It's Formation ([formation.dev](https://formation.dev)). It's for people with 1 year or more SWE work experience (and typically MUCH more) but a lot of people we work with are doing their 2nd, 3rd, 4th job transition. We're not a school or education program or teach anything, rather it's practice and mentorship experience to get interview ready at top tier companies.
Don't DOX anyone, but can give general cases:
1. We haven't offered ISAs for like 7 months now so it's going to be a smaller and smaller number of people in that bucket. But someone on an ISA who lost their job, their ISA stop the second they lost their job. If they don't get a job within another 12 months then it's nullified, if they do, it continues where they left off when they were laid off.
2. If they were not on ISA, then they paid upfront. They could return to Formation, likely with a discount, case by case and depending on the circumstances. But many people would choose to leverage the alumni community the best they can and not pay to return because their skills are still fresh enough.
Layoffs are very personal and happen for all kinds of reasons and don't happen that often, so each one is case by case, but that's a generalization.
Yeah I do often disclose and hear you on that. I comment all the time in this sub and people tend to know me but that's on me to keep explaining.
The membership is not lifetime, it's unlimited access to Formation until you get a job. Many people pay again again for their next job hunt.
If you have 4 years or more of SWE experience that is the average increased first year total compensation reported.
The methodology is explained in great detail but this is a new calculator that people asked for to understand the long term value of Formation.
Our outcomes are indeed very very strong but I think the weakness is maybe the time it takes because it takes about 6 months of part time mentorship to get there and its no small commitment, you have to be ready and all In.
If you think that is useful then you should definitely check out the above more. The career support engineers at Codemsith are typically Fellows/peers you would have at Formation (at least one I know of has been a Fellow actually) and the mentors are more knowledgeable. For example someone got a Senior E5 Meta offer this week and chatted the next day with a recruiter with 30 years of FAANG level recruiter experience.
But depending on your situation that might not be the support you are looking for and need. I highly encourage anyone to make use of the Codesmith scholarship and get free dedicated help, that's awesome!
I'm extremely bias because I'm the co-founder of one of these, but based on everything you should look into career accelerator/interview prep programs and see if you think they would be worth it for helping out. I'm fairly confident this type of thing would help, but they are all expensive and it's a personal decision if you think they are worth the cost for you.
Formation.dev, Pathrise, Interview Kickstart are the three biggest ones left standing right now. They are generally a bit cheaper than bootcamps but roughly the same price but solely focused on all the areas: brushing up on CS concepts, strategizing for the interviews, legit mock interviews, building robust problem solving skills, system design etc...
I can go into more about all these if interested, but first just check them out and see if they would help you or not.
Correct, Formation is not ideal for bootcamp grads who can't get jobs right now. We have people who joined the hot market with no experience and we stand by our unconditional support until they get a job but it's a rough market and we don't do miracles . We take a very very small number of people who do it with no experience while job hunting because they don't care about the cost and want structure instead of just job hunting alone but they enter with reasonable expectations.
So you can consider it but I would strongly recommend getting a job first and coming back in the future when you are ready to level up.
Yeah a bootcamp could be appropriate. Look into the top ones and see how they work and which approach is right for you.
I see a "Codesmith." comment and it's a top one or consider but look into how it works. Most people said things like "it changed my life" but don't explain how it works... it only works for certain people that will stretch the truth in their resumes (even most people here who say they went there and didn't do this often "stretched the truth")
If time is not an issue I would also look at Launch School. similarly it's a solid program but look into hired it works and see if that's good for you.
Also look at "career accelerators": Formation, Pathrise, Interview Kickstart. these are typically for people with SWE experience already so I probably would not recommend at all in this market, but you should look at them to compare "how it works" to how bootcamps work.
I mean at the end of the day it's very irrelevant to most people and it's you can call yourself whatever you want. There's a Codesmith grad who is a "Vice President Software Engineer" at a bank!!!
It comes into play on here, and I feel strongly about it, because you DO need to define your terms to compare apples to apples and apples to oranges.
