Timeline

I think this is a really good interview. Elie is extremely transparent that the market is bad and it's impact their business, even vaguely suggesting that Rithm wouldn't be able to continue forever if people continue to not sign up and attendance is way down because the market is rough. Meanwhile Codesmith's CEO is [tweeting](https://twitter.com/willsentance/status/1785384627378508272) about how unbelievably incredible Codesmith's outcomes are. Leaving out the fact that offers in general offers are down this year, he presents an uncharacteristically strong week as if it's the norm that happens from the Codesmith approach of applying for jobs. Then look you lookup the person who got an Amazon job and see they have a ton of experience and are coming back from a very long career break. **Which is fantastic and I might recommend someone in that position GO TO CODESMITH TOO.** It's extrem…

Codesmith has been asking alumni to write reviews over the past two weeks, resulting in 14 reviews in the past 2 weeks after having 2 reviews in the 3 MONTHS prior. Can you DM me with more information about who is choosing between Codesmith and Formation? I think you have a super wrong view about what Formation is and does. If you don't want to reach out to clear this up, please refrain from misrepresenting Formation. **12 out of 14 mention they were career switching and 2 don't say either way. ZERO of these alumni would have been admitted to Formation when they started Codesmith. 100% of them might be admitted to Formation now as alumni and moved on. And our new data (to be published Friday) shows that we helped engineers who placed in 2024 so far increase their first year total comp by** [**$109K**](https://formation.dev/terms#outcomes) **So if anything, Codesmith + Formation would…

PRACTICE WITH ACTIONABLE FEEDBACK! Full disclosure that I'm the co-founder of Formation and I comment here a lot in a personal capacity, but this is my personal advice and I'm not trying to advertise Formation. There is nothing like practicing and getting feedback and iterating. You can do this for free by interviewing at 2nd choice companies or if you have friends who can run legit, high quality mock interviews (that simulate the real ones). So I also recommend considering paid options, like [Interviewing.io](http://Interviewing.io), [HelloInterview.com](http://HelloInterview.com), [Formation.dev](http://Formation.dev) Some people don't want to pay for prep and I'm not saying you have to, but it's working considering and knowing what your options are. Professional athletes all have paid coaches and it can be very effective. It can also be a waste of money, that's why you have to con…

In my opinion, people who leave prior to "finishing the program" are the largest problem with ISAs because that's when people get the most upset.... not only did they not get a job, but they didn't even finish everything! For the ISAs we have, we don't have a "end of the program" and there is a clear refund policy if you leave early, but we try REALLY hard to proactively reduce costs to the value a person got if someone leaves early based on what they actually did and not just the calendar time in Formation the person is contractually required to pay. Like if Formation didn't work for you, but you had 25 mentorship sessions and did 100 hours of practice tests and tasks, and no issues reported in your weekly surveys and 1-1 checkins, then it's not fair to pay zero because you were on an ISA.

Wow what's with the tone? I think the biggest criticism of my view is that I was there 2009 to 2017 and left like 7 years ago now so I have an old view, but it's not a wrong view so I don't appreciate the attacking tone this is coming across as. I did 450ish interviews. I trained interviewers on the ground. I attended dozens of hiring committee meetings and packet reviews with Shrep and Jay and Boz and the execs. The amount of details they consider in those reviews is crazy. They look at the exact questions asked, and the interviewers history asking that question and their interviewers feedback history, etc... It's not just like you memorize 50 questions and pass. I assure you that it's theoretically possible pass that way, and I assure you that's not the right way to do it. I don't want to talk about this much because it seems like product placement, but I professionally mentor peop…

1. "I know people from Codesmith"... yes but if you look at all the Codesmith students you see that it is a very small number of people compared to the "3500+" alumni. Outside of Capital One, Amazon is a highest with a couple dozen, Apple, Google, Intuit, Square are single digit-ish special cases.... out of 3500 people. I'm not making any comments about Codesmith here, like if it can get 5 out of 100 people amazing outcomes then that's notable, but anyone who portrays that as the norm is misleading people as to how Codesmith works - that's my point. If I think you have a very strong chance of being one of those people, I will 100%, no strings attached, recommend you go to Codesmith, and I actively try to do that. 2. 100% agree Codesmith does NOT encourage any lying. It's almost awkward how they tell you so upfront "don't lie". But I thoroughly agree with this. That said, I cought the Di…

