Sorry, that was advice for a lot of people reading it who are in similar situations and that's why it's so long.
I have zero right to backfill your history and I don't know you at all and apologize for making you feel that way.
My point stands that I see a lot of bootcamp grads get laid off in their first few years and it's important to understand why. Not everyone wants to be a top performer but it doesn't change the fact that top performers don't get laid off the vast majority of the time. Not being a top performer doesn't mean you are a low performer either.
I would have to know WAY MORE about you to make conclusions about your personally.
Oh definitely not, changing jobs once is fine in that period but more than once raises some flags that need explanation.
I thought you had more jobs because you said a 'stint at Microsoft' that I interpreted as a short thing and that you had more jobs.
Re: layoffs, the hard truth is that unless more than 15% of the company was laid off, it was performance related in some capacity.
If you were running a company and you had to mass layoff and cut departments, you would take all the best engineers from those areas and move them before laying off the team. It would be irrational not to do that after putting so much effort into finding and nurturing the best engineers.
Now let's say you had to lay off 20% of staff across the whole company, and you tell each manager to remove 20% of people... do you think they would remove anyone but the lowest performers on their team?
I know this can be…
How about all of the times I said specific people should go to Codesmith in the past? Your read my 2000+ comments on Reddit?
Summary: I temporarily removed that recommendation in Feb 2024 when they laid off about half the staff and shrunk 2/3 in offerings. And then permanently maintained that when most of the promised changes in Feb 2024 never materialized the way I hoped they would, and outcomes tanked.
That's rational no?
If a program has an 80% placement rate that tanks to 40% (with the majority of the 40% ghosting and non responsive according to their report - whereas when it was 80% the majority were engaged) and keeps telling you everything is fine and changes the goal posts they are measured by, isn't that an insane red flag to reconsider? Or no?
Clearly SOME people are getting placed and it's very much possible that this person will get placed too... but I would argue this pe…
This is a common outcome I hear too, people get jobs but the people who gets jobs at levels above what they should be tend to have a lot of trouble year 2 to 5.
It doesn't discount how much impact Codesmith has on their initial transition and it's not a dis whatsoever, it's just one of the things you don't hear about on Reddit and a downside of the "go for mid level and senior jobs" strategy.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I can give my thoughts knowing a lot of Codesmith grads and what they've been saying recently:
1. Is it worth it for someone who literally has a Computer Science degree? (I tend to struggle a lot with building projects of my own due to demotivation or lack of people that want to build things with me)
Placements are hovering somewhere below 50% six months after finishing Codesmith, so you are looking at ANOTHER YEAR before you get a job and maybe 2 more years, even going through Codesmith. Their most recent data shared showed something like 15% of people having CS degrees. I suspect that has increased in the current tough market for CS grads. I also believe people with CS and adjacent degrees have faired better than those without (anecdotal).
1. What did you build, what were teammates like?
I used to review a lot of the OSP group projects because people asked me to and they didn't get…
Done updating the numbers, I would like some clarity on the California students numbers because something isn't adding up with my math.
I can't really comment on the 12 month placements rates, I estimated in other comments a 50 to 60% 12 month placement rate using CIRR rules and regulations but we don't have those on previous analogous reports to compare to.
I'm extremely loud about Codesmith in here and I have never once said that their CIRR results were fake. I argued with well documented evidence that graduates were exaggerating their experience, on average.
Why are you trying to polarize things? The world exists in shades of grey and things aren't just one way or the other.
Codesmith has a lot of good things about it and bad things about, as does pretty much everything.
Hi, a lot of people that go into Codesmith have non-technical degrees from pretty good schools and doing a CS masters can be an option. This is the best all around for brand, quality, cost: [https://omscs.gatech.edu/](https://omscs.gatech.edu/)
To clarify though there are two aspects to this post:
1. Codesmith hasn't degraded or gotten worse in the educational experience, it's the same it's always been + 5 new AI lectures. So comparing Codesmith to other bootcamps, it might still be one of the better ones. **BUT best of bad options doesn't mean you should choose it, it just means you probably shouldn't choose another bootcamp instead if Codesmith was the one for you.**
2. The lack of integrity (my opinion) / "carefully selected marketing" (fact) on their side (both in how they didn't tell anyone about this in Feb 2024 - when half of their students already hit the 6 month post grad ma…
I'm seeing a lot of bootcamps pivoting to AI in a cash grab, many paused their SWE programs while they do so.