Codesmith's overall point is that Codesmith thinks their grads are "better" (their outcomes advisor says "Codesmith is the best" a lot) than everyone else. There was a panel where the CEO sitting (in person) beside Hack Reactor and other CEOs and said straight up that Codesmith was better because it's grads get "mid level and senior roles". They want to emphasize that Codesmith is not a "bootcamp" per-se and if they used canonical terms, they might get compared to the other programs.
So I think that's reasonable in that comparison. But the down…
Me, I'm a non-anonymous member who has been here for 2 years and comment a lot.
My background is I worked at Meta from 2009 to 2017, grew from new grad to E7 principal engineer, did 400+ interviews of all shapes and sizes, participated in calibrations and interview offer panels, and was the number one code committer at the company when I left.
After I took a break, I joined my partners company which helps engineers with experience level up their careers. We work with a lot of bootcamp grads later on in their careers so I know about and hear about just about everything with bootcamps.
Codesmith caught my interest about 2 years ago when I was interviewing people to join Formation for leveling up and they had these really weird jobs at "OSLabs" that made no sense, and were being nervously vague about them in the interviews. I then went down the rabbit hole and found out that OSLabs was (…
So there are a number of bootcamps well regarded:
Codesmith, Rithm, Launch School, are a few I know.
The problem is one thing: **you have to know HOW THEY WORK and which is the RIGHT ONE FOR YOU.** I know a number of people going into Codesmith who know what they are in for and know all the OPs points and that's what they want to do, and they get good jobs.
Codesmith is NOT the program for a random person finding this subreddit and seeing $120K and 👀👀👀 💰💰💰 sign me up type mentality.
While that's a bit of hyperbole, it's also not for people who are woo'd by the feel-good and welcoming aspect of the staff they work with pre-acceptance who don't really know how this thing works but have "good vibes". You need to know how it works regardless of how much you like the people.
At Formation (we aren't a bootcamp or school and CIRR doesn't work for us) but we have a 95%ish completion on our rigid success form because we work with people intensely until they get a job.
The fact that it's so hard to gather outcomes from people is a sign that the longer and longer time goes by post-bootcamp, the less and less the bootcamp has anything to do with the outcome. And the fact that the more time goes by the harder and harder that gets, is also notable for this.
My 2 cents against using the 12 month window for placements, but that's a whole other discussion haha.
We don't have that many Canadians but they are definitely all over the place and typically lower than in the US.
Some points:
1. The market in Canada is MUCH LOWER COMPENSATION than in the USA, the salaries are maybe 30 ro 40% lower and don't increase as rapidly as you get promoted.
2. We're see a combination of people getting FAANG-level jobs in Canada, working for startups in Canada, and doing remote jobs in the USA, but I don't see any clear patterns or trends (too few people overall), and I don't think anyone can come in expecting any specific outcome.
3. My typical stance is that you should come to Formation and pay to be able to **confidently** walk into a Google interview and feel good about your performance (in DS&A, System Design, Behaviorals) and I feel comfortable saying that in ANY MARKET we as-close-to-guarantee-that-as-legally-possible that if you meet our entry bar, we c…
I don't run or own a bootcamp. I'm extremely open about the mentorship platform I do work on (using my real name, one account, and being very transparent), but it's a **mentorship platform** for people with at least 1 year of SWE WORK experience and it's not competing with bootcamps at all. We don't teach anything, have a curriculum, we don't have teachers, so anyone considering a bootcamp wouldn't consider Formation... unless you actually have SWE work experience already and were still considering a bootcamp.
We compete with Interview Kickstart and Pathrise and I never see them mentioned here whatsoever. We in fact work with a lot of bootcamp grads later on their careers and not INSTEAD of a bootcamp so I don't see how trashing bootcamps would be in my business interests at all.