The resume itself would get through to an interview, and a recruiter or hiring manager at a big tech company would definitely figure it out during the interview. I think this is why Codesmith grads who do this approach specifically typically end up at smaller companies. By the time they get the interview, if they do well, the companies is more open to taking a chance at that point... and like you said, they don't always do or care about background checks. At Meta, the hiring committees will grill your resume too and it's just not possible to get through without having several errors take place. It's why if you look carefully at the Codesmith alumni at Meta, most were TEMPORARY CONTRACTORS FOR A CONTRACTING COMPANY!! and didn't work there, one or two were in non-SWE roles, and almost all of them are no longer there. So short answer - it works at smaller companies and that's why Codesm…

It depends on what kinds of jobs and how you are framing your resume. I've seen LinkedIn after LinkedIn full if extreme exaggerations and it might not even matter what you say about your bootcamp :( Example: There is a Codesmith grad that has the following LinkedIn (I'm not disclosing it for DOXing reasons but I'm characterizing it 100% accurately): Jan 2024-Present: Senior Software Developer: - Large Fashion Company Jul 2023-Dec 2023: Software Engineer, Contract - Small Company ->\[NOTE: Undisclosed subsidiary of the bootcamp itself\] Jan 2023-Dec 2023: Software Engineer - Small Company ->\[NOTE: Undisclosed bootcamp side project framed as a company\] Jan 2022-Jan 2023: Software Engineer - Small Company ->\[NOTE: Undisclosed 4 week long bootcamp group project framed as a company with no mention of the bootcamp\] 2016-2022: Full Stack Web Developer - Self Employer -…

+1 to the industry needs to stop focusing on outcomes. I push the arguments for this a lot and often and get tremendous pushback from the Codesmith alumni and staff (including a leader that pushed back publicly). Bootcamps shouldn't be 12 weeks and they shouldn't be about getting jobs only. Those types of bootcamps are done and over with. They should be about the quality of the experience and education and about marketing to the right people that they think their program will work for. It's why I push back on CIRR trying to force bootcamps into joining it by asking students to demand CIRR outcomes. It's not 2021 and people focused on outcomes only are joining bootcamps for the wrong reasons - whether it ends up working or not. In terms of ISAs though I just think you have to think of it as a loan nothing more. You have 3 options: 1. pay $X upfront 2. pay $Y a month for 4 years on…

Hi, most importantly we want to accept people into the Fellowship who we are confident we will help find jobs, and that can vary. But if we accept you, we are confident our mentorship approach will work, because if it doesn't and we support you for a really long time to find a job, our business doesn't work and we'll lose money and can't operate. Second, our job is to prepare you for interviews, we are not a school or bootcamp that teaches curriculum and instead we are giving you a unique experience aiming to get you in shape for interviews - like a personal trainer for your job hunt. The benchmark is one piece of the application and there is a minimum score - but for people around that score we will look deeper into the pieces of the benchmark. You background and experience is also important. Currently we require 1+ years of SWE work experience and most people have more than that a…

Thanks that helps! There are a few routes: 1. Try to get a data analyst-type internship this summer AND/or aim for data analyst jobs that will give you the chance to do scripting and coding on the job. And THEN try to transition to being a SWE - ideally at the same company by converting jobs there. 2. Do a post-bacc or extend a year and cram in as many CS courses as you can, and then go for new grad CS jobs. Big opportunity to cost to not working for a year, and a job is far from guaranteed, but his will give you the best computer science education. 3. Do a bootcamp. This is fast, so you don't lose as much opportunity cost from time. BUT bootcamps outcomes rely on a lot of luck right now and it's far from guaranteed. The cost is also probably higher than another year at Sac State (but arguably wouldn't matter because of the opportunity cost). If it doesn't work out, you don't rea…

Unlike normal Codesmith, it's a government requirement that people have "Limited or no prior experience with the basics of coding" so that is somewhat limiting for Codesmith's community I think. Like Codesmith clearly advertises that CSX is all you need for a junior engineering job and that Codesmith is for midlevel and senior jobs. So anyone who has done CSX likely has too much coding experience to join this program.

