The raw evidence I've seen shows Codesmith on paper discourages people from lying about their experience - almost awkwardly directly - like it's said early on in the resume process and said firmly, so I think it's important to call that out to lay the pieces out there.
It's also a fact that they sign off on background checks for the time that you claim you were involved with your OSP. By default they sign off on your time in Codesmith but they sign off on it under OSLabs and under your main project, and not under Codesmith's name. And if you update a README 6 months latter and tell them you've been active over 9 months, the would sign off on that.
I've talked to two students who refused to exaggerate at all and were struggling on the job hunt and I honestly don't have much advice for them. But when you see how demoralized these people were, you start to piece together how another demor…
I mean when it comes to harassment or serious negative impact, everyone should be heard and it doesn't really matter what you said in the past. I'm just a human and I don't have all the answers and I can see hard cases come up. Some things are meant for more calibrated Reddit employees to deal with, but my stance is open and fair lines of communication.
When people talk to me 1-1 I often recommend Codesmith to people based on their personal situations, I'm no longer going to be doing that. Maybe Phil actually heard from students who said I was the reason they went to Codesmith and has more appreciation of what I do.
Eric K though seems to have no idea, and if my stopping to recommend them has a further impact on enrollment then maybe he'll change his mind and if it doesn't have an impact, then my conversations don't really mean anything significant.
I'm happy to respond to this point by point, but **if this is real, the timestamp is accurate, and it's one of the leaders (i.e. Eric K or Will)** then I'm going to reconsider recommending anyone go to Codesmith instead of just pausing that recommendation like I did when the new changes came out. Why? 1) they are directly admitting to being involved with this subreddit, and 2) they are continuing to be defensive and vaguely dismissive instead of providing specific examples, and it doesn't sound like anything has changed.
MY PERSONAL RESPONSES:
1. **Most importantly this post is clearly admitting to being extremely involved on this subreddit after being fairly dismissive of that in the past.**
- I became a moderator like three days ago-ish, it wasn't announced anywhere, and the Codesmith person is already aware, so they are clearly paying attention to Reddit closely
- "We've had grads…
Hi, I would mention it in the interview yeah. It may be possible it could work but it's not ideal timing wise. I'm not sure what the minimum is, but there could be some important onboarding sessions you would miss.
Just generally speaking, the program isn't just something to put on your resume and it takes time and it's also why it's really valuable and effective :). So if the team doesn't think you'll benefit properly it might just not be a good fit, and you don't want to push it because you won't get the most out of it. So I would be transparent and accept the decision if we can't support it.
FWIW you can't have "contractors" be training in a strict style of teaching and force them to teach that way, otherwise they are employees. You can't give contractors mandatory training on how to do something and you can't give them performance reviews and direction on how to do their job.
Obviously there is a massive gray area and a lot of factors play into this, but that's the general overview, but if they are systematically making people contractors and exerting strong control over their work, that might be illegal.
Finally, you mention you "could", that's the key thing here. Very strong industry engineers have complex jobs and can't commit to consistent teaching or projects as "faculty". You need to build a system around managing these people so they can "teach a workshop" every few weeks that makes sure everything is covered. Which my company has patented and built.
Giving back a…
Wow 6 core staff and 6 TAs for 30 people seems like a lot actually hahaha.
Formation isn't a bootcamp so I won't try to explain our org chart, the majority of people are engineers, designers, PMs building the mentorship platform, and the next largest group is the Fellowship team that runs the flagship Fellowship we offer.
I know Codesmith pretty well - before all the recent changes: a full Cohort is 36 students. There is:
- 1 Lead Instructor
- 1 Instructor
- 1 Engineering Mentor
- 1 Admissions Coordinator (before you start) + 1 Program Coordinator (after you start) + 1 Outcomes Coordinator (after you finish)
- 2 to 5 fellows (TAs/former students on contract)
Company wide staff involved partially:
- 1 Head Instructor
- 1 Director of Programs
- 1 Program Manager
- 1 Outcomes Manager
- A number of on demand fellows who do things like resume review and code review
So overall 4…
Ok the tone is a little bit antagonistic, but I do agree with the opinion stated that not all alumni and staff are super happy with everything going on and there's a significant lack of organization of things internally. A lot of people have access to a lot of things and a lot of those things are completely publicly shared. So I wouldn't be surprised if people do start posting more about their experience even with an NDA because a bunch of things are publicly available that I certainly wouldn't make publicly available. People who have non disparagement clauses might not be able to post anything.
