I don't disagree at all that some people from bootcamps had good outcomes but I also strongly believe this view is why in the past 3 years people ran to bootcamps as a magical path to get a $100K+ job in 12 weeks that was very much not the case.
Take Codesmith for example, which in 2021 had a median $130K salary or something. Out of thousands of graduates ever, something like 100 placed at the canonical FAANG companies. Almost all of the Meta placements were contractors who left within a year.
So historically what happened was this (I was there and this is what Is saw):
1. Big tech wants to source more broadly to have more diverse candidates than just MIT and Stanford grads
2. Big tech looked at local bootcamps in Silicon Valley - Hack Reactor, App Academy, and Hackbright are three big ones.
3. Big tech made relationships, sending engineers as mentors and paying to get first crack a…
I can't tell if you are trolling, not understanding, or just have such a fixed mindset you aren't trying to understand.
How does that work exactly if someone is paying for a month subscription and someone else is paying for an unlimited membership with the goal of getting a job in 12 months.
What would either of those people get from an average placement time?
If someone has a three month subscription, what clock do we use for placement, 12 months from the end of that? What if they have a bundle and pay to extend a month and then get placed? Isn't that worse than if they got placed in the 3 month bundle they were hoping for even though they had a great job.
I believe most of our Fellows have full time day jobs, many do a couple sessions a week and have a long term timeframe and take a long time to place.
On the other hand a bunch of people were engineers who were laid off who are p…
Our full year report has been on our blog since December.
I think I wrote tens of thousands of words explaining our outcomes and there is no question I will not answer honestly.
Our main goals are salary increase and top tier placements because that's what people pay us to achieve.
We don't have a concept of a placement rate because it doesn't make sense for an interview prep program with a month to month membership that allows ramping up and ramping down week to week. It's not useful.
I've explained this to people on your team repeatedly and I struggle to believe you don't comprehend what I'm saying. If you have specific questions I try to elucidate or if you disagree and think we are bootcamp that can publish these things then explain why and I can respond or clarify misconceptions.
Better yet talk to your alumni that have done Formation and find A SINGLE PERSON who thinks Format…
I also agree 110k salaries are great roles!
The part I'm pushing Codesmith on is the trend and the marketing message.
If you tell people they are mid level and senior engineers and the salaries have dropped 130k -> 120k -> 110k, it just doesn't add up.
It's not true and it's misleading.
For example, at Formation, you can see in our 2024 report from December, we had a $110K INCREASE in first year total comp (see the exact calculation mechanism on our blog), increase from 50% top tier in 2023 -> 76% top tier in 2024, and people are getting ACTUAL mid-level and senior top tier roles.
**So the market improved a ton in 2024 from our point of view.**
Codesmith is blaming a bad 2024 market for worse results than 2023, but it's a bad market for **entry level software engineers** not a bad market for all.
**Sorry, this is rambling - but my consistent point for 2-3 years now has been that…
I agree that zero to placement doesn't make any rational sense anymore without having corporate support and potential jobs lined up.
By "you guys" I'm assuming you mean Formation, and Formation doesn't teach any vocational skills, so yes, you have to have employable programming skills coming in and our job is to help you level up to more impactful roles and pass interviews in a competitive market. So our entry bar will always change on paper as it's philosophically "already has hirable programming skills"
Currently we require 2+ years of SWE work experience or we will decline working with you, so no brand new CS or bootcamp grads.
But in theory yes, and we have informal connections to many bootcamps who recommend Formation to alumni in their future job hunts and we have positive relationships - even though I'm equally hard on them about their outcomes and many have closed or paused/
Formation is an interview prep mentorship program that doesn't teach anything and everyone has a different experience. Our main competitor is Pathrise and with some overlap with Interviewing io and Hello Interview. The key is that engineers who come to us need to be already trained in the practical skills and we help them prepare for interviews and land the job.
Codesmith is a bootcamp primarily focused on people without SWE work experience changing careers, or otherwise with no SWE work experience. Codesmith is training underlying technical skills required by the job based on a fixed curriculum that all students do.
