Timeline

I'm a moderator of the Coding Bootcamp sub and things have gone very sour there too. Supply and demand. When demand for engineers exceeded supply, no other source of supply could respond faster than bootcamps. During COVID, they produced coders in 12 weeks while Stanford took 4 years. But bootcamp grads were always at the bottom of the barrel. They took longer to ramp up and even if their raw smarts were higher than someone else, the lack of experience set them behind and it would take years to catch up. Many bootcamp grads eventually found their place and many others jumped job to job and had a very very hard time. Many bootcamps shut down or scaled back and It's immoral to me that some remaining are marketing the success cases trying to convince you that now is still the time to do it. Codesmith is one of the top bootcamps that exemplifies the rise and fall. It's now down to a t…

I'm not backing down from anonymous accounts personally criticizing me using the same language and tone. That's for sure personal at least. Codesmith doesn't have to shut down to make me happy. The other option is for Will and Eric to leave the company entirely and let Alina try to fix it without being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Will tries to approach things from first principles... the way he thinks it should be is the only way and is not distracted by or listening to others to change his mind. The problem is that when called out for getting something wrong, he seems completely incapable of acknowledging it (at least in public) and instead either ignores it, or defends against it instead of addressing it. Some of the best builders have this attitude but it only works when you are actually right at the right time. Will has been wrong about too many things now and the com…

The courses are $1500 each (currently a discount offered) Formation interview prep? You can get a $2500 a month membership, or you can pay $5000 upfront and an additional fee from $0 to $15000 depending on the increase in base salary over your current (or previous) base salary. The variable fee is currently structured so that if you don't get a job at all and leave, you don't pay anything extra, and the typical person is paying around $5000 additional (i.e. $10K total). The interview prep does not 'teach' anything so you have to come in with already hirable skills and it's purely focused on preparing you for job interviews to increase your pass rate by practicing on our platform and by getting mentorship and feedback from our hundreds of industry mentors. So just want to make sure everyone reading this doesn't mistake what we do for a bootcamp alternative given the context. We make mo…

My company doesn't offer training or education. Our main product is an interview prep platform to help you receive practice and mentorship for your upcoming engineering interviews. We also offer short and cheap AI training courses for existing experienced engineers. The typical flow would be Person -> Bootcamp -> Job -> at least 2 years -> Formation.

They have a B2B program for $30K that has no IQ requirement. I'm watching closely to see if that works. I have to give them credit for testing and broadcasting the quality of the program so publicly. If the $30K B2B doesn't result in great outcomes and ROI because the engineers are not in the top 2% and the program doesn't really do enough to justify the cost but relies on people with top 2% IQs as the main reason the people end up with good outcomes. Their previous program was $5K and didn't work too well so I'm watching really closely. \--- If I zoom out, $30K for six weeks is just too expensive long term. If it works amazingly, competitors will figure out how to undercut them to see if they are offering anything innovative at all, or if they are just doing things anyone can teach. Technology and IP are value and if you have those you can build brand value too. Brand value wit…

Hi, thanks for sharing a well thought out argument. \- Lying on the resume is a tough topic and some blame goes with with the people hiring. The snowball of "6 YOE for entry level jobs" is kind of the result of both sides. Hire a bootcamp grad with no YOE for a job needing 0 to 2 YOE, get burned, list 2YOE+ next time, bootcamp grad lies more, increase again to 4YOE, etc... They are getting burned because the hiring process inherently is flawed and requires some amount of honesty, but there cost of mis-hiring is you fire the person and move on and it's a rational market. If it was too costly to fire someone, they would spend more vetting the people. So the way I see it - both sides are optimizing for their market conditions and Codesmith grads lying just enough to get through and doing just good enough on the jobs to not trigger the snowball is the market trying to balance everything o…

Codesmith asks people when they started job hunting and I wouldn't be surprised if they change thier metric to "12 months from starting your job hunt" instead of "12 months from graduating" If your numbers suck change the goal posts! Until it's such a joke your alumni turn on you. Word of mouth is number 1 source of people and no one will recommend a program that changes goal posts to trick the public.