That said. I learned from someone last night that Codesmith actually doesn't have much "code" that employees actually work on. The main codebases are the public website and the CSX website, both of which are like junior web developer level work and not "senior software engineering work". I looke…
Codesmith grads are getting jobs, from the data they share publicly, the people getting placed tend to have adjacent experience prior or they exaggerate their resume or they list their contractor work as a fellow as like 8 months of Software Engineer experience.
And Codemsith has almost no code, it's mostly the website that people work on, like junior web developer work. So it's just not enough to get by right now.
I was doing some illustrative math.
THESE ARE NOT FACTUAL NUMBERS, THERE ARE ESTIMATES FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES AND THE SOURCE OF THE GUESS SPECIFIED.
In early 2023, Codesmith had 4 full time cohorts (running every 7 weeks - roudning up ) and 1 part time (running twice a year), and seemed full or with waitlists
So that's 7.4 cohorts a year (let's say 7) = 28 full time cohorts + 2 part time.
Let's say 32 people per cohort average (a full is 36 but's lets again round down)
That means = 960 people starting, @$21K = $20M of revenue
Now the current state:
1 full time cohort (running every 7 weeks) = 7 per year full time cohorts + looks like 4 part time from their website
Enrollment end of 2023 was 'averaging 26 people' from one of the info sessions, so let's use that
That means = 286 people, $6M of revenue
-------
That's not just a drop, that's like a 70% drop in enrollment and re…
I don't know anything about the specific people in this thread and they are keeping the discussion fairly civil and I appreciate that as a reader too, but I do know people in the past were asked to post and comment on Reddit by their senior advisor. There are a ton of people that post and comment on their own too.
The more interesting case was super sleek to me: someone spread word to instructors that 'they really could use more support on Reddit' and the instructors then asked top students like 'wow you should really share that, that's amazing' type things. Percolates down.
Is it wrong or bad, personally I don't think so, but just have to read everything skeptically, INCLUDING EVERY WORD I WRITE TOO.
Sorry I was offline for 3 hours and flailing a bit to catch up and responding to things not well, agree it's a half baked indirect comment.
Anyways, the point was if people are getting laid off and they have experience they are very much capable of getting great new jobs and moving forward, and I don't see why they would go back to teach at Codesmith.
I was trying to explain that the way it happens isn't trivial and you won't be handle those offers, it takes a lot of focus and effort, where having the first instinct to go teach at Codesmith might slow you down or distract you, and it maybe a little add on for some side income.
The whole thread about people being laid off teaching is not really super interesting to me and I would prefer to focus on the changes Codesmith is making and understanding what's going on, it's a big tangent I probably should have just skipped.
Yeah again, presenting both sides:
1. Having people with experience contribute is fantastic.
2. BUT, they can contribute in infinite ways: content, teaching, mocks, resume review, talks, etc... and it takes time to figure out who should do what - and is it too little too late.
We'll see, but it's good they are trying.
I commented this above, and I don't want to make this about me, but even if you don't like me, we are proving there are options for people **who genuinely have 2+ YOE for SWE jobs**
Last 10ish placements in the past 10 days: Microsoft, Meta, Waymo, Oracle, <startup>, JP Morgan, Atlassian, Meta, Meta, Netflix, JP Morgan, <startup>, Waymo
Hate me or not, it's not doom and gloom out there if you have experience, but it certainly is if you don't.
I dunno, I work at a mentorship for experienced engineers and the last 10 offers are : Microsoft, Meta, Waymo, Oracle, <startup>, JP Morgan, Atlassian, Meta, Meta, Netflix, JP Morgan, <startup, Waymo
Like it's **NOT DOOM AND GLOOM IF YOU HAVE 2+ YOE**
It is though if you have no experience, and unfortunately even 1 year on paper of experience a "OSLabs OSP" doesn't cut it.
+1 to waitlists, I check the programs page like once a week (or once a day for the past week haha, I was poking around already because they had zero cohorts in February and something didn't add up)
But anyways, about a year ago they had waitlists and cohorts full months ahead of time. Now they have cohorts open until the week before, and they are admitting people who appear on paper to have less qualified backgrounds (subjective judgement opinion, not a fact) who just REALLY want to go to Codesmith for a long time.