There is a small overlap for atypical cases. We take some people with no SWE full time work experience who have the circumstances where we think we can help. Codesmith takes some people with work experience who don't have underlying employable skills or project experience.
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…
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.
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…
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)
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…
McDonalds sells hamburgers and STK sells hamburgers but it doesn't mean all hamburgers are the same.
Covering a topic so nuanced as DS&A doesn't mean anything.
At Formation, we do Interview prep and we don't teach anything so it's not a direct comparison, but people tend to spend months just on data structures and algorithms alone to get to a top-tier company bar. So a bootcamp that has a module that is even a week doesn't mean that you're checking off the box that you are good to go for a data structures and algorithms.
Can you clarify if you are saying H2 2022 outcomes did not tank from H1 2022 outcomes?
Because Codesmith published an official H1 2022 CIRR report and a FY 2022 CIRR reports it's simple math to deduce the H2 2022 outcomes and they decreased no? Are you saying I'm wrong and need to correct that and made a mistake?
Showing a large increase in people ghosting post placement for H2 who were confirmed via LinkedIn as appearing to get a job and their salaries weren't included?
Anyways, in a market where App Academy has paused, Turing plans on shutting down in 2025, Launch Academy paused, BloomTech paused, Launch School has lower enrollment but surviving and discussing its challenges openly, Code Up shut down, Epicodus shut down, Hack Reactor has massive layoffs and is unrecognizable.
Codesmith is the only one that keeps delusionally telling people everything is okay and people aren't fall…
Currently not recommending any bootcamps overall for everyone and only recommending specific ones to specific people based on their personal circumstances.
Unfortunately there have been so many downsizings and meetings that and layoffs that even a bootcamp that was good six months ago but be completely different now.
Someone on YouTube just started Codesmith this week and said it seemed like a "cult" and their instructors can't answer basic questions and the CEO is never around and the person seemed very upset. And while I've always criticized Codesmith, it seems to be getting worse and worse the more they shed staff. I used to recommend them as a top bootcamp and paused when they made major cutbacks in February and promised tons of changes. Then officially recommended avoiding them after they didn't make many changes and started new marketing campaigns doubling down on their mediocre…
Course Report "Best Bootcamp of 2024" awards appear to be a scam to me (in my personal opinion). Don't fall for it.
I saw a bootcamp and it's CEO produly talking about how they got a Best Bootcamp of 2024 award from Course Report and were so proud of their team for getting the award.
I looked into this a bit more.
1. DOZENS OF BOOTCAMPS (like any legitimate bootcamp it appears) got a best bootcamp of 2024 award. It was hard to find common bootcamps that did NOT get the award.
2. It appears that all or almost all of the bootcamps that pay Course Report for marketing got the award (2U bootcamps didn't and are shutting down)
3. One of the bootcamps that got the award had ONE REVIEW IN ALL OF 2024 and somehow still got the award.
4. Another bootcamp paid their graduates with gift cards to write reviews and Course Report still gave them a best bootcamp award.
**54 out of the first 100 lis…
Yeah it's expensive and it's not like we have some magic spell to cast to hand you a job either.
The goal is to increase your annual compensation by way more than the cost. The average placed Fellow in 2024 from their self reported placement forms, increased their first year comp by over $100K and that's how you can justify the cost.
Now can you do it on your own and get the same increase without paying us? Of course and it's different for each person.
For example, someone might not want to negotiate their offer and we make it completely painless to increase the offer by $20K, paying for Formation itself regardless of the other increase.
Some people do like 30 mock interviews (which are run completely like REAL interviews with real engineers), which would cost them way more with a competitor.
Some people make like $150K already and an hour of their time is valuable so they would rat…
Hey /u/[8um8lebee](https://www.reddit.com/user/8um8lebee/),
Yeah, I mean very bluntly, you're not alone and we (my company) works with a lot of people like you - experienced engineers who need help navigating, preparing for, and interviewing at top tier FAANG-ish companies that ask DS&A, SD, etc... In 2024, everyone who has started has 1 to 30 years of industry experience, typically around 5 to 8 right now.