Only people who drink the kool-aid feel that way from what I see, the vast majority of people outside of the Codesmith bubble think I'm balanced and reasonable and I tell many of them to go to Codesmith if it's the right thing for them. I help a number of Codesmith grads (at Formation and not at Formation) think of ideas and things to do who are stuck. So I imagine that my view is skewed more for people on the struggling side who don't drink the kool-aid.
But like I said, many of the bootcamp leaders (current and former) talk with me anyone from once in a blue moon to regularly, except for Codesmith - they instead just call me a troll to their staff instead of acknowledging the truth in the things I say and making changes. With so much churn in staff, some of those people who are not so bought in are going to start talking to me (when they see me challenged by people who drink the kool-…
I partially agree with the OP yeah. I do think the "ship has sailed" for a group of people that had a previous career they didn't like, saw the flexibility and high salaries of SWEs in a youtube video or an ad, and impulsively joined a bootcamp to career switch without considering all the options.
I do think a smaller number of people it's still a viable option (not THE ONLY option, but a viable one). People who have put in months or years of self study, have a lot of personal runway/savings and no hard headlines, and have a previous career that has some or many transferrable soft skills to SWE (e.g. lawyer, doctor, accountant, teacher). Then a bootcamp might be a good option to focus and make the final jump.
People post on here when they get their job or shortly after to celebrate, but it's not the end, it's the beginning and there is quite a journey ahead - of ups and downs.
But to…
My 2 cents are that it depends on:
1. your current programming and professional background (and prior education)
2. your goals in your next job hunt (including both the type of job and also the location)
3. your timeframe range (if you have one or not)
In the current job market, going to a bootcamp with little to no experience isn't a great idea because the market is really tough. The graduates getting jobs are those from bootcamps that have a high bar and require a lot of self-teaching before even being admitted (e.g. Codesmith and Launch School, both take months to get into).
That said, regarding certificates, they are useful if you are targeting specific roles that explicitly require them - tend to be roles at contracting firms, for example - and by having the cert, you can get put on the bench for new clients. But if that's not your plan, I don't think getting a certificate is rea…
So algo sessions are done in either JS or Python. Generally with your preferred language but it could be done in either. The main point of sessions is to learn and practice how to think about problems, so the language doesn't matter that much. But you don't develop a JS expertise at Formation.
We do have frontend work you can that goes through for JS language practice, but similar to DS&A it's more practice focused than teaching focused.
So the TLDR is that you probably want to be somewhat familiar with it but to not worry or stress about being good at it before starting.
I actually explicitly removed Outco from the list because they seem to have shut down and aren't taking applications and numerous people I've talked to said they have been non responsive to them :S.
Obviously I'm extremely bias but I would say that:
Formation is a completely different world from Outco, I know some people that did Outco and came to Formation and can connect you. For example, you get a team of three dedicated support staff, an adaptive platform, mocks with actual senior engineers and recruiters who actually work at FAANG companies, personalized prep for upcoming interviews, a custom platform built from the ground up for your progress, scheduling, feedback, job hunt tracking, etc...
Interview Kickstart is a little more structured than Formation and not adaptive to your progress and needs, but it's consistently been ok for preparing for interviews. Similar to Formation th…
I'm bias because I'm the co-founder of a mentorship platform/career accelerator, but I would consider this type of option if you already have work experience - [Formation](https://Formation.dev).dev, Interview Kickstart, Pathrise, Coachable (all of these have deferred payment options as well). These are all very different but they are all built to prepare you in different ways for the job hunt.
Since you already have legit work experience a bootcamp probably isn't what you want to do because the majority of people you work with be much further behind. **You will have way more exerience than most of the instructors who teach you.** And you don't actually learn much raw skills. If you do want to choose a bootcamp, Codesmith is probably the best option for you if you want to hustle your way into the next job and get all the support you need doing that, but I wouldn't go there to actually…
Yeah that's a good point it would be extremely hard to just apply online and get interviewed as a L5.
If the person gets promoted to staff though at this company, they will have a narrative for a high L4 offer and possibly L5 - would need to deep dive into what the person did.
