u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I can’t comment on any of this at the moment due to legal reasons. I’ve been advised not to make any further statements about Codesmith or its programs while this matter is active.
Anyone who wants context can look at what I’ve previously said directly and review the public sources I cited at the time. I can’t add or restate anything beyond that right now.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Codesmith gives away all of their CSX content in a single JSON file so you can turn it into anything with AI trivially.
The fact that they haven't updated it when I can grab this and improve it with AI in minutes is major incompetence.
Other places have open source content you can grab too.
But that fact is also why you won't get anywhere doing it yourself either.
It just goes to show you why bootcamps are failing and not even doing anything about it.
Icing on the cake is Codesmith is producing all these high production value marketing videos and patting everyone on the back for them and entirely missing the point....
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Codesmith's problems are a leadership skill issue, not a student or alumni issue.
I criticized for years while simultaneously recommending specific people go there.
For a handful of people it's the right place. For statistically the vast majority of people reading this it is not.
But that was before the 20ish day outage and counting.
Leadership skill gap caught up with them and took down the company and there are zero people that should go there right now.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Oh so it's Meta then. Yeah Meta doesn't take bullshit, and maybe that's why I'm equally firm about calling out bullshit.
Meta is particularly sensitive about levelling and people who are mis levelled are generally laid off instead of adjusted or supported.
Also most of the people were contractors via 3rd party and those are throwaway at Meta and not a path to full time work.
I wrote a letter to Codesmith about this because one student lied (he apparently APPARENTLY STARTED WORKING AT CODESMITH BEFORE HE EVEN WENT TO CODESMITH on his LinkedIn) and I suspected this was to meet the YOE requirement at Meta.
Codesmith defended it and wrote a blog about him.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Let's start with looking at an AMA I did 3 months ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1jz5i0h/ama\_im\_michael\_exmeta\_principal\_engineer\_1\_code/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1jz5i0h/ama_im_michael_exmeta_principal_engineer_1_code/)
Normal comments, normal replies.
Now let's look at a Codesmith AMA from 3 months ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1ilpihd/im\_ayleen\_a\_software\_engineer\_and\_current/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1ilpihd/im_ayleen_a_software_engineer_and_current/)
Notice how **EVERY SINGLE COMMENT IS DELETED OR COLLAPSED BY REDDIT** except for the OP's comments and ONE question.
Most of their other AMAs - similar thing.
I'm not saying it's a fact that Codesmith is responsible, but like something they are doing on Reddit is very sketchy.
I have reems of similar documentation of this kind of…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy· edited★ FEATURED
I dunno, you seem to now want to be collaborative and that's on you. You never mentioned anything about stating that we do this to make money and I hope that's your opinion and you aren't starting that as a fact because it's provably untrue on our side and I can't see how you have facts to prove that yourself. So if you had this opinion the whole time, you are debating disingenuously.
I started the conversation with 'I'll talk to you if you accept the facts' because the facts are important.
The average person we work with has 5 years of industry work experience as a SWE. Why would they put a mentorship community Fellowship on their LinkedIn as a job or resume when they currently work at Google or Amazon?
It makes no sense whatsoever and why would they not do Formation if the name changed?
Like the facts are abundantly clear that very few percentage of people put Formation publicly…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy· edited★ FEATURED
I'll share your feedback with our team to consider it, that's what I mean about gaslighting, like I'm not saying you are crazy and I see where you are coming from and I'm arguing that I don't agree and I don't think it's a problem and why I think that.
Like it's a good debate and if a lot of people feel that way we might change it so your feedback is important to share and note so we can pay attention to it.
We improve through feedback and accept it.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy· edited★ FEATURED
Here is what AI says to the question: "Is Formation Fellowship a paid job"
"No — Formation is not a paid job, nor does it offer employment. It’s a paid fellowship/training program (focused on interview prep and career coaching), not a salaried position."
Here is what it thinks about Codesmith: "are oslabs engineers paid?"
"Yes - OSLabs does pay engineers in at least one of its key programs"
Like I don't think you'll find anything anywhere that would make a reasonable person think Formation Fellows are paid roles - but acknowledge that edge case people might be confused because of the multiple definitions.
But in Codesmith's case like everything is blatantly twisted to appear that way.
This discrepancy is one of the 3 primary reasons I've been going after Codesmith.
