No, I did a general engineering program and self taught web programming by doing a startup in college.
I worked with a large number of bootcamp grads now later on in their careers, mostly from Codesmith, Launch School, Rithm, Hack Reactor, Full stack Academy, App Academy, Hackbright, and more, so I see a lot of common challenges bootcamp grads face later on. We generally work with engineers later in their careers so these are people that made it. But a couple years ago we worked with people who just graduated from bootcamps too.
On the hiring side, at Meta we had tried to work with bootcamps to hire and the people just didn't make it. Only a handful made it and their careers were slower than others so it just wasn't a viable pipeline for new grad hiring.
Finally, I talk to a number of bootcamp founders and know a lot about their goals and pedagogies and have a good pulse on that side.
I honestly have no idea. I don't seen bootcamps battling with each other, but rather bootcamps just trying to stay alive right now.
I'm giving industry wide commentary and I often talk about Codesmith because while other programs acknowledge the struggles, Codesmith continues to double down on marketing such that I am frequently presenting a balanced view of that marketing.
My commentary has been well received and even helped people decide to go to bootcamps like Codesmith and Launch School knowing what they are getting into...
🏛️ Get to know a moderator: Michael Novati
Hi all, I thought it might be a good idea to share more about myself as one of the three moderators on here and one of the most active members. It might be a surprise but I spend way more time writing code and helping Fellows at Formation than on Reddit. Here's my GitHub as evidence 😝 [https://github.com/mnovati](https://github.com/mnovati)
I just wanted to share a little more about who I am and where I come from so you can work with me better in making this subreddit a better place.
There's no advice or lessons in here, it's all biographical, but I'm happy to answer questions in the comments.
# FOUR FUN FACTS
1. Meta created the "Coding Machine" archetype for me when promoting me to Principal Engineer.
2. I've met Taylor Swift. In fact I couldn't convince Mark Zuckerberg to meet her too at the time and played a prank on him by hanging…
Launch School lays out their outcomes here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKHZYX8D78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKHZYX8D78)
Unsurprisingly if you are transparent there isn't any drama. When your outcomes are tanking, your alumni believe in you like a religion, and you don't acknowledge it publicly then you get drama.
Rithm School sadly is really small right now, running a small cohort every few months, so I still think it's a great place if you want high touch, high access learning. But their outcomes aren't that meaningful right now due to size.
Rithm has max 20 people per cohort and a dedicated super experienced teacher. It's more like having someone with more experience than Will Sentance (both teaching and in industry) being the primary instructor for your cohort.
The content itself is a little different and it's a little longer I think.
It's also 9am to 6pm every day instead of 9am to 8pm.
A bootcamp choice is very personal to your circumstances. If you don't really need to learn anything and are going for networking and support, education doesn't matter. If you want to learn how to program, it matters more.
We had someone join us who wanted to do Formation with no experience. I told them to go to Codesmith and come to Formation in a year or two. Instead they got a role at a startup in another country and came to Formation after 6 months. Person just got a job at Google in a SWE adjacent programming role.
I don't think bootcamps work right now and would love to see something like the above. Training focused apprenticeships for people with zero programming training that are paid for via tax credits to big companies that pay for the person and more. The bootcamps could be more like level up tools to go from that to full time role. The anecdote above was a one off and not reproducible and a special person who is extremely driven with significant tech industry experience.
People getting jobs tend to rely on some creative representation of past work anyways and giving those people real training…
Common: no, most engineers went to a top CS school
They then looked at the best engineers at Meta, looked at the schools they went to, and then recruited from those schools.
BUT, a number of "best of the best" engineers either didn't have a CS degree or went to a not well known school at all.
The theory was the best of the best will find Meta or Meta will find them through acquisitions or because they like hacked into Meta and were offered a job.
The best way to get in right now without a top CS degree is to get another job for 2 years and then apply for the Rotational Engineer program. At Formation, we've sent maybe 10+ people through there and it's super super ideal for non traditional grads with 2+ YOE at non-top tier companies.
I have careful documentation of all of this too and it's desperate. Codesmith is not doing well, not filling their cohorts even though they have reduced them significantly.
They lowered the price of JSB and CSPrep to get more people into them even though JSB Flex videos are entirely free anyways in their website (unless this is an engineering mistake, there are so many odd engineering choices and user information being shared out from their website all over... I'm operating the assumption that this is all intentional because it's so widespread and pervasive it would be incompetent otherwise)
Before attacking me, look into the mirror Codesmith. If Hack Reactor was setup this way would you think they are the best of the best and maybe look within and fix things before coming after me.