I went from new grad to E5 at Facebook in roughly 2 years, so it's definitely possible, but it's not the norm.
Not to toot my own horn here, but that's why things like Formation exist, because everyone has a unique story that needs to be untangled. We can only do so much, but there are exception cases when this kind of thing can happen.
I'm extremely biased because I'm the co-founder of Formation, but I would consider coaching (not necessarily at Formation but somewhere). It's possible that you're over focused on just passing LC DSA questions and lost track of the whole point of these interviews.
This is the problem solving approach we follow and if you don't have a clean, systematic approach to problems, that could be why you aren't passing, so check this out:
https://formation.dev/blog/the-engineering-method/
1. They aren't just looking for raw coding skills, but communication, collaboration, improvement, etc....
2. The fact that you care so much means you probably prepared a lot more for the 2nd one and are/will show great improvement.
3. If you get anxious or freeze up, take a deep breathe and focus on clear communication.
4. If you get nervous, or are worried about panicking in the interview, PRACTICE A PROBLEM SOLVING METHOD and stick to it. BIAS, THIS IS MY COMPANY: this problem solving method can be used to solve any problem, helps people pass Google interviews without doing my LeetCode. It's more complicated than it seems to get good at this under pressure, but check it out: [https://formation.dev/blog/the-engineering-method/](https://formation.dev/blog/the-engineering-method/)
5. Most of the interviews are friendly and collaborative, but don't be TOO friendly, you want to balance dem…
\+1 this, I don't agree with the decision to withhold 2023 results until 2024 so that 12 month placement rates can be reported.
From my conversations with people, numerous +1s to publish the H2 2022 data as is, and then republish 2022 data with 12 month placement rates.
Even people who graduated in H1 2023's data isn't relevant right now as the market changes week to week, and H2 2022 is even irrelevant at this point.
At the end of the day, it's no secret bootcamps are cutting back: Hack Reactor just chopped of the part time program, Codesmith laid off almost 20% of staff and a few people have left since then from what I've seen - and remaining staff are feeling pressure to pick up the slack (on the admissions, instruction, and placements side of things).
So trying to massage the data to present a better picture will never connect with an educated audience that knows the market is…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
\+1 this, I don't agree with the decision to withhold 2023 results until 2024 so that 12 month placement rates can be reported.
From my conversations with people, numerous +1s to publish the H2 2022 data as is, and then republish 2022 data with 12 month placement rates.
Even people who graduated in H1 2023's data isn't relevant right now as the market changes week to week, and H2 2022 is even irrelevant at this point.
At the end of the day, it's no secret bootcamps are cutting back: Hack Reactor just chopped of the part time program, Codesmith laid off almost 20% of staff and a few people have left since then from what I've seen - and remaining staff are feeling pressure to pick up the slack (on the admissions, instruction, and placements side of things).
So trying to massage the data to present a better picture will never connect with an educated audience that knows the market is b…
I would walk through the exploration. You might say something like "I think I have a good instinct on where to go in this problem but let me walk through first".
And then do a typical:
1. confirm you understand
2. identify a few approaches (even though you know the one you want to go with)
3. then start coding
This is my company's approach that you could follow, but highly recommend following a structure problem solving method even if you know the solution: https://formation.dev/blog/the-engineering-method/
Good outcomes + marketing.
1. Codesmith has the highest outcomes on paper and about a quarter of people who go there found them on Reddit (internal second hand number)... so people find it on Reddit and then come back to where they found it to talk about it.
2. Rithm is a very tiny program, but is also good and word spreads. But give it's size and much smaller alumni size I don't expect as many students to hang around.
3. Launch School Unique mastery model and "slow approach" so it gets discussed a lot and the Capstone rivals Codesmith for outcomes.
4. Turing. The only accredited bootcamp that became a school, other than Make School that shut down.
5. Hack Reactor. One of the oldest programs, consistently with pretty good outcomes. Has a lot of alumni over the years hanging around.