And 100% should have seen the writing on the wall. I know I'm hard on them even when the times are good, but it's because I don't ride ups and downs, I try to evaluate objectively and they should have been using the good times to invest in making everything more robust and better. I said this somewhere but even if my criticisms were hard to hear, listening instead of defend…
This is also true. Almost all the mentors at Formation are industry engineers and some are great teachers and some aren't. Fortunately, we aren't a school and we don't teach anything, so being a good teacher isn't a requirement, but a mentor who is doing lightweight mentorship can be very polarizing and we have a whole PATENTED system for managing all the engineer <-> mentor relationships. It's crazy hard problem for a group of 8+ year FAANG product engineers to solve haha. I believe Codesmith has one contract product engineer that I know of and if they want industry "faculty" actually teaching as teachers in a school setting, that's even harder in my opinion.
Yeah +1, my understanding is they want MORE EXPERIENCED alumni and not alumni who just got jobs, etc...
That said, that person was identified as a "Faculty", which has four very important consequences:
1. Since Codesmith is a "school", has important meaning (for regulation) and this person might be more tied now to Codesmith than they think, maybe they are fully aware but I'm curious if all these new "Faculty" will be aware of this.
2. Conflicts of Interest. Companies generally barely allow people to be lightweight mentors and a lot of the top companies block people from being the "Faculty" of a school without disclosure and review for conflicts of interest. I know at Meta this was a major thing and there was a very non-fun conflict review process that blocked a lot of things. So I'm hoping if someone is an alumni and wants to be a "Faculty" or is going to be identified as one, that t…
Those were independent events. The CTRI lead left in the middle of a cohort and the head of instruction took over at the CTRI lead temporarily. After the last CTRI cohort finished, they stopped advertising it and said it was 'on pause, hoping to return in the new year', and then it never did.
They did have about 18% layoffs later in the year, also unrelated to this person's departure and I think it was more related to that.
But even with those layoffs, they didn't make any significant changes (my opinion) to the actual instruction or curriculum or career support - at least not nearly as significant as what's been discussed in the recent announcement.
This is all stuff I agree with too, like things change, the instruction quality will hopefully remain the same.
My personal concern is that this tone is one that Codesmith leaders have had during all the market downturns, and keeping instruction the same old same old isn't working - and it might just be impossible for people with 0 SWE experience to get jobs right now out of a bootcamp.
I was actually more optimistic about them finally making changes to the process, and I'm more nervous about THOSE CHANGES being executed flawlessly and working as expected. To me the risk is that those things may or may not materialize and have impact because they are brand new and since we don't know it just increases the risk in joining. Risk here is not a bad thing! It's risk in the technical definition - higher variance of possible outcomes/results.
I mean they also eliminated CTRI last year and told people it was "coming back soon and just on pause". The eliminated the data science program after also saying it was "on pause".
I know they are marketing, it's a business and I'm not bashing that, but like they had signs for a long time and communicated to prospective students that everything was fine. So when everything turned out to be not fine, they should be equally supportive and helpful to those people - which is why I'm trying to help all the ones messaging me because I just think it's not fair, in opinion, to do that.
RE: OSP Feedback, yeah I review 1-2 projects a week that students proactively send me and I give them feedback, why? I have no idea, I just see them and see how it looks like no legit engineer reviewed the code at all and feel bad that the students have no idea if what they produced is good or not. Many are aware of weaknesses in their code, but need help prioritizing what to improve.
For example, committed code with hundreds of random - legit - lines of code commented out and comments like "not sure what this does", is not mid level and senior work at all. And it's not acceptable for a code reviewer to sign off on that either, and it's not acceptable for a manager of a code reviewer to have this go unchecked across every project sent to be so far.
I'm presenting both sides in my commentary on this, and I'm also officially moderating the discussion, but I think it's fine for people to express their OPINIONS and label them as such, and as long as that's clear and we don't attack people personally for their opinions, we can have a healthy discussion.
Two sides to this:
1. Codesmith instruction is really consistent - not 100% - but the instructor matters less. PTRI had thrash with their lead leaving last summer and it was eventually fine for the residents.
2. That said, if too much changes overnight, that's a concerning sign, because Codesmith is a MACHINE and a lot of parts are being swapped around and replaced at once. You paid for one machine and it's turning into a different one, and it's not clear what the new one is. I wouldn't flip a table, but I would be on alert.