Dictionary definitions aside, what the leaders of these companies do and stand for and their integrity matte…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
The official on the record answer - we used the word Fellow because our industry doesn't have many competitors: Interview Kickstart and Pathrise. Pathris used the word Fellows so we copied them and used the word Fellow. So that our customers could compare the two familiarly.
I'm not trying to gaslight you but I Googled Fellow and this is the dictionary definition it presented and not any of them say anything about being paid.
The definition for "Fellowship" has two meanings, none of them saying anything about being paid either (I can only attached one screenshot, but pasted:)
1. friendly association, especially with people who share one's interests."they valued fun and good fellowship as the cement of the community"
2. the status of a fellow of a college or society."she held the Faulkner fellowship"
Formation is not affiliated with education/schools/universities and no where in our…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy· edited★ FEATURED
I'll give you the straight up facts on this if you are willing to accept them. I can prove every one of these statements.
Formation has flaws and this isn't one of them.
FORMATION:
1. A small fraction of Fellows at Formation put it on their LinkedIn.
2. No one says it's paid anywhere. Of the ones that do it's abundantly clear that it's a mentorship program for high performance and not a job.
3. We have not received a single request for a background check for anyone that I'm aware of in the past 5 years for anyone claiming they were employed by Formation.
3. The people who say 2-3+ years have genuinely been at Formation that time and actively participating. Maybe it's terrible they didn't get a job yet, but the timeframe is correct from what I'm aware of.
CODESMITH:
1. In my [reporting end of 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis_of_52_most_recen…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Google wasn't down because the team has incompetent engineering practices.
CIRR also has incompetent processes and deserves equal criticism.
In my opinion Codesmith is full of liars and exaggerators. For god's sake the founding advisor's own sign had a LinkedIn and resume full of lies and exaggerations.
I meant that this was the last straw about engineering practices because I had been privately telling them all kinds of problems for a while now and they keep telling me how great their engineers are.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I suspect you'll get messages from Codesmith people telling you I'm crazy, all you have to do is ask how many people were placed in 2025. They were very upfront about that number in 2024 and they currently list 102 offers between August 2024 and January 2025. Ask them how many offers that have reported in 2025 and if they won't give you a number, don't give them your dollars.
Just look at their own data carefully, look at the "percentage of people not reporting salaries" spiking on their reports. Look at the dropping salaries.
By all objective measures the data is falling off a cliff - and this data is trailing reality.
They know very well what's going on internally and it's offensive to me that they gaslight the public to the contrary in my opinion by still quoting old data combined "recent placements at Amazon and Meta" (yes, like 4 people... and most had tangential experience). Don…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Shame on you OP - according to Codesmith's website, you work there on staff and didn't disclose that anywhere in your post or comments.
This is an ad for Codesmith and it's really not cool to manipulate people like this. Everyone reading this, please don't fall for this kind of fake-organic advertising.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
# ⚠️ SCAMMER ALERT
This thread is full of Codesmith planted questions that are not disclosed.
**Your LinkedIn is full of lies - you apparently already have 3 years of "software engineering experience".** So you are lying there or you are lying here.
Sounds like you are just like the majority of Codesmith grads who lie cheat and steal your way to a SWE job.
Check out all the recent alumni who get jobs, open each of their LinkedIns and see how many months or years of experience are listed for their 3-4 week long project.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I used deep research and deep research sources some reddit threads but I feel like "serious allegations of unethical practices" is a bit extreme, the content was:
1. discussing outcomes
2. discussing resume practices and applying for jobs for people
I'll update the screenshot - I honestly only looked at the IK column and didn't read the others, including Formation hahaha, I'll give it a look and update in a few mins
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Oh ok yeah for sure, people can also get temporary jobs too, I'm just seeing right now people who don't go all in on SWE for the entire job search time having a harder time - it's such a difficult job search that people are just going back to their old jobs.
Talking Codesmith again since I know them so well, they had a huge spike in placements that 'ghosted' and their placement was verified by their LinkedIn instead of officially.
This is a sign of people giving up and going back to their old job or a tangential old job and giving up and not reporting it back as a placement because it's not a full blown SWE job.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Hopeless but not impossible yeah.
So look at Codesmith's stats since we're talking about them and they release numbers.