There are a class of programs that focus on interview prep that aren't bootcamps but help you prepare specifically for interviews. They are good options if you are getting interviews on your own and not passing. Formation is my company, Interview Kickstart is our main competitor and both of us prepare you comprehensively for top tier companies, and Interviewing.io and Hello Interview focus JUST on mock interviews.
You will get iOS topics as well but 75% of your interviews will be…
Hi! I'm the co-founder of Formation. Sorry about your experience, I'm not sure what happened, but if you DM me I can look into it. Most of our team was off today for an extra holiday because the time has been operating at 110% and we wanted to give them an extra day off.
I absolutely recommend talking to alumni and current Fellows as well. Specifically ones with a similar background to yourself. We also change quite fast so I would try to take to someone who started in the past few months.
We have a surprising number of people who come back to Formation for future job hunts and pay us a second or third time, because each time is different and unique, so that's why talking to the people most similar to you is important.
The day to day at Formation is quite unique, and unlike anything else so we really want you to learn how it works and be on the same page, otherwise it's a waste of tim…
In a last hope to survive, bootcamps are going all in on "Gen AI" programs aimed at their own alumni - 3.5 major bootcamps pivoting to Gen AI courses (Codesmith, BloomTech, App Academy, Deep Atlas (original Hack Reactor team)). AA and BT have PAUSED all SWE programs as of today (Opinions Inside)
DISCLAIMER: These are my personal opinions based on my observations as a self-proclaimed industry expert in the top-tier SWE industry and in the bootcamp industry. My company offers interview prep mentorship for generalist SWEs with experience. We are not offering Gen AI programs at this time and aren't working on it at this time, and I do not consider that a conflict of interest.
I noticed today that App Academy's SWE courses are all "waitlisted" now and no longer enrolling. For me that was the impetus for this post, which has been a month or two in the making.
First, summarizing the state: b…
Haha I wrote almost a year ago now and things are the same on the Formation side - we still don't take people without SWE work experience, and people with under 2 years have a very hard time getting interviews. On the Codesmith side, their grads are really struggling and those strategies aren't working anymore. Placements have tanked at Codesmith and people are taking significantly lower paying jobs (average salaries down about 15% from peak).
Sorry, I normally disclose more, Formation isn't remotely an option so I hadn't mentioned it but we do work with a number of bootcamps later on in their careers and a big reason I have a broad real time pulse on them and pay attention to the bootcamp industry.
That context is indeed helpful. I would look at structure linear courses that are less intense. Bootcamps are kind of a pressure cooker where you retain little of the actual stuff and instead are forced to learn how to learn under that much pressure (which is how your first job feels on day 1). The people who succeeded at getting jobs quickly already self studied and were ready to go hard.
If you are sure you can't do self paced, then I would do part time that isn't too intense.
Or you can do some classes first to get a headstart and THEN to a bootcamp.
But given your goal of starting a company/working at a brand new startup, I…
Yeah Rithm was fully in person before COVID and was a pretty cool office.
I don't know any that are left honestly. Office space is still to expensive, despite being very empty and no one wanting to work downtown.
You could maybe just get a co-working space membership for $500 a month and go there to do remote lessons, you'll probably make friends with engineers and learn some stuff they are doing and working on haha. Maybe work your way into an internship.
All of the bootcamps you mention are having struggles :(
**THESE ARE MY PERSONAL WELL-INFORMED OPINIONS HERE**, do your own research too:
App Academy recently downsized yet again a few weeks ago and is allegedly cutting back part time programs. It's relying more and more on "AI helpers" and it's all untested and hard to know if it will work. After some extremely loud and angry employee departures, I think it's risky to go because…
Yeah I would at least apply and talk to someone to see more.