It's important to note that Hack Reactor and Tech Elevator and Galvanize are brands that consolidate all under Stride Learning. And this has happened over the past two years so it's really hard to judge anything about the past. My understanding is that enrollment is not good at all of them and that all of them are fairly low priority for Stride. Codesmith is not a viable option right now. It's down to like 4 core staff members and then can't even consistently spell their founders name right in blogs and marketing anymore. It's turned into a joke. Launch School has maintained its team and quality but even they are cutting back a bit in 2026 cohorts and their most recent placements have been lower than historical highs. But of all the options Launch School is the only one I consider viable right now. My opinion is you are making a financially irresponsible decision paying $22,500 for…

That was a marketing trick :( Codesmith doesn't spend money on marketing because they instead put money into paying staff to run free courses and run the pre courses at a loss. The goal of these programs is to get you bought into the Codesmith ecosystem for free or minimal cost and once you do it, if the Codesmith way of thinking works for you then you'll pay $22K for the bootcamp. Codesmith wasn't "hard to get into", rather it was extremely selective for the "type of person" they were looking for: a smart, ambitious, good communicator with low self confidence in their coding ability. If you were that they thye want you to fail a few times to confirm you have low self confidence and high grit so that when you are let in you are ALL IN on Codesmith. If you didn't get accepted it was becaue you weren't a good fit. Some brilliant people who saw through this wouldn't get let in no matt…

Yes look at my account history please. Are you delusional? I had three different independent AI engines analyze my entire account history for the substance I talk about and it's all aligned with my representation of myself. Some Codesmith people are so brainwashed they only see Codesmith stuff and these 100 comment back and forth threads that I refuse to back down on, and completely miss the substance of what I talk about that actually gets VIEW COUNTS. Codesmith people, go "under the hood" instead of being so superficial. Like i said in the other comment, entrenching on the Codesmith side without talking to me just makes me shake my head. You'll see in the future when you wake up. Many alumni have and it's one of the reasons their community has completely and utterly fallen apart. The only Codesmith people I hear from now are on payroll in some capacity. Your alumni are gone because…

I feel like I'm transparent about it, but I will summarize here my arguments that have been consistent for a period of time. I'm extremely transparent about these reasons, so either people think I'm lying or they think that there's some like secret motivation. I don't know. Codesmith thinks I have all kinds of motivations that they are just incorrect about, and believing them is only harming them even more and making their situation worse. So I don't really know why they're doing that, but it might make them feel better than accepting the truth. I have been consistently clear that Codesmith was one of the top bootcamps, that their number one strength was in helping ambitious and driven people build self-confidence in their programming abilities, and that they had three things that I didn't like. 1. They were consistently marketing placements as mid-level and Senior roles, and in my op…

Maybe Codemsith brainwashed you to think otherwise but it's the truth. If Codemsith was a good fit for people I recommended they go there and a number of people went. Some check in with me later. With all the layoffs and cutbacks I couldn't in good conscience recommend them anymore because people were upset and I lose my credibility recommending a program that was falling apart. Hence the pause to wist and see. You can clearly see my Reddit posts from both early 2024 when I paused and later 2024 when I stopped.

I can't disclose exact things nor do I proactively reach out to people about it. From what people told me the numbers aren't good. They removed all their highest paid employees and pay very low now. They fired the most expensive people and hired people in their place and paid them a lot less for the same job. Codesmith is $22,500 so if you have 10 people every 8 weeks, thats $225,000 or about $100,000 a month. Their staff right now: 1 instructor: $10,000 (they are paid a lot less now) 3 mentors/combined fellow: $30,000 (fellow is multiple people part time) 1 coordinator: $6,000 1 admissions: $6,000 1 outcomes: $6,000 Marketing/Career Support: $6,000 Overhead = 20% $13,000 Total: is like $80,000 or so? I think this is why they are clinging to life, they convince loyal alumni to work for a fraction of what they should be paid... like those MLMs that run off of the labor…