2021 grads: about 90% of grads placed within 6 months
2022 grads: about 80% of grads placed within 6 months
2023 grads: about 40% of grads placed within 6 months (and very notable that there was a huge double digit percentage increase in people who ghosted Codesmith and got counted as a placement because of LinkedIn
2024 grads: no data yet, but based on Codesmith's little bits of data there have been about 250 offers in h2 2024 -> h1 2025, which covers some 2022 grads, 2023 grads, 2024 grads, and then 2024 grads.
Now enrollment has declined because they cutback from 4+1 to 1+1 cohorts in Feb 2024 so it's hard to tell what the placement rates are but they definitely aren't good.
Codesmith also should have plenty of information about 2024 grads now that i's 6 mon…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I agree with this point as of June 2025.
We (speaking for Formation now) use a ton of AI for helping people practice and off the shelf ChatGPT is not perfect for learning right now. We have a lot of unique product applications of AI specifically tuned for helping people have effective practice and feedback and fortunately there's enough judgement and taste and nuance in that that it justifies our existing right now haha.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
The leaders that have left are the ones that stopped believing or were laid off. I wouldn't be surprised if Annie also left and moved on.
I spoke to Alina and she's a much more reasonable person and open to criticism, but she's in a very tough place with Codesmith imploding and trying to pivot to AI - which many programs have struggled with.
Alina: if Will, Annie and Eric all left the company I would definitely be open to talking, but with them there there is too much baggage of low standards and lack of diligence.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I haven't made a penny of salary for the past 8 years and i'm not selling anything. I'm pointing out how poorly positioned Codesmith's AI program is and how they need to seriously watch out for growing it through milking alumni - who are paying for something that they were promised for free for life.
I've spoken to a number of companies on the B2B side floated different ideas around. The answer - we want our fleet of 100 ML engineers to teach this internally.
Codesmith's AI program is maintained and lead by someone with I think about 2-3 years of industry experience, ZERO prior to Codesmith, has not done AI professionally.
AND IS DOING IT PART TIME WHILE HE WORKS AT MICROSOFT.
There's no way in heck this program can be good. No way.
I'm telling you I will work 16 hours a day to build a much better AI program applying my experience as the number one code committer at Meta and showing…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I didn't say anything about you. I was responding to that person about the typical grad behavior for why many Codesmith grads defend this behavior.
I had a rant that I deleted because it was not coherent. But time will tell and the truth is catching up with them.
Most people have already figured it out and apparently many remaining staff are one foot out the door.
Maybe the CEO steps down and Alina takes over and maybe brings in some funding to buy out the company for cheap and they try to build something new and sell it off for a profit later on in a consolidation of remaining bootcamp brands?
Kind of like what happened at App Academy. The founder finally left, the new CEO replaced everything with he own AI platform. They stopped doing SWE and kind of floating around as a completely different version of the program before.
Codesmith will probably follow that path and they really sh…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
A good question is to ask why I'm like this.
Seek first to understand, then be understood is what Codesmith told their staff, and they should action it.
I offered to help Codesmith and some ideas to work with them. Their leaders didn't want to.
Alina confirmed to me that Codesmith paid some guy to post on Reddit and I gave her evidence that the same guy lied and tried to get me banned and that the mysterious missing founder of the Codesmith subreddit was involved with this scheme.
I offered to apologize publicly for any individual person who felt attacked by my commentary if they publicly apologizing for making shit up about me and sending it out to their community.
They declined to apologize.
Then I open up LinkedIn and see all kinds of fake made up stories that seem to rewrite history and promote Codesmith.
I hear about more and more layoffs even as of a month ago.
I hear about…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
A number of alumni are brainwashed and don't even realize they are lying. And then they get upset or defensive when you call them out because Codesmith "changed their life".
A number of these people come around eventually and it's one of the reasons there is zero Codesmith activity anymore on here.
After people get out of the bubble they see the truth and they don't go back and Codesmith alumni network is also dying.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I commented on a similar comment but the person deleted their comment so here is my thoughts:
Yeah they do and I do not agree with it and would debate him on it BUT he is transparent about it, and quite blunt.
He says stuff up to fake it and that you will be exposed like 9 out of 10 times and it just has to work once.
I really don't agree but I respect that he's clear on it.
Codesmith has a giant facade that pretends to teach people and brainwashes them to think that it was Codesmith that did it. Look the other way and blame students for doing it.
If Codesmith told people hey the job market is not fair so you have to exaggerate your experience to get through. You deserve the job and you pass the interviews so this is a means to end.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Yeah they do and I do not agree with it and would debate him on it BUT he is transparent about it, and quite blunt.
