USA aiming to do SWE internships at Netflix in summer 2025. It's a free part time program over the summer (paid for by Netflix) and the goal is land an internship at Netflix! Applications close Feb 16th. · r/csMajors

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Good question! Netflix is looking for all kinds of skills beyond just DS&A, such as systems design skills, and you'll work on all of those during Formation. Second, the assessment is just a gauge your readiness and doesn't have any actual code in it. To have the highest chance possible of passing the interviews you also need to practice other skills for how to work through a problem live with the interviewer, breakdown problems you haven't seen before, communicate well, and right clean code. So all of those things are things you'll work on as well. Other people might have weaker DS&A but lots of potential and the program works for those people as well and will adapt for the things you need to work on.

Anyone have any updates from CIRR and their new standards for 2022 full year outcomes? All the "official standards documents" on their website are "owned" by Codesmith's former product manager (!?!), not someone at CIRR, and haven't been updated in a long time. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I can clarify that my motivation for the original post was to point out that CIRR appears to be falling apart and that Codemsith is the only entity left with motivation to keep it going, so that a former Codemsith employee being connected to CIRR to work there could possibly indicate close and control between CIRR and Codesmith. That's all, I don't think I implied anything about anything nefarious going on or changing standards or a Codemsith person backdooring anything and if I did, I'm happy to edit that to make it clearer. When I reread the title, it's not the best, it's limited to 300 characters and I could have done better. I'm literally skiing all over Hokkaido and waking up at 5am every morning to work and dropped the ball a bit with the title in terms of communicating what I intended. The content itself is only briefly about Codemsith and is mostly about concerns about CIRR.

Anyone have any updates from CIRR and their new standards for 2022 full year outcomes? All the "official standards documents" on their website are "owned" by Codesmith's former product manager (!?!), not someone at CIRR, and haven't been updated in a long time. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
Yeah I mean I'm not trying to call any individuals out, except maybe Eric K because he seems to be at the center of all the stuff people tell me about that is personal about me by name. But the CIRR people: nothing personal in calling this stuff out, literally just open and transparent and want people to see interesting realities Words are easy, actions are hard.

Anyone have any updates from CIRR and their new standards for 2022 full year outcomes? All the "official standards documents" on their website are "owned" by Codesmith's former product manager (!?!), not someone at CIRR, and haven't been updated in a long time. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
It's even more weird if a CIRR.org owned Google Drive is being edited by a former Codesmith employee, no? Like it's not flip the table conspiracy theory, it's just this is not the bar I expected from CIRR or from Codesmith and they all need to get their stuff together! Codesmith has so many problems with their website, privacy, cookies, sharing of data, I don't know where to even begin, and this CIRR thing isn't helping convince me otherwise lol

Anyone have any updates from CIRR and their new standards for 2022 full year outcomes? All the "official standards documents" on their website are "owned" by Codesmith's former product manager (!?!), not someone at CIRR, and haven't been updated in a long time. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah, when the times are good, people can't wait to shout the results from the rooftops, when they are bad, lots of excuses, changing the metrics, changing definitions, etc... The USA is a capitalist market and the companies are doing what they should be doing, and we as consumers (I mean I represent a company too and I need to always disclose that, but I'm on Reddit representing myself personally) also need to do what we need to do our homework as well.

Anyone have any updates from CIRR and their new standards for 2022 full year outcomes? All the "official standards documents" on their website are "owned" by Codesmith's former product manager (!?!), not someone at CIRR, and haven't been updated in a long time. · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati posted · ★ FEATURED
Anyone have any updates from CIRR and their new standards for 2022 full year outcomes? All the "official standards documents" on their website are "owned" by Codesmith's former product manager (!?!), not someone at CIRR, and haven't been updated in a long time. Hi all, I'm hitting the slopes skiing in Japan and what else would I be doing but checking up on CIRR's website because we're all awaiting new updates any day now! However, I'm more concerned than ever that it's kind of falling apart :( 1. All previous data seemed to have disappeared, so there are no past reports to look at, zero data on the site. After the site changed ownership and hosting behind the scenes, I'm concerned they lost access to the previous data and it's gone :(. I would love any evidence anyone has if this is correct or not, just a theory because I can't imagine why they would delete all the old data. 2. I notic…