Signals of strong fit:
1. you are getting interviews already and failing them or feeling lost (would expect subscription or shorter time at Formation)
2. you know you need to practice leetcode, system design, etc... but you have no idea where to start and you are busy and want to be efficient about it (would expect 3-8 months)
Hi, I can answer with my Formation hat on. It's a good question because there isn't anything else that operates like it, even competitors like Interview Kickstart are also super different.
In one sentence, we're an interview or and mentorship platform. Our focus is job hunting and preparing you for your upcoming interviews.
So philosophically we are based on the idea of mastery and helping you efficiently get form where you are to where you want to go. This means we try to spend your dollars efficiently by giving you the type of session we think you need at the right time.
If you want to hire an Open AI engineer who makes $1M to be your tutor, it would cost you hundreds of a ton and they wouldn't even be able to give you the time you need.
Instead, we give you mocks with those totes of people when you need it - usually when preparing for specific upcoming interviews, and when you don…
I was being sarcastic, but people are paying bootcamps because they think App Academy or Codesmith will get them a $120K job in 12 weeks for $20 to $30K.
So if that's what they are expecting, then what are bootcamps missing - well they aren't getting people jobs quickly anymore... haha.
If people cared about HOW the bootcamp works they wouldn't have signed up in the first place to pay $20K to do a udemy-type course taught in large part by recent graduates.
Hmm BloomTech (where the CEO of App Academy used to work) also used Canvas. In all fairness she was able to help them survive instead of completely shutting down so if App Academy was headed for shutdown, maybe she's trying to save it like BloomTech.
In my opinion the layoffs in [March 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmIBwP6tBh4) should have been a giant warning sign to run. I know they promised things would improve and get better, but it was prudent to give them a chance to prove that instead of joining anyways and hoping for the best.
Codesmith had layoffs in 2023 and again in February 2024 where it drastically[ cutback programs](https://www.codesmith.io/blog/community-update-doubling-down-on-remote-learning-timeless-pedagogy-frontier-tech). Most of the things promised didn't happen (or didn't happen to the degree stated) and four more employees left in the past few weeks. Yet…
I can speak for Formation. We are not an alternative to bootcamps at all and not even an option for CS grads who don't have SWE work experience yet. If you have SWE work experience and are considering a bootcamp, then we might possibly be an option, but even then, not a slam dunk and I might still recommend a bootcamp depending on your situation.
We have a very small team and we don't have a lot of online presence, so want don't want people to misunderstand what we do.
For example, a non trivial percent of people come BACK to Formation in the future and pay the full amount to do the same thing AGAIN. This is a good example showing how completely different it is than a bootcamp... it would be like doing the full Codesmith Immersive for $22,500 twice two years apart... makes no sense.
Second, we don't teach anything or have any classes. This is SUPER important because people should not…
There isn't a home for those (add Pathrise, Interview Kickstart and Outco to the list).
I'm the co-founder of Formation, and we call ourselves 'interciew prep and mentorship' rather than a career accelerator.
So the discussion here tends to be from bootcamp grads later on in their careers.
The discussion in CS majors is mostly about Headstarter and Coachable because this appeal more to that demographic.
Pathrise is big with people on Visas.
Interview Kickstart in is India and bigger in those areas.
Interviewing.io and Hello Interview are more a la carte Interview Prep and more in the Leetcode sub. Formation is also mentioned in the Leetcode sub sometimes.
Very bluntly, there are all entirely different programs and audiences with a lot of overlap between various ones, but no single gome really makes sense. People tend to be looking at 2 or 3 of these and which 2 or 3 are differen…
Speaking from Formation, we've been seeing increasing interview activity since July but we're calling this the 'new normal'. We expect to see more layoffs and more hiring in Q1 2024 and uncapped hiring surges like in 2021-2022 mid COVID... efficiency is the new normal.
Also no one should say anything until after the election settles. Things could change really quickly!
Sorry I meant they are over industry trend wise not specific ones.