Checking in on Codesmith a year later. After recommending Codesmith for 2 years I stopped recommending them a year ago because of massive staff loss, program cutbacks, and tanking outcomes. A year later, things are even worse 😭. I'll try to summarize some history briefly and then get into the updates. I've been following Codesmith (and a handful of other programs) very closely for years now. I've spoken to dozens of students, staff, alumni, their CEO and have a very good idea what's going on. Codesmith doesn't like me. I've offered to help them, I've reviewed their students projects, I've pointed out security flaws, etc... but they see me as a "jealous competitor". I'm the founder of an interview-prep platform that has nothing to do with Codesmith and works with a bunch of Codesmith ALUMNI in the FUTURE job searches - all of whom thing we are very complementary. But nonetheless, I have…

Yeah currently yes, things change quickly though. Launch School takes a long time and isn't a quick-bootcamp, but it could be a viable alternative for career switchers with lots of time to transition. Other bootcamps could still make sense in specific situations, but even the former best ones are falling apart, like I can't recommend Codesmith under ANY circumstances at this point in time.

50% of Codesmith and Launch School grads get jobs within 6 months to 1 year old graduation so people get jobs. I think the more unique thing about you Is that you were a truck driver and didn't have professional desk job experience before. I would guess that the percentage of truck drivers that go to bootcamps that then get a job after within 6 months is probably quite low. but I do think that if they have the same persistence you have, they probably would get a job and the percentage of anyone who has that persistence is also quite low.

Depends on how much experience. But Meta is strict on YOE requirements because of regulations and such (even though internally they don't care much about YOE). New grad jobs go to interns and aren't accessible anymore. Mid level jobs require 2+ years of YOE. They use to have this rotational engineer program ("pathways") for mid level adjacent jobs for people with nontraditional experience that wasn't quite FAANG-level. It still required 2+ years of experience but it could be any kind of SWE experience. I've seen some people from Codesmith straight lie about their experience to qualify for that program, someone saying he worked at Codesmith as a job, before he even started going to Codesmith as a student. You can potentially get a contractor job there, but those never result in full time employment after and put a hole on your resume. My advice (that I advise a number of people) get a…

It's wrong to look at it that way because your odds can be narrowed based on your background. Again Codesmith because I know so much about it... like a seasoned professional data analyst that has written scripts on the job but never done software engineering, will be able to get a Data Engineer role or SWE role at a data-related company. A line cook with no degree and no professional desk job experience will have a much harder time to impossible time, even if they have a natural aptitude - it will take years and a degree is better. The problem is that a lot of people reading this subreddit saw a TripleTen ad on YouTube or something and are more likely in the later bucket, not the former. The former bucket is like 75% chance right now and the latter like 10% chance. Codesmith's Future Code program for people with zero technical background who make under $55K a year in New York City gr…

It's the only place I recommend but it's largely because the process to get into Capstone involves such an extensive vetting period that they have a track record of only admitting people it's likely to work for. If other bootcamps did that, then I would be more open to recommending. People used to talk about how hard Codesmith was to get into and now they have reduced the number of steps and people get in much more quickly... and I have seen hardly any placements in my analysis in the past few months.... amazing how quickly quality degrades when you lower the bar. So if Launch School lowered the bar significantly and outcomes dropped more then I would be equally concerned. Right now they are on the border of 50% so they are getting close.

Bootcamps aren't an alternative to college because most bootcamp grads have college degrees (just in different areas). Codesmith's data they shared in a public talk maybe 1.5 years ago or showed that the vast majority of people had college degrees and most went to pretty good colleges to, like the UC system in California, etc... Second, when I go to Codesmith's homepage I see a giant $110,000 as the first thing I see and a a banner of where people got hired 6+ months ago. When I go to Stanford's homepage I see a photo of Stanford, followed by it's mission and news. Different goals and vibes. One is luring you in with big numbers and then having terrible placement rates. The other is luring you in with brand and prestige and being a part of an elite community and delivering on that to every single student.