It's called Formation, but just to be clear, it's not super relevant for this sub (it's meant for people who have been working as a SWE already for 1+ years and generally more) and I'm here to try to give helpful advice because I have both extensive industry (including 8 years at FB as it grew from 750 employees to like 20K) experience and have worked with hundreds of bootcamp grads later on from all kinds of bootcamps (and helped my partner run her own free in person bootcamp for 2 years), and synthesizing these, I feel gives me a unique point of view to share.
You can look up more about Formation.dev and ask me questions. It's a unique type of approach that not a single other program is doing and we're working on updating our website to try to explain better what it is haha, but definitely ask questions.
Hiring is picking up for mid level engineers. Disclosure: I'm co-founder of a mentorship platform for SWEs with 1+ YOE under their belt. We have seen 4 or so Meta offers in the past few weeks and many more interviewing. It's definitely not easy but if you have a legit 2+ YOE (like full time SWE job, not projects, not open source, etc...) then you should be getting interviews in a reasonable timeframe in this market. There are many more challenges in passing the interviews and with headcount, but the gears are turning.
That's not at all the case for new comp sci grads and new bootcamp grads (including Codesmith and Launch School and other programs that have these kind of "open source work experience" projects) and the market remains incredibly hard just to get interviews without lying about that experience. The exception being CS grads from top tier CS school - they have a lot of choice…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy· edited★ FEATURED
100% I literally recommended OP consider Codesmith and was discussing in private 30 mins ago.
The ignore strategy is because I mean this: I've talked to the founders of numerous other programs on here and have professional open conversations with them, and not a single leader at Codesmith has contacted me for 1.8 years now of me being the same old person on here every day.
Instead, the CEO has badmouthed me in internal all hands, the outcomes advisor has texted someone telling them Formation's a scam and he'll give them all he needs. An alumni made very inappropriate comments about me in an alumni Slack that were screenshotted to me. And all this kind of BS in private and the public response isn't "he is dark depraved person whose sole mission in life is to take down the great thing \[we\] have built" (this was quoted to me by a student but I don't know if they quoted it or paraphrased…
✨ For the Leetcoders out there I have a mega-event to share.... the founders of Neetcode, Blind75, and Formation are hosting a panel discussion talking about DS&A and also a chance to get to know the people behind these things. It's on Thursday next week!
Bias disclosure: I'm the co-founder of Formation, but I'm not taking part in or involved in the event itself. Sophie (the founder) is moderating and Daniel (lead instruction engineer, 20+ year FAANG engineer) are representing Formation.
RSVP and **SUBMIT QUESTIONS!:** [**https://neetcodexblind75xformation.splashthat.com/**](https://neetcodexblind75xformation.splashthat.com/)
Happy to chat more in the thread!
✨ For the Leetcoders out there I have a mega-event to share.... the founders of Neetcode, Blind75, and Formation are hosting a panel discussion talking about DS&A and also a chance to get to know the people behind these things. It's on Wednesday next week!
Bias disclosure: I'm the co-founder of Formation, but I'm not taking part in or involved in the event itself. Sophie (the founder) is moderating and Daniel (lead instruction engineer, 20+ year FAANG engineer) are representing Formation.
RSVP and **SUBMIT QUESTIONS!:** [**https://neetcodexblind75xformation.splashthat.com/**](https://neetcodexblind75xformation.splashthat.com/)
Happy to chat more in the thread!
I don't have any universal data so I should make it clear that Codesmith claims 100% of alumni get promoted within 5 years (it's based on 120 grads who decided to reply to the survey and from a long time ago, vs the 3000 grads they claim they have, so I don't entirely believe this - and know counter examples that were probably not in the 120 people, but that's the most zoomed out data we have).
Anecdotally, four buckets:
1. People who get by but change companies within a year or around that time, or they get a contract job they don't do super well on and just don't get the contract extended and then switch to a similar or slightly better company after a year, and then do this a few times. And soon enough they have the 2-3+ YOE for real to make a bigger jump to a top tier company. Worked with a few of these people at Formation. So they kind of show up, give it a huge amount of hustle bu…
The market is indeed tough. It's not quite "improving" in the sense of going back to the good times we had.... it's changing.