Alumni: if you hate me at least try to understand what I'm saying and think about it s bit.
These are all good questions I'm more than happy to answer.
First, why do we have the average compensation increase and not the average.
we're working with people coming from all kinds of backgrounds and situations and we think the best way to capture their outcome is to show the change relative to where they started.
otherwise we would have to try to bucket people into a bunch of very granular buckets of similar type people and then show some average about how they did in absolute terms. We could try to do that but the buckets change constantly and the people we are working with now are very experienced. the people we worked with a year ago had maybe 1 to 2 years of experience on average and now the people have 5 to 10 years of experience on average. So because these buckets are moving and changing all the time, we don't feel that showing those. give you a pulse for how things are d…
I think all three of those programs mentioned are very different and can co-exist rather than fight. Rithm is very small right now and I don't think they are fighting anybody haha. Launch School is heavily run by the founder Chris and is also small and capped size, and I think they will get by.
Right now, from my estimates (no hard numbers) Codesmith is about the enrollment numbers of Launch School (maybe 1.5X larger because of part time) but from my estimates has 5X more full time staff. So I'm most concerned about Codesmith surviving without more layoffs or without a major pivot.
Codesmith is the only one going big on AI, however there isn't any signal from the industry what AI skills they want, and interview processes haven't adapted to test for AI skills either, so they might be betting on 'Web3 blockhain' like Lambda School did. It's entirely possible that the AI skills companies…
I don't think I am at all whatsoever, but whether I was or not, it doesn't mean I'm wrong.
A lot of Codesmith people love me and lot hate me and I try to build bridges with those that don't like me because we can do far more working together positively than apart.
But in a world of Lambda School have a lot of problems, you all need rational and reasonable looks at bootcamps - the GOOD and the BAD and not only look at the good. People are making huge life decisions and spending a ton of money on these things.
I've said this before but I posted a report about Launch School and no one cared because it was super boring. Codesmith stuff turns into mega discussions with anonymous accounts coming out of nowhere.
I can connect you with some of the people to find out. $2.5K a month is by far the most expensive option and most people choose a package (you can see more options in post-application stage) but the pricing is meant to be a range of pricing for a very very wide range of circumstances. If you are time sensitive you are looking at different options than if you want unlimited support. And if you want unlimited support you can balance between paying all upfront and paying half based on how much we increase your salary.
We're far from perfect but we're working hard to support engineers and we feel we have a good product and experience and we make hundreds of changes every week to adjust to the market and to improve the experience based on feedback.
The main reason though is if you are a senior engineer and super busy, you can just dial into Formation based on your schedule dynamically every…
No one should be choosing Formation over a bootcamp at all.
a
We work with people to support their goals. Right now we have observed very clearly that there is no systematic way for people with no experience to get jobs and we therefore don't take new people with no experience. We still have people with us with under a year of experience for 1.5ish years because of our indefinite support promise.
We had three ex Facebook senior engineers start recently, current Google Manager, like these are not people considering Codesmith, Hack Reactor, Springboard, etc...
Or are you saying they are? That a staff engineer at Meta is choosing between Codesmith and Formation? They are choosing between Interview Kickstart and Formation.
I don't really know how to explain this more clearly, but I'll keep trying because I don't want anyone coming to us for the wrong thing, it's a waste of everyone's tim…
Imagine I was an anonymous account that posted this.
If you understand Formation really well, please suggest the outcomes we should be presenting and how we should handle the situations I explained above, as I explained above, we haven't figured it out it yet and that's why I'm open to engaging with people to talk about it. Instead of Will's attitude of ban and ignore. He hasn't ONCE contacted me directly to explain ANYTHING.
Downvoting without understanding doesn't make people right.
Line by Line Rebuttal to Codesmith CEO dodging question about placement rates in a challenging market
**DISCLAIMER: these views are my personal opinions as I see them and they don't represent anyone but me.**
u/WillSen If you call yourself the best of the best, you need to hold yourself to that bar and respect others who are holding you to that bar too by responding with facts and arguments to every challenge rather than ban people who point out things you don't want to answer. I'm unable to reply in the Codesmith subreddit because I'm permanently banned.