Ah ok, yeah feel free to DM me. A lot of information has come my way about this. I tried to summarize in my comment on this post, but if you are comfortable sharing more personal circumstances then I can give more specific advice as well, if not, just follow along and will continue to comment on things that I see to present a neutral perspective of what's happening to try to help people who are really nervous :S
Have you tried asking people at Codesmith openly? Or do you feel uncomfortable asking your leads?
For the students who have been contacting me, I would advise going to your instructors and asking them openly and transparently about your questions.
I know some have reported confusion because their instructors were laid off but finishing the cohort and asking someone who was laid off what's going on is a bit awkward for sure.
I'm aware of all the people laid off, and there were a lot of instructors, but maybe try going to the leaders? If they don't reply to you then you then ping me more privately to come up with other people to ask.
Feel free to DM me, we might already be chatting haha, but I mean they are not a very big company at all.
When I was first looking into them I thought they had like 150 people, but the VAST majority are contractors and not employees.
The actual number of employees seems to be around (after the layoffs) three dozen. And of those like 6-7 leaders in 2 tiers roughly?
That doesn't seem that bad.... but are you saying that the leaders don't do enough on the ground and with the cuts being only on the ground people, that that has you concerned?
Hi! I believe our team members dedicated to reviewing applications are still thoroughly going through and interviews are expected to begin at the posted date of March 6th. I believe interviews will happen through the interview period, so not hearing back by March 6th doesn't mean you won't get one necessarily. I will say that the team reported a very large number of applications and thank you to everyone for taking the time to apply and make a video! But many great candidates, naturally, many will also not get interviews unfortunately.
There's no progress tracker for the program this year but it's something we would like to add in the future and appreciate the implied feedback that that would be useful.
This is my concern too, they don't really have time, without adding these on as add on modules. If they charge for them they are breaking the promise of lifetime support to me, but I could be misunderstanding what that means.
But yeah, the people I talk to believe the future tech are things explicitly asked for by grads that they never launched or focused on that they threw in there to appease them, but that don't have concrete plans on how to implement them yet.
A number of people have contacted me about this. I'm going to give a balanced take here so please read the whole thing, it's likely polarizing. Unless noted as a personal opinion, the information is being summarized from what people (students, staff, etc...) have been telling me, and is still illustrative and examples, not definitive facts
Overall though, I do advise to exercise extreme caution to join before all the changes settle... it's risky right now, meaning that the variance in what really happens versus what is expected to happen is wider than the variance of joining their typically super stable and consistent previous programs. But I know many risk-taking students there who might want to take that risk.
PROs:
- I think it's fair to give them a chance to change and settle in on those changes before jumping to conclusions that there is no hope
- Clearly with such a massive redu…
I agree yeah generally speaking, but they removed the times from the website so it's not entirely clear if the times will change. They have been soliciting feedback on the times for a while.
FEEDBACK FOR CODESMITH (OPINIONS):
1. The blog post should have had more logistics for the students impacted instead of half defending how great Codesmith is before discussing any of the changes.
2. The website should have been updated in tandem because it's very confusing right now
3. Staff should have been around when the blog went out to assist and support people
4. Will should have written a letter in his name about all that Codesmith has accomplished over the years as a preface to alumni and to the public, and then a SEPARATE LETTER from a Shanda about the program changes written to students and future residents about logistic changes that was more tactical and less marketing.
Yeah I know some instructors and I REALLY hope they have a transition time because the ones I know are amazing and I know will find great jobs outside of Codesmith but might need a little bit of time to ramp up and compete in this same market as the Codesmith grads.
But yeah eliminating two cohorts is 6 instructors (2 leads, 2 instructor, 2 mentors) and a number of lead fellows and fellows, I agree there might be some people looking for jobs. Even if they are promised their jobs will survive and morph, I would be looking for a new job given the state of things...
DISCLOSURE: I am actually bias on this because Codesmith instructors coming to my mentorship program is decent option to consider and they are at the lower end of our acceptance bar, but still a viable option. I know we're only talking like a few people and my comments above aren't meant to be an ad, but I'm just disclosing t…
Launch School is a little smaller and has always been smaller, and follows a vaguely similar idea to Codesmith. You spend a lot of time preparing to go to Capstone via the Core. Difference being Core is paid and more committed and CSX is free. Capstone is a little longer and the projects - also open source products - are a little more polished and legit.