I'm REALLY nervous about bootcamps trying to exploit their alumni for cash like Codesmith is with their AI/ML Leadership course.
I've reviewed the course and this free YouTube video from an industry leader with 10+ years of AI experience across two of the top research labs + OpenAI + Tesla Director of AI: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xTGNNLPyMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xTGNNLPyMI)
I feel for Codesmith - their AI course is taught by some awesome individuals, but they have like 1 year of SWE experience each and it just doesn't stack up in any way to Andrei and Andrei's course is 100% free.
I quite frankly don't really know what anyone at Codesmith can do to catch up to someone like Andrei in teaching AI directly now that Andrei started a company to teach people AI…
Yeah this is a very important point that these systemic issues are not just Codesmith and a lot of places have them.
The only program I know that has very transparent outcomes is Launch School, where they are small enough they can account AND discuss with commentary, each outcome and pattern, and they had something like a 70% 6 month placement rate for 2023 cohorts as well - which is on the positive side of flipping the coin.
Here's my analysis:
Based on my close view of the market for the past 5 years, I would guess 2024 students will have similar placement rates to 2023 students.
Based on the anecdotes people share with me from Codesmith, there are hardly any placement and hardly any alumni engagement - specifically in the second half of 2024.
Codesmith itself loudly touts a CIRR-violating salary outcome and placement number on their website of 168 offers between March and August 2024 that we can also factor in.
1. Salaries they reported were DOWN from peak about 10% - when inflation ran rampant and salaries have gone up, this tanking salary shows that more people are taking non-SWE jobs, going back to their old jobs or taking temporary jobs as part of a longer term plan.
2. It's possible that people taking non SWE jobs and worse jobs instead of waiting for their dream SWE job will result in a higher…
I agree that scenario isn't so clear and when there was a market inefficiency for hiring SWEs a lot of companies came up with ideas:
1. Bootcamps
2. Post-BACC CS diplomas
3. WGU - self paced quick CS degree
4. EdX free courses from MIT and Stanford
5. Udacity "Nano Degree"
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Ultimately - you just can't become a solid SWE in 12 weeks or a few months, it's a fiction and a myth. It would be like deciding to become a Lawyer in 12 weeks if you are an engineer by training.
You can develop skills, hyperfocus and accelerate your learning, but some of the process of getting there is just letting ideas bake in when they bake in, getting involved with lawyers and listening to them inside and outside of work, etc....
\------------------------
So then why do people come to Reddit saying Codesmith or HackReactor changed their life and went from school teacher to $150K…
Would you not agree that dropping from 90 to 70 to 29 though is something they should note and discuss a random students odds went from almost certain to the expected outcome being no placement in 6 months.
Codesmith defence in Feb 2024 was that everything is fine, the outcomes are strong, but people are taking 120 days instead of 90 days to place.
No discussion about how their placements are terrible but still better than CS.
Lastly, their market themselves as an alternative to an elite grad school and elot grad schools like Stanford have almost 100% placement and like $150K average salaries or something like that.
So I wouldn't accept a comparison to all CS but a comparison to the best schools.
During the boom times Codesmith posted something from Switch UP that their grads made more money than specific top CS schools.... let's see that same study in 2023/2024.
Definitely not a lot, they had a lease paying like $70K a month in NYC, and they laid off the majority of staff at this point.
But $5M gives you raw resources to try to cut back and invest in AI and new programs that you wouldn't be able to do if you paused the program instead.
Some respectable bootcamps paused and pivoted to AI because I think it's the more ethical thing to do.
But delusionally continuing with SWE can backfire if the outcomes are too terrible and it destroys the brand instead and that's what we're now seeing here.