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📌 Netflix x Formation Program is back for 2026 grads in the USA aiming to do SWE internships at Netflix in summer 2025. It's a free part time program over the summer (paid for by Netflix) and the goal is land an internship at Netflix! Applications close Feb 16th. · r/csMajors

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
This could be two questions, so I'll answer both: 1. Last summer we ran a smaller program and many people received offers, and those that didn't found all the training was did helpful in other interviews and I think people unanimously found the program very helpful according to the exit survey they all do, and anecdotally. These engineers were preparing for full time roles though and not internships. 2. If you are asking if a non-Netflix program Formation Fellow has gotten a job as Netflix intern, then no. In the paid Fellowship, we work with people with existing SWE work experience and we don't work with college students looking for internships, so it wouldn't be expected for them to get internships.

Interview SDE2 virtual onsite AWS · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
The SDE 2 role at Amazon is for people.with generally 2+ YOE as an SDE 1 or equivalent so you are much better off posting somewhere else.to get advice because most people here haven't been to a bootcamp yet, nevertheless worked already in industry. Now if you want SDE 2 onsite advice, I'm quite qualified to provide that. 1. Your coding interviews are standard LC style,.usually medium to hard questions and occasional touching on very hard topics like DP. At Formation, we benchmark and practice exactly what you need to know for this but outside I would say you should be able to solve any LC Medium you haven't seen before in 25 minutes or less with a very clean solution. 2. Ping me if you get an offer for negotiation,.so I can compare that to other SDE 2 offers I've seen at Formation this month and let you know.exactly what to ask for. They are unique offer structures. Don't trust Blind o…

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83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
It's more like this: 1. apply with the best channel, i.e. referrals if possible 2. send message to hiring manager/with the application - as personal as possible, referencing blogs or videos, or unique connection to company OR something special about your background 3. send double down - similar message to 2 but to an executive or very senior person and doing it shortly after 2. 4. follow up - if you don't hear back after a few days But yeah I really don't buy that 5% of these end up in offers and the data sourcing seems iffy. I totally agree with this method but they literally tell people that this will result in a "minimum 20% conversation rate" and I don't buy that.

83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah and those jobs to me are great first jobs and can be great jobs in general, just not what I call "solid tech SWE jobs". This companies have been hiring engineers for years and haven't changed that. Hiring ebbs and flows depending on the market, just like anything else. Banks doing fine with high interests hired a little more. Healthcare is hiring as more stuff moves online. These things go up and down and my point is there is no magical change in the world that results in those companies hiring more engineers now for jobs that didn't exist before .

83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I agree with your framing too, I awas being a bit flippant, but I would agree their stance is they are trying to make well rounded engineers who are leaders in todays world. My argument is that all of those qualities were things that always made a good engineer and that this hasn't changed, but I don't think it's a bad or wrong view to have. To me it's not FAANG === tech. There are a lot of tech companies that are not FAANG but are "good tech companies", like [Bill.com](https://Bill.com), Twilio, arguable Salesforce. People use FAANG+ sometimes but to this is the definition (my personal one): 1. Engineers are empowered to make major decisions, if not are major deciders in most decisions 2. The company is product led - building the best tech-based solution to problems, and the money comes from that as a consequence 3. The company has strong technical chops in it's founding team (this is…

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83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I mean just look at the code yourself! I looked at two of the recent launches and found tons of commented out code without any reason why. Like a rushed school project flailing to the finish line, and then no further changes made to clean it up. It's not anywhere near real "work" in any stretch of the imagination - at least at strong tech companies, maybe it is at other companies. Again, not bashing the students, it's just the nature of doing this thing in 3-4 weeks. Even though people can keep working on the projects - with vast majority not doing so - I see massive problems in the long standing stable OSP projects as well - like the ability for a bad actor to wipe a bunch of data from their database (which was disclosed privately to them)

