Timeline

I've only seen recent days from Launch School and Codesmith, two other top bootcamps. Launch School is holding it together with around 70% placement rate for 2023 (down from 90s). Codesmith only released CA data and those fell off a cliff to 42% in 2023. The best bootcamps we're ready for a 8.0 earthquake and survived 2023+2024 but some have sever structural damage. Makes them question whether to demolish what's left and possibly rebuild form scratch or keep using the damaged bridges and road, hoping they don't collapse. Rithm closed shop. App Academy indefinitely paused SWE. Rigorously question any bootcamp trying to get you to drive across a damaged bridge because you don't want to be on the bridge when it collapses.

That sounds awesome. I've been consistently saying for years that bootcamps are sufficient alone but apprenticeships (or any kind of supported on ramp) is the absolutely ideal job for bootcamp grads. It takes some investment but its a way to get some really good people without paying $500K for a Stanford grad. The problem I'm seeing right now is there are fewer bootcamps left and places like Codesmith where grads lie about their experience to sneak into more experienced roles, covering up the fact they went to a bootcamp. It completely breaks the system. Imagine you hire five boot campers and they go through your rotation program and you unintentionally/unknowingly hire a codesmith grad as a mid-level engineer who is equally experienced as the boot campers, but is now in this weird spot where they're faking it all the time that they have experience. really the ideal would be that they…

And this is he problem. Bootcamp's have been pushing people to put lipstick on a pig instead of actually preparing people better. There's a bootcamp called Codesmith that previously had pretty good outcomes and most of their grads learn how to fake their experience. They are told their 3-4 week projects are equivalent of 4 months of experience for background checks (that their employee says they sign off on). I reviewed these projects on GitHub and they were so full of noob problems that I flagged this and called them out on it. Their response: double down and make no changes. Good intentions but even the best bootcamps are failing people right now. And Codesmith costs $22,500 for 14 weeks.

I have a list of LinkedIns for Future Code people and a bunch are doing the same old experience exaggeration that students do. I thought you couldn't have any experience or a CS degree going into Future Code and now I'm seeing these people retroactively having adjacent experience and computer science degrees in progress or computer science minors. Future Code students - if you are reading this - don't lie on your resumes and don't believe Codesmith if they tell you aren't lying but just representing your "real capacities" and making your "perceived capacities" align with the real ones. It might help you get a job but the industry looks down on this and if you get a job this why and OSLabs signs off on your background check, you'll have to live with the fact that you cheated your way into the industry and the consequences will catch up with you someday. I've worked with a couple of Fu…

CIRR is dead and deserves scrutiny because Codesmith's marketing of it has mislead hundreds of people to pay them $21,500 in 2024, it is indeed worthy of scrutiny. When Codesmith had like 12ish cohorts in 2024 and 2-3 of them say that they only know about 1 person placed in 6 months, that's not a fact by any means but it raises flags and warrants questions. Codesmith's response has been to entirely evade the question. They clearly have 2024 data of some kind that they are publishing, but they aren't publishing H1 2024 placement rates - which they obviously have preliminary versions of or they can't publish the offer data they have. Even if they don't have or want to publish placements rates they can say "warning, placement rates are down, we want to double down on finding and supporting the RIGHT people for Codesmith so if you want to become a SWE, work with us and we'll be honest wi…

I was informed today that Codesmith is still signing letters of reference and background checks on behalf of OS Labs to confirm fake work experience. I care less that people are lying on their resumes and care more the Codesmith has been participating in these lies for years and years. Codesmith alumni, spread the word - 3 weeks of commits on a project isn't 7 months of unpaid work experience at OS Labs. Tell Codesmith this is unethical and let them know loud and clear. People are sending me evidence of this stuff because maybe they are afraid to lose their jobs for being found out and it's sad. If you feel guilty about this and don't want to be public - my DMs are open. I won't stand for this garbage behavior from people with no integrity.

33 is a pretty big cohort too for 2024. If this is true, I really wish people would do their fricken research and stop believing their bullshit marketing and leader. I used to have way more pros and cons about Codesmith and things have degraded to much over 2024 starting when they laid off everyone and promised amazing changes that never happened. You can follow my history. I'm pissed off now but back then I very rationally paused my endorsement of Codesmith in February when those layoffs happened and then a few months later when things continued to decline I actively recommended not going there. Now the leader is writing a book and barely involved, grads are less and less prepared and alumni complain to me more and more about grads who are faking their resumes but not accompanying if with the grit and hustle needed to fake it til you make it. Codesmith CEO: here's a thought experime…

Don't get me started on this because I've been hounding them for literally years on this and it's been happening since 2019 https://www.reddit.com/r/TechLA/comments/b7xl98/codesmith_coding_bootcamp_scam_beware/ Every time I significantly push back you'll see like a blog post about someone who got a senior job right out of Codesmith, and they just adamantly adamantly believe this to the bitter end. So I don't think they are lying but instead are delusional. No leader there has a STEM degree, and no leader has been an engineer ever either in industry. Enough people for $130K jobs in the past they made them believe they and the secret formula to creating mid level and senior engineers out of s bootcamp that it became their identity. When your identity is attacked, you often defend completely irrationally. There are a handful of people that have gotten those jobs. and then when you zo…

I've been a massive fan of apprenticeships (some are better than others though so you have to watch out). You need 10000 hours to develop the taste needed to be a valuable engineer and a bootcamp gives you 1000. Doing apprenticeships for 2 years can get you almost there. You can rush it and you have to put in the time.

It's not that at all. They are gaslighting critics of Codesmith hahaha by countering facts with cherry picked numbers and then telling the critics they are wrong. But the students are genuinely rewiring their thinking to believe they are mid level and senior engineers. It takes 12 weeks and lots of tactics: - if you are ever negative you do correction meetings to readjust your mindset to be positive - You have to emoji like every post and an instructor apparently complained they didn't get enough emoji reactions for example. - you are told you have imposter syndrome and the solution is to follow Codesmith's resume advice to fix it and to trust them because you have imposter syndrome and aren't thinking properly about your work so you have to trust Codesmith's way as the "reality" This stuff actually works though! Like people systematically come out thinking this way and when Codesmit…

The way this has been framed to me: 1. the top couple of students usually get jobs quickly. they aren't on Reddit and they often aren't very engaged because they are in and out. others wonder why these people did Codesmith in the first place. when I've talked them I get a mix of responses: they were misled to believe Codesmith was more senior and they were way to advanced and we're advising the teachers, they needed some kind of structure and peers because doing it alone was emotionally challenging, and some people just wanted to do projects to refresh their skills and were misled that the codesmith projects were like work experience. I hear people here saying that it wasn't really with it but that they enjoyed the community and didn't think it was a scam or entire waste of money, just probably wouldn't have done it in retrospect. 2. the 2nd tier of students get hired by Codesmith. T…

Apparently someone said there are no support engineers available for March for resume and mock interviews? It's sad if Codesmith worked for you back in the day but it's imploding right now they don't deserve people's money right now. I can't believe one of their leaders texted an alumni who was considering Formation and told them 'it's a waste of money and Codesmith will give them all they need for life' Sure.... 'all they need'.... we have hundreds of mock interview slots available for the next week.