Launch School is possibly only the least impacted program of all. It's primarily run by the founder and Capstone was always one of the smallest programs so while its enrollment and outcomes have been impacted by the industry collapse it hasn't been on the same scale as others.
For example, they are running cohorts a little smaller than in the past but the same cadence. Whereas Codesmith has 3 upcoming cohorts right now and this time last year had 9 they were enrolling for, and quite frankly 3 is too many.
Hard question: can you comment if CIRR's original spec was trying to be transparent, but also "rounding up" (in those definitions, as you described) to present bootcamps in the best light possible, while maintaining that transparency. For example, the number that should be used in marketing according to the spec loses a lot of the nuances above, where definitions alone could have a +/-10% variance in the examples you provided.
You've made a case for why salary shouldn't matter in your writing. I generally agree with that assessment and the right job is much more important than the highest paying one. Being the worse player on an NBA team is generally better than being the best player in the European pro leagues (and a small number of people might disagree based on their own choices but I would argue that even if you get paid more in the other European leagues).
Why do you think salary…
There are a couple more nuances too that aren't on the website.
All of the details change a lot as we try to create a wide range of configurations to support more people, while being fair and rational about the options. So they are all in our contract and post application flow but not on the website.
1. We have a few bundles if you want to commit to 2 or 3 months at a discount
2. If you were eligible for unlimited and chose to do the month to month, there is a cap right now too, kind of around the average of what the unlimited package might cost.
All of that said,.there is an entrance bar to month to month because we have a fairly focused thing we do.... it's a super waste of money otherwise... we need to be effective and work more often than not to get positive word of mouth and support. So we strongly discourage anyone from doing month to month who isn't doing it for the right reaso…
I can reply with my thoughts, thanks for sharing yours as well. We aren't a perfect program and because of the adaptive nature, no two people will have the same experience, so we rely on critical feedback to make improvements.
Overall, we move absurdly fast, we make changes very fast, and we try to incorporate feedback fast. We aim to fix bugs within minutes or hours. We aim to acknowledge feedback within minutes or hours. And we discuss a lot of feedback internally for how we can incorporate it.
1. I won't comment on the cost. Formation isn't cheap by any means, but the average placed Fellow increases their first year total compensation by an average $127K right now, so it's extremely worth it for them. If you struggle to get a job and on the job hunt much longer than expected - we don't go anywhere and we still by you, but I very much understand that the cost could be weighing on you…
Hey!
1. Most people do Formation part time, but you can do it with whatever workload you want. We adapt your sessions to your schedule.
2. Formation isn't currently for people without any real SWE work experience, even if you have a bachelor or masters in CS with adjacent experience. We are looking for 2+ years of real SWE work experience right now. You are paying us like a personal trainer to get in shape for interviews and for your job hunt and we aren't a short cut to a job that you can't get in any other way.
3. Unfortunately I don't have great advice for you. I would try to transition within your current company, but that's not a guaranteed path by any means.
My personally opinion, I currently actively recommend avoiding Codesmith no matter what your background for two reasons. First, because of their morals and ethics and this view has changed in the recent weeks. Second, because a few more long time staff left recently and the haven't delivered on most of their promises in February last time there were layoffs. So I don't take their word to mean anything both morally on a personal level and practically on a deliverables level.
I'm currently only recommending Launch School (but under the caveat that it's not for everyone and has to be a good fit).
Note: I have no affiliations with any bootcamps.
Hiring is back to the way it was back in 2008. Experienced engineers have options in big tech. The only entry level pipelines that are reliable are the top-tier CS school new grad and intern pipelines.
174 isn't haven't a huge impact with big te…
Hey, I personally feel like the conflict, if any, would be that people who come here and appreciate my advice, do whatever they do (bootcamp, or CS degree or whatver), then think of Formation in a **few years** and consider it. I tried to pull up data on where people come from and Reddit as a whole is a fairly small source, and we don't have data more granular - but anecdotally a lot come from Leetcode sub where I give Meta interview advice. Now we're only 5 years old, so maybe in a couple years tons of people will come pouring in to Formation because of my involvement in this sub. It's also not a corporate strategy and I'm here personally... my team would prefer if I post more on LinkedIn.
