People can say incorrect things with good intentions.
Problems happen in two cases:
1. You have bad intentions (these are the words like 'fraud', 'defamation')
2. You are negligent in verifying your statements. This one is trickier because people with good intentions might say false statements and not realize it. If you do that a few times and you promptly correct and you act in good faith... that's called being human. If you make the same mistakes or typos over and over and over despite being corrected in the past, or you repeat statements that a reasonable person doing reasonable research would not consider hard facts but you call them facts, then you start entering the gray area.
\#2 is most of Reddit. People who think they are right and they probably aren't. Bootcamps that make math mistakes and they didn't mean to.
The problems happen if you make math mistakes every time you…
I mean there are anecdotal spreadsheets, and you can pull up GitHub and LinkedIns and get more insights.
The key thing I'm watching right now is the number of 'did not respond' entries. That used to be almost zero, which means that the data was based on most people's reported outcomes that got audited.
Things went downhill last year in 2023 and got worse in 2024 where that number skyrocketed. The first sign I called out was the H2 2022 numbers that were obfuscated into the full 2022 report with reverse engineering.
This number means that we have placements counted based on their LinkedIns. All those 'self employed' people could people people putting placeholders on their LinkedIns for all we know because there is no methodology on how LinkedIn verifications work.
I criticized CIRR about this and they updated the spec without changing this and instead just adding to the reasons allowe…
There is no evidence anyone is lying because lying requires proof of intent and it's extremely hard to prove intent.
I have been accursed of all kinds of "intentions" on Reddit and I'm just one person, acting as an individual, and I can yell loudly what's in my head, but it's hard to prove that, and it's hard for someone else to prove my intentions when I'm just commenting from my brain directly too.
But yeah just be careful to conclude intentions or guess them and give people room to explain. If you disagree, disagree as a matter of opinion and not fact.
Unless you have conclusive evidence of intention to deceive.
In my opinion, these numbers wouldn't encourage me personally to go to a bootcamp, but it's also a fact that some people get SWE jobs via bootcamps as well.
The conditions are important. I agree on more transparency about what jobs, where and what backgrounds people is critical for any individual who is trying to figure out if they are one of the few it will work for.
However I have to be careful because Codesmith published an official press release on the wire that claims they have a "85% to 90%" placement rate of the "5000" graduates, "$130,000" "average" salaries, "all outcomes verified by by CIRR". So that has to be assumed as fact because stating incorrect information on a press release is a whole other can of worms to deal with.
So you can't make assumptions really.
I would guess that most of them are SWE jobs or SWE adjacent jobs (like Sales Engineer). Generally the people placed from Codesmith are solid placements. But if the vast majority of people aren't reachable to confirm the placement, it's hard to judge from LinkedIn alone.
My opinion is that I think the 12% are solid mostly SWE or SWE adjacent placements yeah, and you can see a good number of those in the $100K+ bucket in the report.
The report that's coming out in April-ish is the 2024 report for CIRR, which includes nationwide students, not just California (which was about 200 students) and CIRR also has 12 month placement numbers.
The 'did not respond' rate for CIRR last year was similar to the 2023 CA report (about 40% did not) but this year's CA report had an increase in non responders.
So that's the number to watch.
This is a rough example, but if you have 100% students start, 90% graduate, 63% had jobs in a year, and 34% (of starters) approximately reported a salary.
So the 'median' salary of $110,000 includes about a third of the students, which is fine, but it's not a median salary of 'students' or of all 'graduates'. Since the data is pretty clear on this, if people feel like this representation of 'the typical grad makes $110,000' is reasonable then I think it's important to call out the qualification…
I'm proactively commenting this because a number of Codesmith-adjacent accounts (staff, alumni, etc...) have been going after me this past week with no substance and referring to this article about me: [https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/](https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/)
I vehemently disagree with the conclusions the blog post comes up with and the examples used not being representative of the real discussion happening, or of both sides.
I think that any discussion that's not about the facts is a distraction from critical conversaion.
Now more than ever we need to be able to argue, debate and discuss facts without insulting me, name calling, threatening, harassing with nick names, and assuming my intentions.