I agree with these arguments as well but Codesmith compared themselves to the best of the best. Marketing as an alternative to an elite grad school.
So they need to be compared to Stanford which is still like 100% of job seekers and average base salaries like $150K.
If the marketing is to be better than a non name CS degree then I might agree with that, or at least consider them closer.
I commented on this website months ago but I believe it's true and the problem is it conflates 2022, 2023, 2024 outcomes and outcomes for people that might have been looking for well over a year.
Second, the pacing with 168 offers in that period is much fewer offers per day than in their peak period, so even that number is not very good.
Again, marketing to try to make things look better.
Funny that I don't have any of these problems until I point out anything critical about Codesmith's and then these random accounts seem to come out of the woodwork.
Reddit permanently suspended dozens of them already for creating a bunch of fake comments, threads and votes and all kinds of messed up stuff exclusively on Codesmith content and two claiming to represent Codesmith officialy.
Isn't it more weird to have a fake AMA where 1/3 of the comments are fake accounts having fake conversations?
That's not just one clown, it's a whole circus!
All I have is integrity and even though Reddit can't catch all this in real time, they eventually do. That's why those AMAs have so many deleted and suspended accounts on them when you go back 3 months later.
based on how many comments you have that have been removed for harassment and trolling, I mean I guess that you're not actually reading anything or thinking about things like an intelligent person would process them and just attacking.
I very clearly said you have to have two plus years of experience right now. at least to benefit from what we do and it's been like that for over a year now and if you just graduated from a cs degree we would not accept you.
We're like personal training. Saying no professional athlete needs personal training is ridiculous. Some don't sure but not all.
In fact the top of the top professional athletes don't only have full-time traveling personal trainers, but they have full-time traveling masseuses, chefs and other staff and pay them cumulatively millions of dollars a year.
Of course that's not our vision or our market but we work with some excellent engineers to get into shape for interviews but the engineers are the ones doing the work.
I agree, maybe even a top 20 school.
Part of it is the selection process. If you can get into a top 20 school, you are probably someone who is also more likely to succeed in 12 months too.
Codesmith was a place with a high selection bar. They did a study on schools people went to prior and only a tiny percent didn't have any college experience and most went to good public or private or ivy league like schools.
So taking people that are proven to be able to get into a really good college in a different discipline and then giving them a boot camp after to fill in some specific technical gaps where they already built a network and non-technical skills in their degree at their really good school. could make sense, maybe too, but that's still a bit of a stretch to me and I don't think that is a reproducible heurosric.
Bootcamps and crappy CS degrees took advantage of market inefficiencies. Those inefficiencies corrected.
I bet you you can learn to be an accountant on 12 months too.
The college system isn't about learning skills but about working your way through a system that bubbles up the top people over 4 years and hands those people to the top companies in a silver platter.
Most importantly, the bootcamp system had it's shot to show that it can be a better system and it failed or it would have replaced college.
Big tech went back to the top colleges and unless you think they are idiots they are doing so for a reason and abandoning bootcamps.
TLDR: can the right person be hirable via a bootcamp in 12 months? yes. Is the bootcamp model consistently producing qualified people more reliable than CS degrees. That's a proven no.
Yeah exactly, and on my side with my work hat on, I see a number of Codesmith grads (but really bootcamp grads more broadly) who still fell lost a few years into their careers.
Maybe there is a layoff, maybe you changed companies three times but aren't progressing to 'Senior', etc...
Codesmith in particular has some people in their career support that market themselves to grads as industry experts who are all you need for the rest of your career, and it's like two people who have reasonable points of view but FAR FROM 'all you need' and it's really HARMING GRADS I TALK TO.
Things like:
1. Someone told me today that a leader was telling people about a special deal to sell options to Codesmith's partner if you leave your startup and can't afford to exercise them when you leave.
This is something companies help with for 10 to 15+ YEARS, since the 2000 bubble, and there are all kinds of…
My view now is firmly in the camp of SWE bootcamps are dead as a scalable business model. SWE bootcamps will survive that are small, founder led, and they are able to select and find a tiny number of edge case people for whom the bootcamp will work well, and then most of those people get jobs -realizing that their situation is not reproducible for everyone.