But I'm very open to talking about this and I appreciate the challenge.
In 2024, we're not talking people without 2+ years of experience. If you don't believe me, try applying and see for yourself.…
To clarify, I'm concerned about any program that is trying to TEACH Gen AI stuff right now. I did a survey of top tech engineers and around 90% of people said they don't look for Gen AI skills in engineers. So I'm not sure how you can invest in a curriculum yet, or know what to teach. What I'm seeing is that anyone with broad engineering skills is expected to learn how to use Gen AI without the need for explicit training.
Formation doesn't offer any kind of mentorship, practice with Gen AI at this time. We will add it when companies interview for it.
We USE AI to build our platform, make mentorship better AND more efficient. We use AI to help you figure out what to practice next, and to schedule hundreds of dynamic sessions every week. Very different!
Wow there is a lot of just like blatantly wrong facts there.
There are a few people who don't like Codesmith and maybe that's them but you should make sure you have evidence of what you are saying because if you don't you are defaming me with facts that are wrong.
1. I have a written statement from the person in that blog post that another prospective Codemsith student told him about Formation, not a team member.
2. 2 year fixation on Codesmith, yes that's true.
3. I mention Codemsith a lot because there are these extremely long threads of back and forth with these anonymous Codesmith people who are mostly suspended from Reddit now. My proactive commentary leans Codesmith but is much broader.
4. I never hired a private investigator or anyone to look into Codesmith. That is weird and not me.
5. I have two main spreadsheets that I created. One for OSP tracking, one for Alumni. I hav…
Why do you consider me personally your competitor or Formation your competitor? We don't consider you a competitor and I've stated that for like over 2 years now.
Not only that, but I've tried to explain in numerous ways why we aren't your competitor, in writing, in detail, to your leadership, which you haven't refuted and just keep calling Formation your competitor passive aggressively.
Are you seeing a bunch of people applying to Codesmith and asking about Formation? And if so, were those people OFFICIALLY ACCEPTED BY FORMATION or they just mentioned hearing about it or wanting to go there in the future?
I really want to sort this out, all of the alumni that have come to Formation that have talked to me about this (which is probably bias sample) have asked me to try to make sort this out with you because Formation is an amazing complement to Codesmith. These people have fully been i…
COMMENTARY/UPDATE: Codesmith updated their accepted stats today, 168 offers accepted between March and August 2024 VS 53 in March and April alone. Average base salary in those ranges down to $117K from $119K.
Disclosure: I'm presenting my analysis as my personal opinions and commentary on the data provided. If anything commented is incorrect, I'm happy to make corrections and updates.
Codesmith updated their recent offer stats sometime today and I spent 15 mins throwing together my top of mind thoughts below.
Source: [Previous](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_CPn4TtghvS4UDvkZ9pD6G4JYItLODd3/view) and [New](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7IGbYdtYPoI5Jbr4OxPwVgKyXhMTpI1/view?__hstc=109711322.0e322342ee14294aff502ad66630cdf2.1651003824655.1725406413979.1725413866740.756&__hssc=109711322.8.1725413866740&__hsfp=3801953514&hsCtaTracking=5fa5766f-6dea-46ee-b25d-ecf7276ecee9%7Ceed80937-e…
This is right in my wheel house and I can give my broad personal advice. Note, disclosure that my company is in the interview prep bucket of expensive options for helping prepare: Formation, Interview Kickstart, Pathrise. I'm given this answer with my personal advice.
Step 0:
- I agree, I'm effectively self-taught because I taught myself programming at a fairly young age, and taught myself all practical programming. My degree was a broad engineering degree and I did a ton of CS courses that helped me in my career, but getting the basics too a lot of grit. Re-learning the SAME THINGS like 5 times over many years before things started to click one by one. Making a lot of mistakes and banging my head against the wall, only to find a one line erorr.