So TLDR: depends on what works for you. If you like Launch School Core go to Capstone. If you like CSX and Codesmith public lectures go to Codesmith - although note I would pause and wait to see what's going on with these changes before locking it in. I'm sure everything will be totally find, but just calmly absorb what they tell you and process it, I'm happy to be a sounding board 1-1 if you are nervous about something they tell you to chat it through with an independent rational look at things.
Oh wow, I assume they would have told you or will tell you any second now and have people ready to respond all night, that's what I would do. That would be a huge miss if they announced this publicly and left all the March people hanging :(.
That said, I would just take a deep breath though and wait to hear from them, they are already small and shrinking but they seem committed to providing a good consistent experience, so I would cautiously wait and not get too worried yet and give them a day to explain everything.
Hopefully they let you know soon and let me know if you find out the answer! I'm really busy too and not proactively trying to find out, just surfacing and summarizing what comes my way.
Similar to another comment, all of the day to day details haven't come out yet and it's why I temporarily paused my recommendation until it is sorted out.
I've also seen in CSX Slack a number of people super excited to join in the next month. The new times are very different. Like 7:30am to 5:30pm PST Monday through Saturday, and some people might have to change up their schedules.
My COMPLETE GUESS FOR NOW is that the March NY cohort will run "hybrid" style as a "co-working space" where the instruction is remote and the same as all others in the cohort, but a group of people happen to be in person for as much as they want to be.
I'M JUST GUESSING! I want to know too
They didn't say explicitly but what they did say:
- The March 4th cohort sounds like the last one that will run the old way
- I would guess they will have a transition time where the instructors of all these cohorts are kept on to wrap things up and co-teach the first 1-2 cohorts before moving on to other things outside of Codesmith. So maybe as they transition the first "new" full time remote cohort will be taught a little differently with multiple lead instructors? No idea, good question! **This is exactly why I'm pausing recommendations until all the day to day details are out** and we see what happens
- All the cohorts are still on the website through July, but staff were removed from the upper section and the new times were placed there instead. So it seems only partially rolled out.
I made a whole post to summarize my comments, they couldn't fit in a normal comment:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1b2q8ck/codesmith\_due\_to\_declining\_enrollment\_shutting/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1b2q8ck/codesmith_due_to_declining_enrollment_shutting/)
Codesmith (due to declining enrollment) shutting down NYC in-person, merging remaining full time remote cohorts into one. But also alludes to new Future Code program, co-working spaces and announces new changes! See my line by line commentary and personal opinions.
SOURCE: [https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech](https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech)
DISCLAIMER: The following is my top to bottom analysis and personal opinions. I always disclose this and hopefully it's not boring. These are my personal opinions. I've not new to the sub and I have been giving my opinions on bootcamps for almost two years now, daily, from the FAANG angle, and also having worked with hundreds of bootcamps grads. I'm the co-founder of an interview prep mentorshi…
Yeah they are preparing to release 2022 outcomes any day now so that means they just use the data you self submitted in the form.
The auditors don't check everything and they are just checking Codesmith's math and processes that they are following CIRR, they are not actually auditing that your salary is what you say it is.
It's one of the misunderstandings of CIRR. CIRR allows self-reported salary data without specifying how it should be verified so the auditors make sure Codemsith is following CIRR and ultimately involves a heck of a lot of self reported data.
My understanding is that your offer details form IS what they use for CIRR. Their auditor contacts a random sampling of people to confirm the numbers they have for you are what you told Codesmith originally and that's the extent of the audit
With the new CIRR rules, which have t been published yet (which isn't great because the outcomes might come at the same time as the new spec, not leaving time for anyone to give feedback on the spec, other than the 3 schools remaining in CIRR) so I can only speculate, but if you graduated in 2023, you might not get contacted until 2025 with the 12 months cycle. So try to remember exactly what you told Codemsith haha if it comes to an audit.
It's a classic sales funnel.
It's a pre-arranged cold outreach sequence.
It's like a sales funnel to sell yourself as a candidate and is leveraging the fact that cold outreach sales funnels have decent conversions.
They don't call this a special method and it's not a secret what the steps are and how they work.
I would love to interview you and see how much of the "workings of React" you absorbed in a bootcamp.