83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Thanks for sharing, this is why I'm almost jerking insisting that y'all ask for placement rates. A median placement time of 4 months doesn't mean much if it's only 10 people in that number versus 100 in the previous comparable number. (Not saying the outcomes are those, just an illustrative example)

83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
Here are 15 changes we made, which is a subset of roughly a hundred: https://formation.dev/blog/year-in-review-2023-at-formation/ Obviously we're not a bootcamp and I'm not comparing apples to apples but just giving some examples of things people need that changed in 2023. Codesmith's take is that they didn't change because they are the best and the world is changing because non tech companies are now hiring engineers and paying them a little less but close to what they used to. They are making a narrative that fits the outcomes instead of making changes to fit the market. The types of companies hiring haven't changed whatsoever and the companies hiring engineers haven't changed. Again, this sounds critical and insulting, but it's meant feedback. Most other bootcamp leaders just talk to me and I give my opinions privately, so maybe it's a weird way to give feedback, but people tell m…

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83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
It shows 40% were above 120K, which seems about right. That's a very very large drop. The median was $115K according to this and this data is legit and up to date and it was $127,500 on their last CIRR report. Regardless of the context around the numbers and cautions one should have, these are very larger drops in salaries. Codesmith's CEO has attributed it to people taking lower offers sooner instead of waiting for a better one and that the world is changing - more types of companies are hiring engineers. I attribute it to people taking less strong jobs are less tech-focused companies and that the world isn't changing. But the jobs are clearly still very good compared to most bootcamps.

83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
\+1, yeah definitely agree it's good advice to push grads to follow the advice I don't have the full context on this presentation, but I do think Codesmith can do more though than use data to convince people to do the same old same old because what worked in <= 2021, doesn't work the same now, and alumni that talk to me don't think Codesmith is doing anything to address that. They've added 2-3 career support engineers, but a number of people feel like Codesmith is telling them everything is fine it's just taking longer to find jobs. But with all of this new data they share to convince people of this, they haven't given any placement rates to compare and people aren't happy so I'm giving that feedback :D

83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
They go over it in public talks but its: 1. apply 2. send email/cold outreach to engineering leader (referencing blog posts or showing that you put in the work and it's not a random email you send everyone) 3. send double down email if no response from 2. 4. send final follow up email if no response from 3. With more direction on what to say in each step. It's basically a sales funnel to sell yourself and follows like cold outreach sales model.

83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Yeah I'm familiar with the Codesmith style 4 step application, with the double down and follow up, etc.. on the receiving side too haha. I meant that I'm curious what people say and if how they portray experience in that process. But yeah if you are using your own trackers, like sheets and notion trackers that Codesmith has access to, but it's enforced or standardized then they have no idea how successful Codesmith-style applications are. It's entirely possible that people just log those more often because they put a lot of effort in them and they need to stay organized throughout the process. Whereas with quick applies, it's so easy that people might not be as diligent with recording them. I'm giving direct insight though - if people are not required, they won't record all their job applications. Some bootcamps have people required to send in proof of applications to maintained job…

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83% of job offers from Codesmith in 2023 were Codesmith style vs. Quick apply · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
I have a ton of questions about this because I've seen similar numbers before: 1. What tools does Codesmith track to know conversion rates? Do they have a central tool that you have to log all applications in and what type of application it was? I work at a job hunting and interview prep platform and I know for a fact that people don't love logging all of their applications and tend to start logging them after the interviews start rolling in, so it could appear that conversions are higher but it's a lack of information. We have a completely custom in house built centralized platform for this and it's still hard! So I'm curious how people log the applications and how this data is collected. 2. This is really granular data, so what are the placement rates for people, I'm assuming they shared this if they shared that detailed data? Median time to offer is useful for one aspect, but if 100%…

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Anyone did a bootcamp during summer while completing their Cs bachelor’s degree? · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
The part time is the same but stretched out over longer time and at a slower pace. It's broken into 3 phases instead of 2. The workshops tend to be a bit higher quality than the actual teaching but similar style. The instructors at Codemsith almost all have only worked at Codesmith and the content and lectures are fairly rigid. So they have very good consistency as a result which is very predictable. The downsides are they are limited by lack of experience and often can't give more context on why things are the way they are. So you hear "trust the system" a lot and "Codemsith put a lot of thought into this and know what they are doing" versus like confident answers. Not a bash on the people's potential and abilities just lack of experience.