**Discuss the facts, not the speculation about my intentions and motivations.**
DEVELOPING: Codesmith 2024 California Government Outcomes report is out today. Only 12% are placed within 6 months with reported salary (50% including 'no salary information available') but press release also out today says '85% to 90% placement rate within 12 months' 'CIRR verified' (no time frame)
SOURCE: [https://bppe.ca.gov/webapplications/annualReports/2024/document/98d87f0e-23c1-4af7-aabf-7c91d4ea7312](https://bppe.ca.gov/webapplications/annualReports/2024/document/98d87f0e-23c1-4af7-aabf-7c91d4ea7312)
I can't legally comment much on this so instead I ran it through a neutral AI with the following prompt:
"Summarize this document and compare it to information about Codesmith you can research and flag any good things and flag any concerning things. Summarize in 5 bullet points."
* **Completion is very high, but placement is not.** Codesmith’s Software Engineering Immersive show…
BREAKING: Gauntlet AI (BloomTech, f/k/a Lambda School) launched Government Training Program, free program to prepare you for government AI/SWE roles.
SOURCE: [https://gfa.gauntletai.com/](https://gfa.gauntletai.com/)
I'm sure this will get a lot of popcorn because BloomTech had some past issues but Gauntlet seems to be a lot clearer on what it does, how it does it, etc... it takes top 2% IQ people, trains them for 80 hours a week for 12 weeks, and gives them $200K job and there aren't really any catches (at this time) and it's free because companies pay hiring fees.
It works because they transparently filter for top 2% IQs, makes sure they have the hustle needed through 80 hour weeks, and there is a huge demand for productive engineers.
They are launching a program to prepare you for government and they have a very transparent explanation for what it is. Four steps, very clear.
Gau…
I’m consistent in who I am and how I show up, both publicly and privately. Over the years, I’ve received snarky remarks and unprofessional attacks from accounts that identify themselves as part of the Codesmith community, and that kind of dynamic likely contributes to the broader decline we’re seeing.
I’ve said this before, but it’s important context: I’m one account, using my real name. In contrast, many other accounts have appeared, engaged briefly and aggressively, and then disappeared—some of which no longer seem to be active. If more of these conversations were happening between identifiable people using real names, I think the tone and outcomes would be very different.
Transparency matters, especially right now. It’s normal for people to look at the same information and come to different conclusions. What’s not healthy is when discussions feel lopsided or impersonal, with one per…
That blog post presents a one-sided framing and selectively quotes material to support a conclusion I do not agree with.
Claims such as: “Codesmith has proven this thesis true with 5,000+ alumni. 90% of graduates get hired within 12 months, most land leadership roles within big tech & AI labs, and many directly contribute to the world’s largest open source projects” are extraordinary marketing statements. Evaluating them using publicly available sources like LinkedIn and GitHub is both lawful and commonplace when assessing public claims about outcomes.
Reviewing publicly available professional profiles and repositories is not stalking or harassment. It is standard practice in hiring, investing, journalism, and market analysis, and it is often the only way to contextualize broad promotional claims.
I also reviewed summaries of my own comment history using automated tools and reached co…
We'll see when their next CIRR report comes out. I periodically look at OSLabs-Beta and OpenSourceLabs GitHub projects and check if the students have jobs and the number of people with jobs about six months after graduation seems lower than it historically has been.
The next CIRR report though is people who graduated in 2024, not 2025, so the information will already be outdated. It would be really useful to get six month numbers for H1 2025.
The Codesmith Federal website says 90% of the 5000+ graduates get jobs within a year. Their own CIRR reports dispute that so I'm not sure if that's a preview of the 2024 outcomes or if it's just a mistake.
There also appears to be a new Codesmith FULL TIME program from August 7th, 2026 to November 9th, 2027, which is a whole 15 MONTHS!!! I'm very curious about that option.
Launch School though is crushing Codesmith on six month placement data…
If an organization chooses to market itself publicly, highlighting metrics like GitHub stars or describing student projects as 'contributions to the largest open-source projects in the world', that choice necessarily invites public evaluation of those claims.
Public scrutiny of public representations is not harassment, stalking, or doxxing when it relies on publicly available information and is conducted lawfully.