I've interviewed a bunch of people from Codesmith one of the top bootcamps, with a Facebook-level technical behavioral interview, and within 5 mins their technical abilities fell apart, all of them.
What I observed was the people were learning how to appear to understand things for an interview but people didn't actually understand things the way they portrayed they did.
People would have been better off portraying less understanding and actually having that understanding than portraying a deeper understanding that they don't have.
It's nothing against bootcamps, it's just true expertise takes a lot of time, and takes different paths for everyone. A fixed length bootcamp where you absorb as much as you can in the allotted time just isn't an environment conducive to expertise and is…
Yeah great point! These outcomes are still very strong and consistent with the industry changes in bootcamps.
My analysis is on the tougher side because Codesmith doesn't call itself a bootcamp, and it compares itself to the top grad school programs in the world so I'm anlyzing against the top in the world bar.
A student pasted some data shared with the alumni in a session and it showed that the median person with an offer sometime last summer was making $70Kish BEFORE STARTING CODESMITH. But this post isn't about "who should go to Codesmith", it's just an analysis of the data.
Codesmith posted an "Early Look" into 2023 outcomes w/ 2022 comparisons. My personal opinions and anlysis. Notable to me is both that median salary was $130K in 2022 and that it was $115K in 2023. Placement rates are missing, but I would guess much lower, for a double whammy 🥺
SOURCE: [https://www.codesmith.io/blog/early-look-2023-outcomes-and-analysis](https://www.codesmith.io/blog/early-look-2023-outcomes-and-analysis)
DISCLAIMER: These are my personal opinions about the data. I'm human and I make mistakes, but I'm giving my quick personal thoughts and opinions the most open and transparently I can, comments and corrections with sources are appreciated. I have a long history of being around this sub and giving my opinions from the FAANG angle, and the bootcamp angle (having worked with hundreds of bootcamp grads from all kinds of bootcamps over the years). I'm the co-founder of an…
I'm acting as a moderator because there is an ongoing conversation that OP is involved with making very large claims about Codesmith with I've seen first hand evidence of some of those claims. Some public messages called out certain individual Codesmith employees resulting in the account being suspended and the person appears to be trying to steer the conversation in a constructive direction with this new post.
It sounds like you made the right choice going to Codesmith and it's a fit for you. Some people don't like the "cringe moments" and some alumni, as they get real industry experience, feel like people there don't "know their shit", but instead know how to portray that they "know their shit". You won't be able to judget that until you are in the industry for a few years, but regardless, it doesn't mean the experience can't be effective at helping the right people find jobs.
Where…
Yeah I agree it's a fine line. Like if someone is a leader of a company and touting their industry expertise, they also can be called out as a result (obviously in a fair way that's not liablous), and that's the nature of the job. I feel like if you are publicly an instructor at a bootcamp who is present in the public domain on the bootcamp's behalf, LEGALLY it might be more ok (idk, I'm not a lawyer), but just on a human level, I personally would be more sensitive because not all lower level employees might realize that job they are signing up for like leadership would.
I personally support productive conversation about bootcamps and I agree with OP that that shouldn't involved calling out people by name that you had a bad experience with on Reddit. There isn't a different between "reviews" on review websites and "reviews" on Reddit, but Reddit has rules against DOX'ing people (other than public figures) to protect against anonymous harassment - which I totally support.
I have the impression OP plans to continue to share their experience but without naming people, not that they are being silenced or not wanting to share that experience.
\+1 to "It is 100% not "imposter syndrome" when you don't know what you're doing."
Hit the nail on the head there. Sometimes people just don't know things and it's not imposter syndrome haha and with engineering it's often a little of both: you don't realize what you do understand and you have no clue what you don't understand, and you need to figure out how to get by.
Hey, thanks for sharing your experience with everyone, two follow up questions in bold below. There's a lot of common stuff I hear about career support at Codesmith (in terms of response times and the idea that they don't really care if you give up after a year because it won't impact CIRR numbers anymore). Additionally, people often report that alumni mentors tend to regurgitate the lectures, repeating the same solutions and people who get it, do well and people who don't just get told they are "hard learning" and to figure it out.
**I have a follow up question, which is how many people in your cohort do you think were in a similar boat, i.e. what was your approximate placement rate within 6 months?**
Codesmith aggressively markets that their alumni are mid-level and senior engineers and bluntly, I saw [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis_of_52_most…