Ad hominem fallacy again, except you sprinkled in a personal attack too. Logical fallacies don't win arguments. Facts do. Best lesson from my middle school debate class. What public presentation of what data? You have a completely wrong interpretation of what Formation is. You are being condescending and offensive for you to tell me you know my company better than we know ourselves. If Codemsith's CEO showed up we would have a very respectful back and forth I'm sure and he wouldn't be making logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks. If he did then I would tell him to his face what I'm telling you now.

I don't know what to say other than facts are facts and making up your own story based on your imagination doesn't hold up. 1. We don't compete with Codesmith. I've asked Codesmith to stop telling people that because it makes people like you think we do when it doesn't hold up in any capacity. The people that teach Codesmith do Formation, not the students, and maybe that is confusing but it shouldn't be. 2. "Often over 150 or 160k" is wrong and because you referenced CIRR earlier and should know that data. Their 2022 FTRI had about 780 starts, 732 grads. 708 job hunting. 574 had placements in 360 days. 499 had salaries and 121 had salaries over 140K. That is 15% of starts for 140K+ which is more people than make 150K, which is fantastic but it's not the norm. Codesmith is an amazing choice for the right people and I tell those people to go to Codesmith, but portraying it as something…

Maybe the market sucks for bootcamp grads, and no one is going to them anymore? Codesmith's enrollment is down 70% from peak and they laid off 1/3 to 1/2 their staff. That's not a result of this sub... Why can't this sub be trusted? I've been talking very openly about Codesmith's problems in this sub and when they come true and Codesmith tanks doesn't that add credibility to all the stuff I'm saying rather than detract from it?

The only people submitting to CIRR left are: 1. Codesmith. 2. a school with 15 grads in 2022, 3. a school in Jakarta that didn't follow the 2024 guidelines. Codesmith's outcomes for H2 2022 had a very large and unexplained jump in people who didn't respond tot the survey but accoridng to Codesmith's Director of Outcomes, were verified using "LinkedIn" as placements... It's not terrible, but "only trusted source" is factually incorrect.

This is a major reason why the to Two reasons: 1. There has been a crash in the influencer economy too, so fewer people are around advertising them 2. Bootcamp market has crashed so not many people going to bootcamps and the conversion cost of ads is too high. One interesting thing is Codesmith just STARTED advertising with display ads! Because the larger players have stopped advertising so much, people stopped Googling for the "best bootcamps" and finding the smaller "higher rated" ones. So it makes sense to see MORE ads from the remaining smaller bootcamps that are surviving.

Codesmith's new Future Code Program is coming together, (free program for NY residents with no programming experience, aiming for a $65K+ first computer job), applications in May, starts July 29th This page has been around for a while but it's coming together and just updated with the dates and more info about the program: [https://www.codesmith.io/future-code-nyc](https://www.codesmith.io/future-code-nyc) This is a great program if you meet the requirements below! Note that you have to have **"Limited or no prior experience with the basics of coding, no paid professional web development or similar experience, and do not have a Computer Science degree"** It's going to be very interesting to see how these alumni market their experience and resumes and what jobs they end up getting. The job market is tough and maybe the government has jobs lined up, otherwise this might be the only ti…

This is a really good AMA and Stephen Script always has solid, clear advice. But you also shared this exact same link two weeks below just two weeks ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1bhkmki/switched\_careers\_from\_healthcare\_to\_tech\_in\_under/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1bhkmki/switched_careers_from_healthcare_to_tech_in_under/)

I've done some anonymous surveying and almost all of the randomly chosen engineers and recruiters mistook many Codesmith grads OSP as employment experience. I'm assuming the auditors would make the same mistakes at least one some occasions. Even Codesmith's website listed a graduate employed at their OSP as their job, which is a one time mistake, but just showing that this is a problem on multiple fronts. Do you give them specific instructions to not count OSPs or is it possible OSPs are being counted if someone presented their OSP as a job - against Codesmith's instructions?