Step 1:
- I recommend JavaScript equally now too
Step 2:
- Following Step 0, it takes time and I recommend learning and relearning DS&A m…
If you are quite senior, become a mentor on an online platform. Formation, Interview Kickstart, Pathrise, Interviewingio, Hello Interview. You have absolutely zero risk, and you can do as much mentorship as you want with whoever you want and get paid a reasonable amount to live off of if you spend all your time doing it.
If you aren't super experienced and want to start a bootcamp, I don't have other options. You might be the most gifted teacher in the world but it will be hard for you to help junior people navigate the industry without experience too.
I'm going to ask Brian how he heard about us, it wasn't me reaching out and it will sure be embarrassing if it was Codesmith alumni or employee that recommended it haha. I would strongly guess it was a peer who realized Brian had already self taught to Codesmith grad level and wanted interview prep.
I don't discuss people's individual cases but I'm general, if someone is joining and Formation is not 100% good fit, we'll have that conversation. These are extremely case by case and some people join for different reasons and some people will not join for different reasons.
I didn't mention that in my response but we do work with a lot of bootcamp grads later in their careers. Not on the record (my best recollection) was that Hack Reaction, Fullstack Academy, and Codesmith where roughly equal in numbers as the original bootcamp people went to.
People regularly recommend (or maybe don't recommend if they didn't like it) Formation to their friends and cohort mates from their bootcamps.
The bootcamp market has been TERRIBLE in the past two years. Codesmith's main competitor Rithm School shut down, and their other competitors like App Academy and Hack Reactor have had major changes.
I'll keep saying it, but I would like to have a call with the Codesmith team to try to understand more where each other is coming from, there's a massive misalignment right now both ways it seems.
I'm happy to answer this factually on the record, I don't know where this is coming from but keep asking and I'll keep giving the answers.
I would like to know more specific examples of this to clarify because I don't know what you are talking about from your post.
1. I was in Codesmith's CSX Slack until I was banned and I have respected that ban since and not stepped foot in it and have not stepped foot in a Codesmith event since.
2. I have never messaged, promoted, or mentioned Formation to my recollection in CSX Slack ever. My interactions that I recall were limited to:
a) Messaging one or two OSP groups that their projects were leaking passwords publicly
b) Answered a couple of technical questions, like 5 maybe?
c) Helping the Codesmith Team understand what happened when a different Codesmith posted job postings improperly affiliated with Codesmith LLC and they thought it was…
This post was also flagged by Reddit's filters. Given the other conversation I'm going to contact the other moderators to decide what to do with it.
On a personal note, I don't want a crazy back and forth either. I'm not sure who this is but I was talking to Eric Kirsten a few months ago and planned on meeting in person to chat and that died off when he no longer planned on travelling to San Francisco and the thread died off after I very clearly articulated Formation's vision to him about how we are not competitors - and there appears to be two-way misunderstanding. While I feel you are wrong about where I am coming from and making wrong conclusions and assumptions as a result, you feel I'm wrong in how I characterize Codesmith and discuss it. And it would be a good step to clear the intentions piece. I expect us to strongly disagree on our interpretations of the facts, but I think unde…
1. Personal income means I haven't made a penny in any way from Formation to date, no secondary sales, no profit sharing, no income, no dividend, big fat $0. I own a large amount of shares in it, and if it sold some day or IPOd I would make money, but I do not make money from any of the operations.
2. That's fair our perceive my message that way. Like I said it's rare, and I connect to a ton of people just to learn more about them and network like anyone else. I don't recall pushing Formation on anyone in DMs. If you felt that way, that's fair feedback and I'm happy we talked about it.
3. There are other mods who can make decisions too, not just me! I haven't changed my behaviors since becoming a mod and I feel like I had a bit influence in here BEFORE then too. I appreciate a reminder to be aware of potential conflicts, this is the kind of fair discourse I want to have. I'm not trying…