And then a new wave of AI-for-non-engineers-to-be-better-at-their-jobs will pop up. Some from the ashes of SWE bootcamps, some brand new ones.
I've seen two examples:
1. [https://www.gauntletai.com/](https://www.gauntletai.com/) \- first step is an IQ-like test
2. two top VCs started this: [https://meritfirst.us/](https://meritfirst.us/) (aptitude test to get in the pool)
Both use "meritocracy" as the guiding principle which has similar language to the new government administrations position.
I posted about this in another thread somewhere but the new administrations stance in the USA about DEI is also causing a lot of apprenticeships and programs for non traditional pathways to be shutdown, and while that impacts a lot of sources of people, it doesn't help bootcamp grads at all.
A world of "meritocracy" does not favor a bootcamp grad with ZERO SWE experience, no matter how much potential they have. They are going to have to build experience with unpaid internships, contracts, etc... to compete with 'meritocracy'
On the other hand, a new trend is the "IQ Test" approach - ignore background and do an IQ test and if it's high enough then you get the job regardless.
This might give some bootcamp grads a shot who have high IQs but you can't increase your IQ with a bootcamp, so.... I don't think it will keep the bootcamp industry alive but it might open up more direct paths fo…
I can give my thoughts
1. Layoffs aren't a huge factor, but the entry level market is returning to the pre-COVID environment that focuses on top tier computer science grads, internships -> full time, etc... So if you want to be a SWE at a top tech company, get a CS degree at a top school.
2. I think there is going to be a ton of jobs created that use AI that are NOT SWE roles but are just non-engineer roles + AI. E.g. Lawyer + AI and Accountant + AI and Nurse + AI, and Doctor + AI, and all the creative fields (writing, music, etc....) we will need a lot programs for NON ENGINEERS to level up using AI and technology. I think this is where Codesmith is going to eventually, they just aren't cutting off the SWE part out of pride and because as I said in my post - it makes $5M despite terrible outcomes and that $5M can be used to build AI before admitting to those people they don't have muc…
It's completely misleading yes and that's why I've been so hard on their marketing this past year! I've had anecdotal reports of numbers from reasonable sources for a while and found those numbers on their site completely misleading.
1. 29% is within six months of graduation. So people can get jobs after that and be reported int he 168 number of their website and also In their last CIRR report, they published 3 mo, 6mo, 12 mo numbers and their 6 month placement for 2022 grads was like 70% and their 12 mo was 80%, so of those 250 minus 70 people, I'm sure some of them got jobs in first half of 2024 (which would be post 6 months but less than 12 months)
2. The 168 number includes 2024 grads that got offers really fast. A small number of people with exceptional backgrounds, experience, networks, get jobs fast. Because they didn't specify how long those people were looking and when they gr…
BREAKING NEWS: Codesmith 2023 official outcomes published: CANNOT BE WORSE - placement rate crashed from 70% to 29%. Enrollment also tanked over 50%. The software engineering bootcamp era is over.
I'm going to keep this brief because the data tells the story pretty well.
Codesmith was once arguably the top bootcamp, and generally regarded as a top 5 bootcamp, and their outcomes have been completely decimated. They touted in their marketing in 2023 of past years' median placement salaries of up to $130K, 90% placement rates, and people didn't care how it happened just that it happened.
**Well the job market has humbled even the best and Codesmith's self-reported 2023 student placement rate is beyond terrible, it's evidence that SWE bootcamps are no longer a viable pathway into the industry no matter what the program says or does.**
[Link to Official Report](https://www.bppe.ca.gov/web…
Last year they 'highly encouraged' people to post videos and creative pieces publicly on Reddit, and social media to explain why they wanted to join.
I felt like it was a gimmick to try to get free marketing for Codesmith, but it came across they wanted people who will articulately market and advertise for Codesmith and be very supportive.