Claims either withstand scrutiny or they don’t. If they do, the evidence speaks for itself. If they don’t, criticism is a foreseeable and legitimate response.
Likewise, when security or operational issues become publicly observable or are responsibly disclosed, accountability and remediation, not reframing criticism as misconduct, are the appropriate response.
In the United States, open and lawful critique of public information is a core safeguard for consumers and markets,…
With respect to the staff member referenced, I did not seek out any private or non-public information. While reviewing a Codesmith project for unrelated reasons, I observed the name of an adult child listed in the project materials, alongside a LinkedIn profile that was prominently linked.
In reviewing that publicly available LinkedIn and GitHub information, I noticed two discrepancies:
1. the individual’s listed professional experience appeared overstated relative to the timeline shown, and
2. the GitHub commit history associated with the account appeared to predate the creation date of the GitHub account itself.
Because the staff member in question serves as a career advisor, and because I was already in an ongoing email thread with Codesmith leadership on related matters, I raised these observations in that existing thread for review. I did not contact the individual directly, d…
1. The piece being cited is not an article or investigative report. It is explicitly labeled as a blog post authored by a marketer. A third-party blog post is not primary evidence. I am not aware of any direct evidence in that post showing that I doxxed anyone. If such evidence exists, it should be identified specifically and evaluated on its merits rather than asserted by reference.
2. To my knowledge, my commentary consisted of clearly labeled estimates and opinions regarding Codesmith’s unit economics, expressed in the same analytical manner I have applied to multiple programs across the industry.
3. With respect to allegations of harassment or improper conduct, I again ask for evidence. My understanding is that I was removed from Codesmith sessions and Slack after stating, under my real name during a Zoom call, that a student described as “placed” was no longer employed at the comp…
I tend to take statements at face value. I don’t read into hints or implied messages. If someone tells me something directly, I respond directly.
If, in 2023, Will Sentance had reached out to say, “Your comments are upsetting staff, can we talk about your concerns?” I believe this situation could have unfolded very differently.
Instead, the first direct message I received from Will Sentance was in 2025. It demanded an apology based on allegations that I had “abused” his family, an accusation I categorically reject, and it was signed with promotional metrics: “Will Sentance (CEO, Codesmith — 1M+ taught, 4,000+ full-time graduates).”
1. I did not doxx anyone. I referred only to information that was already publicly available. Doxxing is wrong, against Reddit ToS, and I do not support it.
2. You stated as fact that I “posted the real names and private information of others.” That is a serious allegation. Please identify the specific examples you relied on at the time you made that statement, because I am not aware of any instance in which I did this. In fact, the vast majority of information I refer to I cannot post explicitly because of this, even though Codesmith has the information in public for whatever reason, it would still be inappropriate to post or say anything that would identify anyone.
3. I participated in the Codesmith CSX Slack. I used a single account, under my real name, and I never mentioned my company to individuals. My participation was limited to helping with technical questions on a small number o…
I participated actively on the subreddit from around May 2022 to the present, and I served as a moderator from approximately March 2024 to October 2025.
Someone asked: 'If he’s been doing this for years, why didn’t Codesmith say anything?' That’s a fair question. In March 2024, Eric Kirsten emailed me: “With regards to your posts re Codesmith, I generally don’t have any issue with them.”
If Codesmith’s leadership now believes my conduct was problematic. Responsibility for that breakdown rests beyond me.
Instead, information was later presented publicly in a way that I believe lacks important context and portrays my actions and motives inaccurately. In my view, this approach is unfortunate and unnecessary. I strongly disagree with how this situation has been characterized and with the conclusions drawn from it.
This situation has been presented publicly in a one-sided way that omits material context.
I have been characterized as a competitor who harmed a coding bootcamp. However, months earlier, that bootcamp’s CEO stated to me in writing that she did not consider our companies competitors and that our products were different.
I also raised concerns about security practices and the handling of sensitive personal information. Those concerns required multiple follow-ups, and an audit was discussed. There was later a publicly observable disruption to their AWS access. While I did not cause that disruption; I raised issues related to engineering oversight and security hygiene that were unaddressed flags .