I won't give my full background but I'm expressing my observations having a pretty good pulse on hiring at the top tier companies specifically.
Hiring during the freezes was senior engineers only. Like canonical senior engineers with 5+ YOE at strong companies and who have worked on large scale products already.
The hiring now has opened up to canonical mid-level engineers. At Meta for example, this means a bare minimum of 2 YOE at solid companies working on large scale products.
So this is benefiting people who have solid experience already.
New grads are generally struggling. There is new grad headcount during the current fall hiring season, but it's going to top tier school grads, like Stanford, and other schools they have dedicated recruiters for.
So for…
RE: Outcomes, I summarized my threads a bit to respond to that. So what has been publicly stated is that average cohort size is down 25% from full capacity, people are being accepted until immediately before a start date, on their first interview, resulting in reported "lower bar" (a handful of reports from more "advanced" students who feel like they are working with more people were let in later, completed an accelerated pre-work, haven't been working for months in the Codesmith ecosystem before, and are struggling to "write basic code" as it was put) I don't have numbers on this but it tracks with the trend that Hack Reactor has done by making a "beginner" track (the 19 week one) as the enrollment of advanced people is down there too.
Placements are at not as strong companies as in the past. Their own data that was shown at an info session, albeit with the caveat of the presenter sayi…
Hi I commented in the [Formation sub,](https://www.reddit.com/r/formation/comments/17155jl/comment/k3or36f/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) with a thorough reply in the context of Formation and how we feel about the contract.
In the context of bootcamps, I'll share some other examples of this kind of thing. I do not think "this is the standard" is a good justification and ultimately you need to feel comfortable and confident with what you are signing.
[Codesmith terms for attending any public event](https://codesmithdocs.s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/Codesmith+Documents/Code+of+Conduct+-+Events.pdf) (without joining the program):
>Codesmith, at its discretion, may record audio and video from the community event. Codesmith may use these recordings in various ways, including, but not limited to, for promotional and educational purposes, at its sole discretion. By actively par…
There are about 5% of people that might overlap is my estimate.
So if you don't have 1 year as a SWE or a full time job that will be 1 year by the time you are job hunt ready then we won't even accept you and will reject you, I ironically recommend Codemsith often for ambitious people who are trying to move a little too fast but don't have that yet.
If we reject you and you spend a significant time talking to the team and we do think Formation is a good fit for your goals and your goals likely aren't 200K job in that case, we may accept you or wait-list you because we limit the number of people in that bucket. These are also the people who might show up in this subreddit in the very limited talk that there is about Formation (and also why stuff in this sub is likely not representing the typical person at Formation).
Our reporting is clear on what YOE means in that context and it exclu…
Like I said, I'm confident because facts can't be manipulated and misinformation can't be backed up.
1. Codesmith admissions staff during an info call 2 weeks ago said the average cohort size is down 25% to "25 people"
2. Will Sentance shared data in an info session last week that Q1 2023 median salaries were $110K and Q2 2023 median salaries were $115K, that's a huge drop.
3. They had reported layoffs of up to 10% of staff a few weeks ago. There website staff was updated and you can use the way back machine if you want to compare.
4. The CTRI cohort was cancelled for the rest of 2024 and after the layoffs, it's possible other people are looking for jobs too.
Now about Formation:
1. We don't have any program costing anywhere near $20K, you might be talking about ISAs, loans or interest that hit that much, but the underlying cost is much lower than that. We move fast and things change.…
Who said this was a marketing channel for my business? I've explicitly said otherwise very transparently so you are making false assumptions or calling me out as a sketchy liar?
I have a business motivation to encourage people to go bootcamps, because then there are more people who go to Formation in 2-3 years. So I assure you this commentary is not "business motivated".