Anyways, someone asked the Codesmith CEO in an AMA today [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dofj3a/comment/la9fv9w/)
>There has been a large share of skepticism towards the results that Codesmith claims to produce with job acquisition rates, salaries, etc. since the company does not share its raw data, e.g., claimin…
I think self paced part time like Launch School Core is a good idea. Part time structured like HR and Codesmith are crazy intense.
I can't imagine going to Codesmith 4 hours a day M to T and Saturdays for 9 months straight.
It kind of just stretches things out a bit but doesn't solve the fundamental problem of being ready when you are ready and the market is ready and going up and down with the life
I'm maybe biased by the mastery based approach so take it with a grain of salt but I think it's a strong argument for this approach right now.
When you have self paced arbitrary programs you can't really have outcomes reporting to compare between programs.
It depends on 1. your goals, 2. your starting point, 3. your learning style, 4. your location
Generally speaking though things aren't going great amongst the top bootcamps so this comment might need updating and might not hold true over the long term.
SOME OPTIONS OF DIFFERENT STYLES ACROSS THE THREE AREAS YOU MENTIONED:
1. Rithm: small classes, reasonable but tough number of hours per day, high on the teaching side
2. Launch School: starts with a self paced mastery program called core and then ends with Capstone, which is a normal "bootcamp" style program focused on building open source projects. They have very strong outcomes because you do Core first and they only let in people they are confident it will work for. The projects you build are the most robust I've seen and probably wins on the portfolio side.
3. Codesmith: I completely stopped recommending two weeks ago so I wouldn'…
Moderators list on the right hand side maybe?
My partner ran a bootcamp called Buildschool, which was a free in person iOS bootcamp from 2017 to 2019.
That turned into Formation when I work now, which isn't a bootcamp but I absolutely have bias as a result. We work with engineers who are already employed as SWEs prepare for upcoming interviews and job hunts. So I've worked with a lot of bootcamp grads later on in their careers (about 1/3 or so of people we work with).
As a result I hear a lot about a lot of the top bootcamps.
But I'm also bias because the more people that go to bootcamps the more people need Formation later on.... but ironically I get yelled at for bias AGAINST bootcamps for some reason, which makes no rational sense to me.
I tell it how it is and Formation would be WAY better off if thousands of people went to bootcamps and went to Formation down the road, which is why I emphasize that these are my personal opinions. Our investors might get angry at me for deterring people away. Maybe read all of these comments instead of my little post :P: https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/s/maKdYSF2CC
Speaking on behalf of Formation, we do not accept bootcamp grads without any work experience right now and haven't for at least a year and they are not our target audience. If you are a bootcamp grad and can't get a job for a year, good luck, we can't help you, but come to Formation in a year or two after you do get a first job and we can help with the second, third, fourth, and fifth.
Can I give you notes on your resume here? Happy to give via DM but it might be helpful to others to give them publicly too. This would be in a personal capacity and not representing Formation.
Your projects sound GREAT. They key is having real users and you have more than 99.5% of bootcamp grad 's personal projects.
These will help you in interviews (if you also speak about them well).
Your problem is going to be getting interviews because of lack of experience. You can't fabricate experience, but you can at least present what you have more strongly.
That said, you have a strong background for a non traditional engineer, so you have some ingredients to worth with at least.
2024 Bootcamp Predictions [MIDYEAR CHECKIN AND UPDATES!]
The past two years I've been making bootcamp predictions and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18ivago/2024_bootcamp_predictions_mega_post_revisiting_my/) is a link to my 2024 ones from six months ago.
I want to share my background for context in the spirit of openness and transparency. I try to write the best content I can, but everyone has biases and it's important to evaluate ones biases for every post you read.
BACKGROUND: I co-founded a mentorship platform and work with many bootcamp graduates as they progress in their careers and I'm a heavy contributor (and moderator) of this sub. Before this, I was at Facebook from 2009 to 2017, where I grew from intern to E7 principal engineer, conducted over 450 interviews, and participated in hiring committees. I keep in touch with hundreds of my former colleagu…
Reddit removed your post I think, wasn't me and not sure if my reply will go through, but I'm replying anyways:
1. 100% agree one of the things that comes with being open is that you should be reasonably questioned and that's the critical part to being open. On the other hand, it's not open seasons to anonymously attack me (which you aren't doing Ludo and you aren't anonymous, but others have over the years).