1. I've explained numerous times why Formation doesn't publish CIRR or similar outcomes and that we aren't a coding bootcamp. Since you seem to know Formation better than I do, explain to me what "graduation" means at Formation? This is the core principal of all bootcamp outcome standards that I can't figure out what that means for us. If you can't explain "graduation" accurately then just back off and stop spreading nonsense about us. If you can thoughtfully read the specs and propose what it means for us, then we can talk keep talking about it productively about why I agree or not. 2. We advertise all over Reddit and we re-target people who visit our website. Drawing false conclusions is not fact. Raw data is fact. So asking "Why do I see ads for Formation in this sub?" and getting a completely open and transparent answer is exactly what I'm talking about being open and transparent…

Copied: 3 schools left in CIRR: one had 15 students for their entire year of reporting. One didn't even follow the new standard and they decided to let them publish anyways because otherwise you would have just Codesmith and a 15 person school left. Codesmith and CIRR are tightly coupled. Codesmith is the only school who cares about CIRR and CIRR would be collapsed if Codesmith left

3 schools left in CIRR: one had 15 students for their entire year of reporting. One didn't even follow the new standard and they decided to let them publish anyways because otherwise you would have just Codesmith and a 15 person school left. Codesmith and CIRR are tightly coupled. Codesmith is the only school who cares about CIRR and CIRR would be collapsed if Codesmith left. Facts are facts and trolling or mass downvoting doesn't change that.

So the good thing about CIRR is you have to report how many people fall in these buckets, so it's all transparent. The inadequacies though are that just because it's there, that's not good enough. If it's there but people have to analyze it to understand the real picture, it can be improved. If it's there but then companies just ignore it and tout their top level numbers, and saying that these are rigorous CIRR numbers, the best, trust us! It's leveraging the fact that no one understands or cares about these between the lines details and those are there primarily to make the standard APPEAR more trustworthy. I'm not putting this one way or the other in this reply, just laying out both sides. In all fairness their standard says loud and clear that the number of people who reported salaries needs to be listed on the website and I don't see it anywhere on Codesmith's website.

Both CIRR and Codesmith's Director of Outcomes stated that they want or are considering expanding CIRR to work for interview prep platforms. I co-founded one of the 3 main interview prep platforms (5 if you count interviewing.io and hello interview) So if someone adamantly believes that my company should be reporting to CIRR then they could see this as not impartial. I explained emphatically why we have never even considered reporting to CIRR and why it doesn't make sense for us (can't speak for all interview prep companies but I imagine Pathrise would feel similarly given the over a dozen types of jobs it supports and the drastic difference in junior.vs senior outcomes)... that this kind of thing just doesn't work. So I feel impartial in my head.

Significant\_Wing has been pretty neutral and consistent for a long time, I think they are just asking why I posted such an intense review of this. Clearly vert few people case because no one showed up to Codesmith's CIRR recap sessions. Very few people commented on CIRRs AMA. So I think the person is more saying, why bother caring about this because CIRR is largely irrelevant now. I do it because sometimes it's in the little places that the people get manipulated the most.

Rithm, Launch School, and Codesmith are the three I always suggest looking at as a wide range of styles and types of learning. I'm currently NOT recommending Codesmith because they had 1/3 to 1/2 layoffs, and announced a number of changes and I want to let those settle in before resuming recommendations. I've heard that instruction is stabilizing as those laid off depart, but it will take a bit more time.

Line-by-Line Critique of CIRR Standard Document. Opinion: good intentioned organization but spec is not rigorous and robust and I point out all of the problems that make it one of the weaker specifications I've read in my opinion. There have been numerous discussions around CIRR lately and there are too many words being thrown around, along with ad hominem attacks, and no one other than me seems to be reading the standard - even the CIRR board misquoted it. I refuse to debate anyone further on here until they acknowledge this post and read it because any counter arguments not based on a thorough analysis of the spec are garbage conversations that don't belong on here. Thoughtful debates over lines of the spec are appreciated. This is long and thorough and if it's too boring for you to read the whole thing then don't share your opinions about it. If someone calls CIRR "**rigorous"**,…