He says stuff up to fake it and that you will be exposed like 9 out of 10 times and it just has to work once.
I really don't agree but I respect that he's clear on it.
Codesmith has a giant facade that pretends to teach people and brainwashes them to think that it was Codesmith that did it. Look the other way and blame students for doing it.
If Codesmith told people hey the job market is not fair so you have to exaggerate your experience to get through. You deserve the job and you pass the interviews so this is a means to end.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Please keep demonstrating more incompetent use of AI and defending it... it looks terrible for the program you are the lead of shows why no one should go to it... the person in that video is the Lead Instructor for the FTRI and it's not taken down.
Seems like you know nothing about the IP situation.
Review the internal Microsoft procedures for conflict and review and submit this for review through the internal tools. Don't ask your manager. You aren't contributing to education, you are are the primary person responsible for a for profit private companies AI product. What the f... you are playing with fire here.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
No, I've had enough of this condescending bull shit response and I'm not having it. The smug attitude with the tone of arrogance is disgusting and I'm not playing nice.
If you don't know about the layoffs a month ago in a 20 person company then I don't know what to say... go figure it out before gaslighting me.
I'm not going anywhere until you are all healed accountability for this bullshit and publicly apologize for this behavior.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
To give you an idea of how things have changed - if you went to Codesmith and graduated in 2022.
95% of people who started graduated, 70% of the graduates got jobs within 6 months of graduating (and 90% of them reported their placement to Codesmith) = 63% "self reported placement"
If you graduated in 2023:
95% of people who started graduated, 43.6% got jobs within 6 months of graduating (only 60% reported their placement to Codesmith - **A MAJOR DECLINE =** 26% "self reported placement rate"
\----------
Codesmith hasn't given any 2024 placement data even though **ALMOST ALL 2024 GRADS HAVE HAD 6 MONTHS POST PLACEMENT AND THEY INTERNALLY KNOW THE DATA**
The reason I'm so enraged here is that in 2024 when they internally knew about that major decline, they told the public that even in a tough market, Codesmith was crushing it. They conveniently pulled all these blog posts from thei…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I don't care either way, but if a program is publishing how amazing their outcomes are when they are good and goes RADIO SILENT when they are bad it pisses me off.
Codesmith's CIRR results tanked so they started publishing random time windows of absolute number of placements and then then even stopped doing that because in the past six months it's like fifty or something and a number of them have been looking for over a year.
I criticize them LEGITIMATELY and they come back with garbage data.
I bet their response to this is 'Michael is an asshole our placements are amazing, we had an average increase in salary over previous work of $70K so far this year! who cares if there aren't as many placements it's take people longer that's fine, it's all about average increase.'
My point is that changing the goal posts and each time telling everyone how "transparent" you are is garbage behavio…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I'm extremely pissed off at your bullshit response Codesmith. It's now 10 months later and things are worse then even and everything I said was correct. Everything you wrote (your post was removed by Reddit) was false bull shit you made up to manipulate people when you knew how bad things were.
Things did not get better. The 2025 "recruitment rush" never happened. Another 50% of your staff was laid off and you have hardly anyone left.
Your unethical behavior and marketing is catching up with you and I hope everyone sees it.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Here's some feedback for Codesmith you can relay. BE HONEST AND STOP LYING TO THE PUBLIC. Will: you very well know about continuing layoffs that keep happening over and over and over and you straight up lied above that there haven't been any 'restructurings'.
I'm absolutely not backing down and going to keep applying pressure until you are honest and tell the truth and stop manipulating the public.
Students deserve better. Your alumni deserve better. The former staff members who are treated like garbage deserve better. It's so sad that such dedicated team members who are laid off suddenly are so insignificant to you that you don't even acknowledge any 'restructuring' happening.
Absolutely garbage behavior and I'm enraged.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I really hope Will isn't actually the lead instructor for this program for long because this is one of the worst uses of AI I've seen and thank you for proving my point that he is not qualified to be leading with curriculum development and teaching of this course. I don't want to discourage people from learning AI and I wouldn't be remotely hard on Will if this was a student learning AI, not someone branded as an industry leader in AI leading teaching a $4600 for 4 week course.