I don't know behind the scenes. The people who contacted me who were accepted were extremely strong at coding, but technically had no computer science degree (perhaps they dropped out or had a mechanical engineer degree), maybe they went to another bootcamp first, maybe they had done a lot of scholarship courses but they weren't official courses.... etc.
I'm very curious how many people dropped off from start to finish as well.
But those people graduate end of April, which is well past the deadline for the next cohort.
Codesmith measures performance metrics for placements within 360 days of completion, so they likely won't publish any kind of data until April 2026 about how the July 2024 cohort did.
I'm sure if they have some success cases before, they will highlight them on social media, but we need to see the actual data and impact.
Of the people who started, how many get a better job and what kinds of jobs do they get.
I'm sure verbal feedback will be amazing and current students will join all the info sessions saying how amazing the program was, but SHOW ME THE MONEY! 37 weeks full time is a heck of a long time and even if the program is free, you could do other things. Let's say you make $20 a hour and this program is about 148…
Yeah the minimum is like barely more than 1 job at minimum wage and last time around people who were just intentionally taking a break applied... someone was a MEDICAL DOCTOR and applied because being unemployed counts as $0, even if you are voluntarily unemployed.
Since the program is full time anyways and they advise against having any job while doing it, perhaps just being unemployed qualifies.
Hi, it highly depends on your specific experience. Having a gap can be fine if you had many years of experience prior. If you left and did a bootcamp and that's why you have a gap, then I would consider putting it under education.
Honestly, it's incredibly hard and there's only so much you can do. Which is why when I surveilled Codesmith grads, like 80, 90% of people were significantly exaggerating or flat out lying. It's an ends justify the means argument that if they can do well on the job, it's wrong for them to be disqualified due to lack of experience, so fudging it a bit is fine.
I know a lot of people that choose to exaggerate as a result as well. I think there are major problems by doing that, BUT I'm more centrist on the issue.
What I'm extremely against is Codesmith not being transparent about how things are so that you can make a grown up choice. Instead it's more of a br…
Yeah + 1, and that's why I prefaced my notes - don't fall for marketing that this will change your life and get you a six figure job. You MIGHT, but a lot of that will depend on YOU. And if you are are the right person, this might help you get there in a way nothing else can. But for 99% of the readers, that's not you, and that's ok.
Codesmith launched cohort 2 of the Future Code NYC program (free bootcamp for NYC residents who make un $50K and have zero coding experience)
SOURCE: [https://www.become-irreplaceable.dev/future-code](https://www.become-irreplaceable.dev/future-code)
NOTE!: This is not an endorsement of Codesmith - I've been (and still am) very critical of Codesmith for: 1. lack of transparency around outcomes (in that they are extremely defensive and reactive about their declining outcomes, instead of being transparent and attracting the right people), 2: misleading grads with zero experience that they are senior engineers and that their 4 week long project is so hard it makes them a mid-level engineer, 3: when looking at LinkedIns of graduates the vast majority represent their 4 week projects as 11 months+ of 'work experience' and my opinion is that this harms the industry, and is responsible for peo…
When I spot check these people, I see their OSP looking like over 1 year of work experience on their LinkedIns because they have been job hunting so long and I think this is the dirty secret people don't like talking about a lot. People who get their jobs this way don't want anyone to know out of potentially losing that job, and Codesmith always downplays these things as not relevant - instead telling you how your capacities are strong and mid-level/senior so your resume is fine as long as it demonstrates that. Companies aren't falling for it anymore for 3-4 months projects but when people have 1-2 years on there I think some are still getting through (even though it's fewer than before).
Protip: when you see placements - look at their LinkedIn and see what they say there. I often see people celebrate their "first engineering job!" but their LinkedIn says like 4 years Self-employed soft…
Thanks for sharing and this is consistent with what I hear from people (plus some ghoster placements you don't see)
Rest assured if their CIRR 2023 numbers released in March look suspicious I will loudly call it out publicly. People need to know how things are right now and Codesmith is extremely non transparent about it, and in fact the opposite - makes it sound like everything is fine and everyone is getting senior jobs.
If they go to someone's LinkedIn and the job has a start start, then they can count that as a placement.