My entire life's mission after leaving Facebook and coming out of semi-retirement afterwards, is to address inequality in tech and I see day in and day out how people who are from underrepresented backgrounds who thought this was an honest industry get passed over with their 1 YOE for people putting down 2 YOE for their 3 week project and getting interviews and that's not fair either.
It depends how you define outcomes. Again, since we're not a school or program, we are trying to help people achieve their goals, we take you from A -> B in C time for D cost, and those expectations have to be aligned for it to make sense to join. But everyone's A, B, C, D are different.
We currently focus on preparing people for top tier DS&A/SD/classic interview pipelines and if we scale super large then it wouldn't make sense because every top tier job would be competing for Formation Fellows and so many people would want to join, there probably wouldn't be enough jobs.
So the vision for us is to actually figure out what the best company is FOR YOU, help you figure out your best "B" target. And on the other side, we can help companies find the RIGHT people for them. If we can match everyone up with the right jobs for them and help every company find the right people, we have a scala…
CIRRs standard doesn't have clear processes for everything. For example there's no clear process for collecting salaries, while there is a clear process for collecting job start dates. The document itself isn't written by lawyers, like GRAD (Hack Reactor's version) is, which has clear language and a clear structure. In addition, the worksheets they provide have formulas in them and some are not explained in words in the docs. Like if I remember correctly, there are some about excluding students or deferring graduation dates where the sheets were.doi f something that wasn't explained in the spec.
Finally, Codesmith extends the graduation date for people that get hired back as fellows/TAs. While they don't count them as placements (which is good) they do extend their clocks for the life of the contract, which gives these people an extra 3 or more months to find jobs and be included in the…
Anyone know what's going on with CIRR? H2 2022 Results delayed, two more board members no longer working for their bootcamps - which leaves potentially just Codesmith and Launch Academy left managing CIRR
Hi all, sorry for posting so much recently, but I hope it's useful!
So we are all waiting for CIRR H2 2022 results to be posted. Last year the first wave came out mid September with Codesmith's results coming out at the very end of September, but now it's October already and I made some concerning observations.
I have made some observations below in trying to collect the facts.
I have been really on top of CIRR because the signs of this decline have been apparent for a while. It was setup as a business league from a bootcamp loan provider, and the standard was prepared by outcomes members for marketing purposes (according to one of the founding members of CIRR in a Reddit comment) .…
lol, the AMA is next week!
It's a harder question to answer than it sounds, but I don't want to misrepresent our size so I'm going to try to answer properly.
First, we are a mentorship platform. We're not a school or educational program or training program or anything comparable so we don't have "students", "curriculum", "classes", "cohorts", or even "programs" (we have an ongoing project this year to try to improve marketing to be clearer what we actually are lol)
We don't have any kind of fixed offerings and we work with people on a 1-1 contractual basis - for as long as it takes to get a job if you do your part - and the cost is based on your skill gaps and work experience, which we bucket into 3 tiers, but we're constantly working on new pricing models. But everyone comes in with different goals and needs. Some people need mock interviews, some need group mentorship, some need c…
I appreciate you sharing your views professionally. The fact that I'm extremely open about who I am enabled this kind of reasonable discussion, and anonymous new accounts that might have their own biases cannot possible be evaluated fairly.
Codesmith isn't a competitor in my opinion. There are a small number (about 15%) of people who go to Codesmith who might be a candidate for Formation, but likely not. We don't work with new college grads right now and people with zero experience is an edge case. Like the 15% is an edge case for both Codesmith and us that neither of us market to, in my opinion.
I in fact talk to make people 1-1 and suggest they go to Codesmith and to consider coming to Formation in a few years.
The way Formation works though could expand in the future to people who don't have any coding experience but it's not on the radar right now. I think it's fair that the fact…
There are no bootcamps that I know of based on my definitions.
If you want high compensation, Codesmith, Launch School have well into six figure median salaries for placed students, and Rithm and Hack Reactor are close as well.