2. I don't know what to say, I logged into our Google Ads account and spent time to confirm myself and the only keyword we are targeting with the word bootcamp in it is "formation bootcamp" and it had 0.2% of all impressions compared to all of our keywords. Google Ads use all kinds of algorithms to display you ads and we are not targeting any other terms with "bootcamp" in it and most of the impressions are for variations of "interview prep".
If you don't think I'm lying on the r…
FACT: I stated this for the public record: I asked the team and we do not and have not as far as they are aware, bid on any Google search keywords containing the word "bootcamp", other than "formation bootcamp" (as we bid on many phrases containing formation as it's a Beyonce song and common term)
I don't know all of the job offer details people are getting no, but if it was shared to the public intentionally I would see no problem using it in theory. But no, I don't know all of the job offer details.
I key part of this analysis is that CIRR 2022 data is out, so if I run a less perfect analysis on 2022 data and compare to CIRR, I can do the same analysis on 2023 data and adjust the output based on that + other factors (like that 2023 cohorts were on average smaller according to the public record, APPROX: 30ish H1 2023 and high 20s in H2 2023.)
I'm allowed to pay attention to details,…
1. We're not competing with any bootcamps at this time and have repeatedly told you that. I've given you the objective correct answer from the source of truth and you keep spreading the same false narrative. If you do not have a year of SWE work experience you will be auto rejected. If you have under 2, you will likely be rejected but can have a conversation about. If you are special case, we might admit you under a year, but I can count those people on one hand in the past year.
We might compete with bootcamps in the future, but have no plans to anytime soon and it would require a large investment and changes on our part.
2. I explained how we advertise on Reddit and that we target all the top programming subs and we have re-targeting ads anywhere. So people who engage with Formation will see us everywhere, not just here.
3. You don't have any right to say who I am and why I do what…
1. As I told you privately before this post, I had our team check and we do not bid on any keywords containing the word "bootcamp" other than "formation bootcamp", and none of our Google ads say we are a bootcamp.
2. As I'm sure people here will attest, we flat out automatically reject people who don't have a year of SWE WORK experience since mid 2023. So a struggling bootcamp grad will not be a candidate for Formation right now.
3. I openly acknowledged my conflicts transparently. The individuals whose close allies have informed me lurk this sub anonymously and manipulate by engaging under the radar are who you should be going after if you care about conflicts and integrity.
Unofficial Analysis: a top bootcamp's 2023 grad placement rates APPEAR TO DROP ALMOST HALF from 2022 grad placement rates (from about 80% to 45%). Even the best can't beat the market right now. [Illustrative only, may contain errors]
DISCLAIMER: I'm a moderator of this sub and I'm the co-founder of mentorship and interview prep platform aimed at helping existing SWE's prepare for upcoming interviews and level up their SWE jobs. We do not compete with bootcamps but I have a conflict of interest because we work with a bunch of bootcamp grads later in their careers. More bootcamp grads === more customers in a couple years, so I believe I have a bias to encourage people to go to bootcamps rather than be doom and gloom on the industry like this post largely is. BUT having worked with so many bootcamp grads I think it's imperative people have as much information as possible if they are inve…
I posted the thing you linked to above but I want to clarify two things in this comment:
Launch Academy temporarily halted enrollment
Codesmith continues enrolling but reduced from 4 cohorts options + 1 part time to 1 cohort option + 1 part time
Rithm School had possible layoffs, but continues enrolling as of 5/26/2024
I've studied Launch School grads and Codesmith grads side by side here because both do these group projects called "capstone projects" (Launch School) or "OSP" (Codesmith) that are open source, have websites, blog posts, and all kinds of scaffolding around them to brand them as super legit projects.
I did this write up last year of [Codesmith](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis_of_52_most_recent_codesmith_offers/)
I haven't done one for Launch School because they are much smaller and it's easier to find students yourself and look it up.
There are three completely separate issues here:
1. Representation of project as Software Engineer job. Codesmith students often list the project as "Software Engineer". They occasionally add "Open Source" to the title or description and occasionally add "Developed under OSLabs" in the description - both of which don't m…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I mean it's very optimistic about ML creating more jobs and I share that optimism.
But at the same time, in the past year, Rithm has had layoffs, Launch Academy, Turing School, Hack Reactor, Tech Elevator, and even Codesmith has laid off almost half the staff. CodeUp shut down. Epicodus shut down.