Codesmith's auditor called LinkedIn the "gospel"... which makes me want to flip a table because many Codesmith grads have all kinds of embellished "jobs" listed.
The people I know there tell me there are hardly any placements anymore and it's becoming a ghost town.
Is Codesmith acknowledging this and talking about it?
No, they double down on one off edge case placements from years ago to try to make an illusion that everyone is getting mid level and senior jobs.
The more I dig, the more I see it's an illusion... fake accounts promoting AMAs, etc...
There are incredible alumni who went to Codesmith and they deserve credit for that. But it's like not at all the normal outcome right now and this charade has to end.
I'm waiting with popcorn to see Codesmith's CIRR 2023 outcomes in Feb/March 2025, specifically some of those fields like "did not respond" (but were included because of LinkedIn verification).
It will be a humbling experience for them to face reality instead of trying to convince everyone water isn't wet but water is gold.
I don't think they advertise themselves as "impartial", they are a not a charity but a 'non profit business league' which is AKA a lobbying group promoting the interests of an industry = bootcamps.
I don't think anything about them is impartial... the spec was updated by a former head of marketing at Codesmith lol.
In terms of general advice, if you have a current job, I would try to contribute some general code, or write some code to build software tools that help you do your job - ideally in the main codebase using the main stack - and getting code review from SWEs. If you do that already then you have an even better shot at transitioning.
Maybe obvious, but do you have the option at your startup to talk to them about transitioning and maybe doing it there over time too and not switching companies?
Hi, I'm a co-founder of Formation and can give my opinions from what I've seen.
Your case is borderline and it depends on your Data Engineer experience and your goals. If one of your goals is to be a Data Engineer at Netflix or Meta (where it's a distinct job but very SWE-adjacent/related and compensated the same) and then convert internally at those companies, then I would say MAYBE. We have a handful of people in that bucket and we can help, but we don't do any data-specific interview prep. We have a handful of mentors who are Staff+ Data Engineers at FAANG but we don't have any practice materials for it.
If you strictly want to be a backend engineer, then I have more questions. If you are already getting INTERVIEWS at some solid tech companies on your own and need a boost or help preparing for the interviews then 100% yes.
If you are struggling to get interviews then I would recomm…
CIRR 2025 Standards out - does not close loopholes to force transparency, only change is one that extends the list of reasons to exclude people from the data and increase placement rates on paper - I don't think anyone cares anymore though :(
CIRR Standards for 2025 are out [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zuNf-58OcxVyY1KnTxnfqhfftiNexb6S/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zuNf-58OcxVyY1KnTxnfqhfftiNexb6S/view?usp=drive_link)
In a year where bootcamps are disappearing left right and center and pivoting to AI programs and abandoning SWEs, I would have wanted CIRR to tighten up a number of the loopholes in their standard that schools get to exploit.
Here is a list of issues I pointed out last year: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bug0lv/linebyline\_critique\_of\_cirr\_standard\_document/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bug0lv/li…
Hi, we work with people with salaries in that range yeah. If you are making over $200K a year, at a top tier tech, you have to look at performance bonuses and stock as well. For example the typical mid level Meta engineer offer is around $330K right now but the base is like $185K and the rest is stock and bonuses At the senior level, the bases are into the $200Ks and TC around $450 to $500K.
We don't guarantee your outcome or any specific base salary but the performance based pricing is $5K upfront and the rest is $0 to $15K extra depending on the INCREASE in BASE salary so some people with high bases coming in choose that option because they don't expect to increase their salary enough to hit the $10K tier and if they do then they made so much money they'll happily pay more.
These numbers are based on bigger cities and many top companies require you to move right now. If you get a re…
I gave the advice somewhere else but staying at one company and showing numerous promotions is a simple way to pass the 20 second resume reviews.