We have some Codesmith and Launch School data. Codesmith: 2021 grads -> 80% in 6 months, 2022 -> 70% in 6 months, 2023 -> 40% in 6 months, 2024 -> unknown but I estimate (not fact) 25% in 6 months Launch School: 2021 grads -> 95% in 6 months, 2022 -> 88% in 6 months, 2023 -> 75% in 6 months, 2024 -> \~50-60% in 6 months. Clearly some people are getting jobs, and you can argue Launch School is still 'more likely than not' getting a job. It's like going to the hottest restaurant in town from two years ago that was always fully booked. Now you go and the staff all turned over, quality degrading, no one is there, and you are showing up as if it's the best restaurant in town. Maybe it's still your favorite restaurant, but you have to acknowledge the party has moved on.

Yeah that's also a good point and on my Codesmith comparison, they have been silent in 2025 and my estimates show worse numbers than 2024. So we'll see at the end of the year... If Launch School's updated project and internships model is working then that would be great to see concrete changes result in better placements. So bad we've heard a lot of hot air from bootcamps about their changes but haven't seen many changes improve placements.

I mean it's not bootcamp VS CS degree, the only other comparison is other bootcamps. And yeah I work with a bunch of Codesmith grads too and it's crazy how they all come in with IDENTICAL RESUMES AND PITCHES and I work with them as individual humans and each one has their own trajectory. It's one of the reasons I know so much about Codesmith, like some of these people are like shocked... like you have no idea how DIFFERENT AND UNIQUE each person is and their path is entirely unique. Some don't work out too. It's not magic, it's just applying extensive experience, judgement, and taste to give advice to people and it works out more often than not. Codesmith treats all the people the same, there is one option, and every single of the dozens and dozens of resumes I've seen are almost the same. Maybe this worked back when it was exploiting a market inefficiency, but it's embarrassing now.…

It's not when they told you the 2021 number of 80% in mid 2022 when you signed up for a 2023 cohort . Or they told you the 70% 2022 number at the end of 2023 when you signed up. When they knew very well that the first half of 2023 grads were trending to be half that at that point but said they couldn't comment because they have to 'wait for the full picture' - i.e. April 2025. It's a racket in my opinion. I heard of people asking for their money back and it wouldn't surprise me if that starts cascading soon.... things have gotten worse and worse in terms of placement numbers. Codesmith very well knows that H1 2024 grads had a FULL YEAR OF JOB HUNTING ALREADY and could easily tell us the placement rate for those people but they haven't. They could tell us the FULL 2024 PRELIM SIX MONTH PLACEMENT RATE NOW. But they keep quoting 70% 2023 12 month placement rate. Students aren't idiots,…

Launch School H2 2024 grad outcomes. Placement rate within 6 months is lower than 2023 grads (50% versus 75%). Note that the denominator is all people who start, so will do comparisons in the body. Resharing the original post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/launchschool/comments/1n8s8mr/cohort\_2408\_salary\_outcomes\_6month/](https://www.reddit.com/r/launchschool/comments/1n8s8mr/cohort_2408_salary_outcomes_6month/) **As usual Launch School is very clear and transparent about their analysis so I really don't have to read between the lines, you should read their original post.** **INDUSTRY COMMENTARY:** In the bootcamps world, Launch School and Codesmith are the two remaining bootcamps with consistent six figure outcomes over a decade, so it's really the main comparison. Codesmith hasn't given any numbers for a while so we'll extrapolate there's based on the patterns. **Also note that C…

Good question. I don't know anything extra, but it appears they acquired App Academy's "brand" and not the company. The entire website is just a wrapper on Coding Temple and it's entirely managed by them now. Now how is Coding Temple surviving? 1. PRICE POINT It's notable that the most expensive bootcamps are the ones that closed, because people aren't paying $22,500 to go to a bootcamp right now. Those expensive bootcamps survive off a small number of people - dozens - joining and paying that and they spend a lot of time woo'ing those people to win them over. TripleTen, CodingTemple, Springboard, NuCamp, are cheaper programs, people are less upset if it doesn't work, and people who were going to pay App Academy $20K are instead paying CodingTemplate $5K-$9K. 2. CHANGING PROGRAMS The surviving programs pivot faster to the latest headlines. These places all offer "cyber security" pr…