I have been subjected to serious and false accusations, including claims of stalking and other misconduct. My personal email was circulated, and I was subsequently subscribed to unsolicited and…
It’s exhausting to have multiple anonymous accounts, many of which present themselves as part of the Codesmith community, repeatedly targeting me in threads where I’m sharing publicly available news, facts, and sources for open discussion.
As I’ve consistently said, and as the record reflects, I’m participating here as an individual, using a single account, expressing my own views. Over the years, I’ve faced sustained antagonism from numerous anonymous accounts, many of which were later suspended or banned by Reddit.
It’s worth noting that what gets characterized as “hundreds of comments” largely comes from a small number of long-running threads where I’ve declined to disengage simply because the information is uncomfortable. I want to find common ground with people I strongly disagree with. My commentary reflects my interpretation of observable market conditions and operational develo…
Do they have open source projects? I know for places like Codesmith and Launch School you can just go through the open source projects that every student does and figure out placement rates. Anyone can do this and see raw information - with the caveat that LinkedIns could be out of date. However CIRR and Codesmith's auditor considers LinkedIn "LinkedIn is almost as gospel as anything else" (quote) so if you go off of LinkedIn you can figure out the placement rates.
I can't comment on that right now but encourage people to spend like an hour digging into it themselves and correlating it with public messaging if they are curious about this, and if they don't care then don't! haha.
I have a THEORY, but this is just my person opinion/thoughts and not a fact.
This sub tends to talk about the most expensive bootcamps (including former ones now closed), Launch School, Codesmith, Hack Reactor, App Academy, Lambda School, because these programs are so expensive that it's a huge commitment. When you spend $20K on a bootcamp you are also more included to self-justify that investment. You are also not paying for nothing, and those bootcamps could have more robust communities, more staff, more marketing dollars to pay for "reddit support", etc...
The audience for these programs are people who are seriously committed, put in a lot of effort to choose a bootcamp, and want to make sure they are confident in the decision.
The programs like Triple Ten, NuCamp, Springboard, Coding Temple are: 1) much cheaper, 2) focus on advertising to a large audience, a lot of them have 'X% o…
You also don't have all the information on Codesmith and this is what lawyers can look at.
For example, this is from a private email from Codesmith's current CEO from March 21, 2025: "I do not consider Formation a competitor, it is quite clear to me that our products are different." This was well after I started commenting on Reddit.
SOURCES (hopefully you can read them because copy pasting all relevant pieces doesn't fit in a comment):
[https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams](https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams)
[https://help.usajobs.gov/working-in-government](https://help.usajobs.gov/working-in-government) (USAJobs is the only OFFICIAL federal government job board, other than USPS).
[https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/employment-laws-and-regulations/](https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/employment-laws-and-regulations/) Federal hiring is governed by **5 U.S.C. § 2301**, which establishes that hiring must be determined solely on the basis of ability, knowledge, and skills, after fair and open competition.
I have zero idea of what's being offered. I made a statement that having the public nominate me cannot guarantee me a full time job directly with the federal government (i.e. not a contractor, trainee, apprenticeship, etc...)
I was trying to look a bit and this is one of the companies on the contract, and it doesn't sound like it's a positiion directly with the government; [https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/sol/sol20240710](https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/sol/sol20240710)
Bootcamps work for a lot of people!
Look at CIRR data and the latest for Codesmith showed like 40% of people getting jobs within 6 months of graduating.
Launch School has like a 70% ish placement rate within 6 months.
These are the source of the massive negativity right now;
1. Trends are tanking and down. The trend is more important than the absolute numbers.
2. Salaries are down in these reports, despite inflation and SWE base salaries being up. This indicates more people taking worse jobs or tangential jobs instead of the SWE jobs.
3. Ghosts. Launch School doesn't have this problem but Codesmith's data shows about half the people NOT RESPONDING TO SALARY REQUESTS. Meaning that of the 100% of people who start, 90% graduate, 40% get a job, and 50% actually submitted a salary, so the "median graduate salary" for 6 months includes 18% of students. Historically far more people got pl…
Someone recently nominated me for something, and I received an email from Codesmith as part of that process. It made me wonder whether the security audit they had previously mentioned was ever completed, since the email raised questions for me given past security concerns that were flagged.