This is a completely defensive comment about one of five points and it doesn't even address the point whatsoever... it defends the legitimacy of the music band - which I never disputed - and instead I was attacking Will for posting like a dozen promotional comments for the band that didn't disclose he actually was in the band at the time. Your comment is defending that behavior - defending manipulating Reddit wit…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
All programs have seen much lower enrollment in 2024/2025. The only solid numbers I have are Launch School - which publishes cohort by cohort data and their cohorts dropped below 20 people at the end of last year.
Codesmith has been downsizing for 2 years now. They mega expanded during the end of COVID to almost 50 cohorts a year because everyone Google 'best bootcamp' and chose the first one.
Now that's not the case and they are down to like 10 or maybe less cohorts a year - which is still shockingly high.
People might be dabbling with code but they aren't paying $22.5K for likely nothing.
And as of late Codesmith is seeing fewer and fewer show up to those free learn to code sessions.
So as others said, SWE bootcamps really ended in 2024 and this is the tail end.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Other instructors feel exploited. So In your case - you do this program for 1 month and say have 30 people = $130,000 of revenue for Codesmith. What are they paying you? $100 an hour? And you are doing like 10-20 hours a week?
So you are responsible for making the curriculum, teaching it all, and you get paid like $10,000 a month and Codesmith made $130,000.
Even if they have a couple of other helpers (both technical and operations) and the total cost is $20,000. There are no other costs here, no career program, no alumni support, etc...
This means that Codesmith is exploiting your generosity to make $110,000 a month off of you, which is absurd.
Now imagine you ran a program entirely by yourself and started your own company, think of how much money you would make... you are effectively paying Codesmith $100,000 a month for the opportunity to 'pay them back for all they did for you'…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Well my understanding is the only people left are Annie and Eric (and Will isn't involved with Codesmith much) and that all the other leaders left and keep leaving. My understanding is all the instructors and engineers left and the two leads become instructors right out of Codesmith about a year ago.
All of the staff who were dedicated to Future Code are no longer on their website and I believe are looking for work.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Well I hear partial info about some changes going on and a number of staff departed again.... they are really done to not many people left. They also dropped their approval status in New York which was a contractual requirement to have based on the contract for this program. The contractual requirements for the teachers also isn't met if their current staff ran the program. So I'm not exactly sure what's going on and if it's still happening but they downsized it or if it's not happening, or if it's running but with delays to manage the restructuring.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Yeah it's absurd to me. They have a feature piece and video interview with a Codesmith student about their recent experience and then the video came out and I went to the person's LinkedIn and noted that the person was the Lead Instructor now for the course he just took.
Like they aren't doing journalism or vetting. They are making videos for whatever people pay them to do and then try to claim they aren't bias in choosing the awards.... well there are zero reviews for this new AI program so I don't understand how they could have any information to make this claim and their info is heavily based by what Codesmith paid them to say... and that's echoed back in these awards.
It's just a pile of garbage.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Oh I mean I have no idea how serious it was or how often it was said. Or more details on why. And it might be Princeton, not Yale, I have to check my notes and I was on an airplane with terrible wifi. There are ivy league grads who go to Codesmith and do extremely well so I actually don't think that would be an absurd consideration to do it after graduation if you changed your mind about CS.
The link is about senior engineer titles which is a completely different topic, but falls under the marketing bluster, but has nothing to do with choosing Codesmith over an ivy league education.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
One of their advisors said in info session(s) that his son who went to Yale was considering Codesmith or wished he did Codesmith or something, so I don't think it's all bluster.
Look at this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ9\_hxujtFQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ9_hxujtFQ)
1. Mid level "contractor" at Microsoft, not full time employee - called Senior Engineer
2. Codesmith instructor turned CS educator - called Senior Engineer
3. "Tech Entrepreneur"
4. Staff level manager - legit
It's continuous bluster!
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy· edited★ FEATURED
I seriously think your a troll and I try really hard to treat everyone without assumptions, but like Reddit keeps flagging like ALL of you comments as 'may be from a spammer or someone likely to break rules'
I've repeatedly directly answers to you about what Formation is and what we do and why we don't have a concept of a placement rate so I can only assume you are a troll at this point.
CA 180 day was 42% or so and this is 43% or so, so they align really well.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Codesmith people don't put Codesmith on their resume. They list their 3 week project as a year of work experience.
I like the idea though and if you actually did do this basically a fake resume that looks like you have 1 to 2 years of work experience. I bet you you will actually get a couple of callbacks and the strategy grads are relying on to get interviews.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
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…