Like I don't want to be a big rain cloud hovering over the parade, but there are legitimate concerns for a typical student looking to join a bootcamp right now that didn't exist 2+ years ago. And to not acknowledge them is irresponsible.
Acknowledging them doesn't have to be doom and gloom though.
Living in an imperfect world and trying to be bring positivity to it, doesn't have to mean you ignore anything negative.
+1 don't draw any conclusions from one off anecdotes whether positive stories or negative stories, they are all one offs.
I do think it's fair to look at the market trends and recent layoffs at Rithm, Turing, Launch Academy, Hack Reactor, Tech Elevators, and Codesmith as signs that the market is the dominant factor right now, anecdotal stories aside.
Unless they are on vacation on a pre-arranged pause, if they don't do anything for a week they are automatically flagged and paused and then we schedule a check in or contact their emergency contact and find them.
So someone can't just do nothing for 12 months. They can pause though for a month and come back later and that's not considered a failure case, it's very common for people to pause while launching a big project at work and then ramping up afterwards, or moving slower until they get promoted and then ramping up to change companies.
Every person has a team of 4 team members monitoring them and working with them, separate from technical mentorship.
We do NOT have lifetime membership. If people come back in the future they have to pay again to do Formation again. Formation ends when you get a job by definition (or otherwise withdraw)
It's strictly impossible for someone to join…
How does "no new job" happen I think is the point that needs clarification.
There's no end to Formation so everyone who continues to intend on job hunting keeps going until they get a job.
So the only way you do not get a job is if you change your mind and don't want one anymore, or you don't think Formation is effective for you anymore and you choose to leave early.
I don't really know who is "responsible" for you leaving early. If people want to be here then we work with you until you get a job and there isn't a failure case. But I think the answer is that it's the Fellow's responsibility if they do not get a job.
It's our responsibility to get you ready for a job as efficiently as possible, and if show up and do stuff but you progress too slowly then that is our responsibility.
We don't tend to remove people and I don't know. The handful of people we have removed are people that paused for person life circumstances and then never came back. People ramp up or down and go at their own pace, so it really depends on the pace the person wants to work at and our system supports whatever.
If Formation isn't a good fit and people are not progressing towards their own goals and we don't think Formation was effective that we have talked to case by case to leave and be partially refunded based on the activity the person did but this is also a single digit percentage non-generalizable case.
We don't have a generalized way of removing people.
That's why we have people with us for months and for years and it's impossible to provided high level aggregated data and stats that mean anything.
I think the mental framework of a school doesn't work at all for Formation and I don't feel like I can answer that.
Anyone who shows up is guaranteed to get to the bar, it might just take years for one person and weeks for another.
If someone doesn't show up and doesn't want to get to that bar, they will voluntarily leave, or we'll work with them to adjust to their news goals, if their new goals don't work, we'll remove someone.
In general, we try to look for recent outcomes of people who are similar to your background on paper, and where you are starting from and compare that to your goals.
So if your goal is to become an E5 at Meta and your background doesn't support that we might say, people similar to you have gotten E4 Rotational Engineer jobs at Meta and we would be aiming for that if you came to Formation. That job pays $175K base with a $50K signing bonus and is a 12 month rotation that converts to full E4 if you ramp up as expected.
It's really personal and through examples and pattern matching but it's much more specific than any aggregated numbers could be.
One of the challenging aspects of Formation for us to explain how it works, is that more experience people tend to not broadcast on LinkedIn that they went to Formation and people with less experience tend to put it out there to build a profile. Like if you currently work at a good company at doing Formation to level up, you don't want your company to know necessarily you are doing Formation or that you were doing it for the past six months to leave.
So if you are experience (which most of the people we work with are) then it's harder to find people like you to talk to.
Add in the fact that our entrance bar was slightly lower in the boom times and we took more bootcamps grads about 4-6 months post bootcamp or CS degree, a number who are struggling still in the market, and you end up with a biased sample size on LinkedIn.
I also fully expect Formation to not work for everyone too! We'r…
I don't really think this is a great number but it's far from misleading, it's very clear what the number is and how it was calculated, and that it was the highest reported offer in 2024 up to April 22nd.
We then talk to each person before joining to explain how Formation works and learn about your individual goals and advise if Formation is a good fit or not.