If Codesmith is operating as, or pursuing, federal government contracts, I would expect that to involve standard requirements like regular security audits and SOC 2 compliance. There was also a period in the past where issues were identified involving the handling of applicant data, which I believe have since been addressed.
Nominate me for what? I'm not sure what this is haha. If you want a job directly with the Federal Government there are background checks and legal processes and you can't just be nominated and chosen by the public to skip those. So anyone guaranteeing a full time job directly with the federal government is scamming you because there are legal processes to follow and there are fixed public pay-scales based on your education etc.... So I'm not sure what exactly this is. A sub-contractor job?
DEVELOPING: FedStack and Lantec won up to $118M government contract for non-IT training for the Federal Government/IRS - Codesmith will be involved (conflicting reports)
Source: https://app.g2xchange.com/FedCiv/posts/smoothstack-obtains-118m-treasury-ocio-non-it-technical-workforce-development-and-training-bp
FedStack is large government contractor.
Lantec is a training company with three locations in Louisiana.
This is a blanket maximum contract and it's unclear what specific services are provided or expected, and what "non-IT training" means.
Codesmith claims here that they won the contract https://www.codesmith.io/federal and made the following statement
"Codesmith now extends its mission to driving tangible impact across the US economy, with the potential to return billions of tax dollars.
Codesmith has proven this thesis true with 5000+ alumni. 90% of graduates get hired with…
I'm going to caution with the premise of the question.
So first off, check for yourself because one off examples of jobs or no job don't mean much in isolation. A small number of people get jobs from all bootcamps. Both Codesmith and Launch School work on open source projects and you can review the projects, see the contributors, check their LinkedIns and see if they got jobs or not. Launch School has provided a report for 2024 grads that accounts for every single person that started and you can see that without doing the work.
Second, it highly depends on the person. People with a engineering background, or experience at a tech company in a non software role, and who take adjacent roles have a much better short.
For example, a 15 year salesperson at tech companies -> "Sales Engineer" is a massively different placement from no-degree no-experience line cook -> FAANG Software Engineer…
Current price: Codesmith: $22,500 (14 weeks). Launch School "18% of your first year salary, or $18k (USD)" (16 weeks), Hack Reactor: $19,480.
Enrollment at Codesmith based on OSLabs Github projects appears to have dropped from about 1000 people in 2023 to about 100(?) people in 2025 and like a dozen in the past 3 months?
Launch School had 71 people in 2023 and 76 in 2024, so it's maybe capturing the market share since that's actually higher.
So not that many people are paying that much no more.
They were offline for about a week and then reappeared with a new website, without much public explanation at the time.
The current site lists three schools: two in the U.S. and one outside the U.S. Of the two U.S. schools, one appears to be enrolling for a cohort starting roughly six months out.
The site now lists four board members. One individual publicly notes on LinkedIn that they are no longer serving in that role, which may simply reflect a recent or transitional change that hasn’t been updated everywhere yet.
The most recent update to the standards documentation was made by someone who previously worked at Codesmith and is now listed as a consultant there, which is publicly visible information.
Separately, Codesmith’s own website appears to reflect some recent staff changes, and they no longer appear as a sponsor on Course Report.
Taken together, these are just surface-level…
BREAKING: Launch School Capstone 2024 Outcomes
SEE ORIGINAL: [https://www.reddit.com/r/launchschool/comments/1q2cvsx/2024\_capstone\_salary\_data/](https://www.reddit.com/r/launchschool/comments/1q2cvsx/2024_capstone_salary_data/)
Launch School is one of the remaining top programs, that announced a small cutback from 3 to 2 cohorts in 2026. These outcomes are very strong though still.
Overall for 2024 grads they had 66% placement rate for ALL ENROLLEES in six months (74% if you exclude non-job-hunting)
Early 2025 cohorts have a lower placement rate but a little above 50% so far.
Overall this is a good sign as the only CIRR reporting school that competes directly with Launch School is Codesmith and their 2023 data had a 42% placement rate (excluding non job hunting) in 6 months, which is almost HALF that of Launch School.
This isn't magic, Launch School's program takes a long tim…