Anyone did a bootcamp during summer while completing their Cs bachelor’s degree? · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Sure. So I'm talking about the full time immersive that is 13 weeks. It's split between the junior portion and the senior portion. There are about 4-5 weeks of classroom style units. You spend a day or two on a topic and then do some homework / practice, then get the approach from the instructor the next day, then move on to the next topic. There are weekly tests and if you don't do well you get extra 1-1 help from a senior or an instructor. Once you pass an assessment you are done the core materials and become a senior. After that you start doing projects and there are 4 projects you do, which I won't go into more detail on right now, but 3 of them are a bit smaller and end up being listed as "open source" work on your resume. The biggest one is the OSP which most people feature as standalone experience on their resume and takes about 3 to 4 weeks. During the project phase there ar…

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Best Coding Bootcamp 2024 · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Thanks, a lot of people see Formation as something Codesmith grads would do in their 2nd, 3rd, etc... transitions if they are leveling up from a solid SWE job to a top tier SWE job and in a lot of ways it could be a great and supportive partnership where we complement each other... imagine that! For example, Formation Fellows who want to work on projects could help make OSPs better and act as mentors to Codesmith residents. We could help Codesmith with DS&A and SD - two areas they are extremely weak at for top tier companies (but are one of the best at for a zero to 1 bootcamp). We could at a minimum collaborate on public content and sessions. But for some reason, staff/former staff members report to me that Codesmith's leaders (particularly Eric K and occasionally Will) firmly believe that I'm trying to take down Codesmith and get people to go to Formation and that I'm personally sip…

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Has anyone done formation and is it worth it? · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Definitely good questions. We stand by what we do but we also don't do everything and I fully support making sure you know what we do and know it's a good decision for you. Overall I would say we are good for half of what you mentioned. The SD and technical behavioral practice the explanation part. Technical behavioral is about talking about your past work in the best way possible. SD is about connecting your big scale experience with more general concepts and applying those as tools to discussing general systems problems. Anyone can read a solid systems design book for general materials and we're focused on actually applying the tools and communicating well in group and interview settings (and getting feedback) so you can successfully pass system design interviews. We don't do any hands on projects or capstone projects and we don't do anything that builds your resume. It's somethin…

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Has anyone done formation and is it worth it? · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
We don't cover CICD or DevOps and we also don't have mentors I would say who could do mocks overing those topics specifically. We have some mentors which an do iOS and Android mocks, so while we don't cover those skills either day to day, there's at least some practice available. There's no fixed curriculum and you'll do different things at different paces. But the overall areas we cover are: 1. CS fundamentals/DS&A, up to all the topics needed for the hardest interviews (including DP, advanced graphs). How much you do will vary by your goals but you can go all the way up to the hardest of the hard. 2. System design. This is full stack system design preparing for top tier company system design interviews. 3. Technical Behavioral. Preparing your resume, pitch and practice hiring manager interview and things like the Amazon Bar Raiser 4. Minor areas: frontend (practice and mocks), softwar…

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Has anyone done formation and is it worth it? · r/codingbootcamp

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Hi, I'm happy to answer questions and always like to hear what others have to think. I'll list just a couple of shorter comments to help answer, but feel free to me, I'm very open with people about if I think Formation is a good option to consider or not, and ultimately you have to decide. 1. It sounds like you are somewhat familiar with it at least, but just to clarify that we're not a bootcamp and have no fixed curriculum, lectures, classes, lessons, etc... We are a practice, benchmarking, mentorship, job hunting and mock interview platform. You do practice by yourself in in small mentor-led group sessions, you get feedback in those sessions and through benchmarkings, and you trust us to move you through topics and skill areas at whatever pace you go at, and you trust us to tell you when you are at the top company bar. So you are paying to reliably get your skills (from DS&A to System…

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