I can't give specifics about that person because it's not public and I haven't asked for permission, but the person placed at Meta in a SWE role and has about 13 years of experience. The person took their time and was currently employed when doing Formation. The offer is very reasonable for everyone at that level and we have a couple of people in Formation now at that level who are looking at changing companies. That number is a bit low for them and we had to talk and explain to them about what their outcome might look like.
At…
This is a false narrative. If you think my narratives about Codesmith or Launch School or CIRR are false, you are entitled to methodically poke holes in the arguments with other facts and data, or opinions (stated as such).
1. I have to say we are not a bootcamp whenever anyone calls us one because we are tiny and have little presence so the public is mislead by those false remarks. The question should be why are people accusing us of being one in the first place and not dropping it when I explain so often why we aren't.
2. We spend very little on Reddit ads, we mostly spend ad dollars on Google search keyword ads to appear above Beyoncé's Formation album in results. You probably see the ads because you click on them and engage with Formation, that's how online ads are meant to work!! To target messages to people who engage with Formation for the lowest cost possible.
3. I can see how…
I appreciate this discussion! I have my real name on here so that we can have this discussion! If you have anonymous accounts it's hard to track people's backgrounds and biases and that's even more concern for manipulation than people being transparent.
As other people pointed out, Formation isn't a bootcamp - we are an interview prep, practice, mentorship, and mock interview platform. Our acceptance bar varies with the market and right now we are taking mostly mid level senior engineers and a surprising number who formerly worked as senior engineers at FAANG companies.
I don't know why Codesmith people think we compete with them, including their Director of Outcomes stating that in their AMA. The most recent 20 reviews on Course Report: ALL 20 speak to either how they had no experience prior to Codesmith or they didn't say anything about it, but more generally how they recommend it f…
Another CIRR school pauses enrollment due to the market. Bootcamps have to face reality or they will not survive 2024. If you are looking at bootcamp that doesn't warn you about the market for bootcamp grads, run for the hills!
SOURCE: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/)
Selected Excerpts:
>While our graduates are of high caliber, there is a difficult cognitive leap for hiring managers to overcome when comparing our entry-level graduates with established engineers affected by recent layoffs. With such an ample supply of the latter, it leaves the former at a strategic disadvantage. Even with the best available preparation, there is no substitute for work experience.
>
With so much seniority in the job market, it's difficult even for the str…
Any bootcamp that's teaching you in 12, 14, 16 weeks is going to make compromises on something and be good at other things. So you have to look into each of the programs individually for what works for you.
Codesmith is a good place if you prove you can self study (and peer study) your way to basic coding skills, previous professional experience (not in coding) and you have the ambition and drive to exaggerate your resume a bit and hustle your way to a job, messaging hiring managers and presenting your projects as if they were the equivalent of mid-level engineering work.
I don't know anything about Actualize.
But other top programs like Launch School - which calls itself the slow way to get a job, is more about mastery progression.
Rithm is more about educational quality and getting your money's worth there, but is far less aggressive on the job hunt side.
Choosing the program for…
Hmm it sounds of all the bootcamps Codesmith might be a good choice.
If you have been doing the tech consulting for a few years, consider career accelerators. I'm the co-founder of Formation but I don't think we would accept you with your background - need more direct SWE experience, but others are Pathrise and Interview Kickstart - to compare and see what's out there options wise.
I would also consider a CS masters - a bit slower and more expensive but a good option if you want it to go the honest and traditional route.
For example, if you go to Codesmith you might end up calling your consulting work Software Engineer on your resume and push to get senior jobs at non tech companies. And if that feels good, definitely do Codesmith, if not, maybe do a masters.
If your current job is not in programming and you want a part time bootcamp, Codesmith is the only top one that has part time. Launch School Core is self paced and part time but the immersive capstone is not.
If you are already an engineer, look at Pathrise, Formation (disclosure: co-founder), Interview Kickstart for levelng up your career.
I think this is a really good interview. Elie is extremely transparent that the market is bad and it's impact their business, even vaguely suggesting that Rithm wouldn't be able to continue forever if people continue to not sign up and attendance is way down because the market is rough.
Meanwhile Codesmith's CEO is [tweeting](https://twitter.com/willsentance/status/1785384627378508272) about how unbelievably incredible Codesmith's outcomes are. Leaving out the fact that offers in general offers are down this year, he presents an uncharacteristically strong week as if it's the norm that happens from the Codesmith approach of applying for jobs.