Interview performance, I use a personal trainer analogy. You are asking how to get into shape. You can get a cheap gym membership and do it yourself (Neetcode or Algo Expert membership), you can get a personal trainer (1-1 mentor), you can join a premium gym like Equinox that has classes and trainers and a lot of options but is expensive (Formation), you can learn on your own through books and youtube videos about how to get into shape (which works if you have discipline but might take a lot longer)
You can pay month to month like a gym membership (this is typically senior engineers who have interviews lined up already and a short timeframe as it's very costly if you did month to month for a long time) or a $5K upfront and variable fee based on how much you increase your base salary from your last job when placed ($0 to $15K extra).
We haven't taken fresh bootcamp grads with no experience since 2023 and earlier (with a a single digit handful of except cases).
I really wish I wasn't doom and gloom but we (not just me but my entire team) have robust networks, and it's insanely hard for bootcamp grads right now.
So it's good for Formation because bootcamp grads have to take whatever job they can get right now, and then in a few years they have various gaps that we are perfect to help fill in gaps they need for really great tech job they wanted but couldn't get initially.
Not everyo…
If you have 2 years or more of legit SWE work experience on your resume then you are in good shape to consider Formation. We can't change your experience, so if you have the experience then we help you 1) practice the computer science fundamentals all hyper-focused on getting you to pass top tier technical interviews and on, 2) figuring out what parts of your experience are most impressive to top tier tech and practicing framing those with top tier engineers or hiring managers (both technically and behavioral)
I've heard this narrative at Codesmith a few times: traditionally non tech companies need to become tech companies so they are hiring tons of engineers.
1. These companies are not hiring the best of the best (because their business doesn't have high enough margins to pay what FAANG pays), so if you want to be a best of the best engineering, you need to go to a top company and learn from the best. Even if there are more jobs here, you might be slowing down your career by taking them, especially if you are ambitious.
2. A lot of these non-tech companies outsource to top companies by buying their products and integrating them. They want to buy the best software from DataBricks because they can't remotely hire the same talent as DataBricks to build similar software in house. They also outsource more development to contracting firms abroad. So the growth in need for programming doesn't nece…
If you have a degree, internships is #1. If you didn't do any internships a bootcamp might be able to help, but you would be better off just making a group of 5 people and making a startup on your own and taking it as far as you can. Codesmith is a bootcamp that has like 7 weeks of lectures and the rest is projects with others, and you are paying $22K to go there... you could just find the equally talented people in the Slack who are admitted to Codesmith, and leave and do a startup with them for 4 months, put it in your resume, etc... and put the $100K total combined tuition cost towards founding the startup, ads, cloud infra etc...
If you give me a group of 20 people who are paying $22K, I'll take their $500K and run a company for them that they own 1/20th of and they will be much better off.
If I disregard AI then I would say that nothing at all would change and it's the new normal. And it's likely the new normal from "traditional SWE" roles.
I think schools like Launch School that are very small and take a very long time to get into will produce exceptions to the norm and that's about it.
I'm more optimistic in AI creating a ton of new jobs that are tech-adjacent but not tech jobs. And that people will need to transition from their non-tech job into these roles. E.g. accountant -> AI enabled accountant. Kind of like how accountants BEFORE Microsoft Excel had to learn Excel and now it's just a given. A ton of accountants will have to learn AI-enabled tools and it will be a given.
Now SWE bootcamps might be done and over with, but maybe AI bootcamps that **VERY CLEARLY IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AS TRAINING YOU FOR ADJACENT JOBS AND NOT SWE JOBS** might be able to help people ge…
This is somewhat similar to what Codesmith (their competitor for "top bootcamp") does as well, called the "Where are they now report".
I don't see the complete methodology, but these kinds of reports can be extremely bias. I haven't seen them audit and track the number of people who did NOT reply, so all the people who failed out, gave up, changed jobs don't reply and they take an average of people who DID reply.
Just like any other reports, like CIRR, just because it looks legit it doesn't mean you shouldn't think critically and try to understand the words being used. Just like CIRR was created as a marketing group for bootcamps to promote bootcamps, and Course Report gets paid by bootcamps to send people to them (and wouldn't exist without bootcamps), thinking critically is extremely important in understanding the way things are.
Things to watch out for:
1. Not showing how many pe…