Then look you lookup the person who got an Amazon job and see they have a ton of experience and are coming back from a very long career break. **Which is fantastic and I might recommend someone in that position GO TO CODESMITH TOO.**
It's extrem…
Codesmith has been asking alumni to write reviews over the past two weeks, resulting in 14 reviews in the past 2 weeks after having 2 reviews in the 3 MONTHS prior.
Can you DM me with more information about who is choosing between Codesmith and Formation? I think you have a super wrong view about what Formation is and does. If you don't want to reach out to clear this up, please refrain from misrepresenting Formation.
**12 out of 14 mention they were career switching and 2 don't say either way. ZERO of these alumni would have been admitted to Formation when they started Codesmith. 100% of them might be admitted to Formation now as alumni and moved on. And our new data (to be published Friday) shows that we helped engineers who placed in 2024 so far increase their first year total comp by** [**$109K**](https://formation.dev/terms#outcomes)
**So if anything, Codesmith + Formation would…
PRACTICE WITH ACTIONABLE FEEDBACK! Full disclosure that I'm the co-founder of Formation and I comment here a lot in a personal capacity, but this is my personal advice and I'm not trying to advertise Formation.
There is nothing like practicing and getting feedback and iterating.
You can do this for free by interviewing at 2nd choice companies or if you have friends who can run legit, high quality mock interviews (that simulate the real ones).
So I also recommend considering paid options, like [Interviewing.io](http://Interviewing.io), [HelloInterview.com](http://HelloInterview.com), [Formation.dev](http://Formation.dev)
Some people don't want to pay for prep and I'm not saying you have to, but it's working considering and knowing what your options are. Professional athletes all have paid coaches and it can be very effective. It can also be a waste of money, that's why you have to con…
In my opinion, people who leave prior to "finishing the program" are the largest problem with ISAs because that's when people get the most upset.... not only did they not get a job, but they didn't even finish everything!
For the ISAs we have, we don't have a "end of the program" and there is a clear refund policy if you leave early, but we try REALLY hard to proactively reduce costs to the value a person got if someone leaves early based on what they actually did and not just the calendar time in Formation the person is contractually required to pay. Like if Formation didn't work for you, but you had 25 mentorship sessions and did 100 hours of practice tests and tasks, and no issues reported in your weekly surveys and 1-1 checkins, then it's not fair to pay zero because you were on an ISA.
Wow what's with the tone? I think the biggest criticism of my view is that I was there 2009 to 2017 and left like 7 years ago now so I have an old view, but it's not a wrong view so I don't appreciate the attacking tone this is coming across as.
I did 450ish interviews. I trained interviewers on the ground. I attended dozens of hiring committee meetings and packet reviews with Shrep and Jay and Boz and the execs.
The amount of details they consider in those reviews is crazy. They look at the exact questions asked, and the interviewers history asking that question and their interviewers feedback history, etc...
It's not just like you memorize 50 questions and pass. I assure you that it's theoretically possible pass that way, and I assure you that's not the right way to do it.
I don't want to talk about this much because it seems like product placement, but I professionally mentor peop…
Thanks that helps!
There are a few routes:
1. Try to get a data analyst-type internship this summer AND/or aim for data analyst jobs that will give you the chance to do scripting and coding on the job. And THEN try to transition to being a SWE - ideally at the same company by converting jobs there.
2. Do a post-bacc or extend a year and cram in as many CS courses as you can, and then go for new grad CS jobs. Big opportunity to cost to not working for a year, and a job is far from guaranteed, but his will give you the best computer science education.
3. Do a bootcamp. This is fast, so you don't lose as much opportunity cost from time. BUT bootcamps outcomes rely on a lot of luck right now and it's far from guaranteed. The cost is also probably higher than another year at Sac State (but arguably wouldn't matter because of the opportunity cost). If it doesn't work out, you don't rea…
Ad hominem fallacy again, except you sprinkled in a personal attack too.
Logical fallacies don't win arguments. Facts do. Best lesson from my middle school debate class.
What public presentation of what data?
You have a completely wrong interpretation of what Formation is.
You are being condescending and offensive for you to tell me you know my company better than we know ourselves.
If Codemsith's CEO showed up we would have a very respectful back and forth I'm sure and he wouldn't be making logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks. If he did then I would tell him to his face what I'm telling you now.