But there is no program that creates mid level and senior engineers because you can't get there without industry experience, but **let me explain what this means.**
I was promoted at Facebook from entry level to mid level in 3 months from starting and then mid level to senior in \~1.5 more years. The senior to staff in \~2 years.
So when I started, what was I? You could say 'well I was a mid level engineer from the start and underleveled!'
But that's really not true. I was an entry level engineer and I was treated like one, and I crushed it.
If I was hired as a mid level engineer, I might have underperformed or not done as well and maybe taken a lot longer…
I've interviewed a number of Codesmith grads for Formation acceptance (which is not a job, so I have a more constructive/feedback hat on and more tolerance) and they practice all of these questions at Codesmith yeah.
But yeah I noticed within 5 minutes, and the misleading answers kept going or we would have awkward silence, but people would not say it was a job, but they say it's something else. I was "working with an company under OS Labs" for example.
There are a number of buckets here but generally, this is why all of these jobs are with small or less well known companies - who are not tech companies, and don't have solid vetting processes, and sometimes people make it through.
1. People who get entry level jobs at solid tech companies that they call "mid level and senior" but aren't. e.g. someone at Google got entry level L3 job and said it was "level 3 senior" but L3 at Google…
Well 3 people in the group say they worked on theos for 2 or 3 months on LinkedIn and it's listed as a Software Engineer job at a company so clearly people think this.
And I have a couple of emails from alumni to the effect of 'how dare you contact anyone in the Codesmith community about Formation, we don't need you and leave us alone, we are already mid level and senior engineers'
Of course people make mistakes and then they have to figure out how to fix that by rewriting the git history and changing all the credentials. In this case the credentials are all over the place and not just one bad commit.
The project is not close to any production code I've seen and is blatantly being portrayed as so.
Shutdown:
- Ada (possibly temporarily)
- Kenzie Academy
- Make School
- Juno College (no longer SWE)
- Bloc.io (was acquired but still running, could be consolidated)
Consolidated:
- Full Stack Academy
- Tech Elevator
- Codesmith (recently got rid of CTRI and unofficalg layoff reported)
- BloomTech (eliminated a ton of staff)
- App Academy (eliminate a number of TAs)
- Trilogy (rebranded to Edx)
- Episodes (unofficial layoffs)
Yeah JavaScript is fine! I'm super bias here because I'm very experienced with more traditional big tech, but companies all have their own stacks and frameworks such that any specific language doesn't help that much. For example, Meta does "whiteboard"-style interviews because they don't care about perfect syntax or compilable code.
If you are trying to get a job at a smaller company, they might want you to have already learned a particular stack so you show up ready to go, because they won't train you as much.
For the later case, I think being broad is still better and JavaScript is SUPER broad (frontend, backend, scripting, etc...) and people tend to get sidetracked with what the "hot language" is, which ends up slowing you down playing whack-a-mole.
At Formation, this is super interesting but all sessions are run in either Python or JavaScript and these are small group interactiv…
So it depends on the role but most of the ones I saw were Facebook contractors for anywhere from 3 months to 12 months.
I would have to write an essay haha.
So at Facebook most contractors are "Software Developers" and while paid $150K run rates the role has zero path to SWE and you have to interview like anyone else.
Other companies are different but the common threads are:
1. Higher than normal base salary
2. Lower or no bonus
3. No equity
4. Worse benefits / none of those sweet full time benefits
5. Generally worse vacation policies
6. First to go when there are re orgs or budget cuts
7. Typically let go suddenly with zero notice and it's quite frustrating - even if you are performing well.
Would I take one of these hours of a bootcamp - HECK YEAH! But when you talk about it on Reddit it's just a completely different job than even a full time job at a worse company and no one on…
Formation probably isn't good for you in this market,. I would recommend trying to get a math-y tech internship actually.
I would try to line one up in the fall during internship season (literally RIGHT NOW) - when you are technically still in your PhD program and eligible, maybe go on leave instead of dropping out. And then try to convert the internship into a full time role and "drop out" of the program then.
If you have no experience at all, internships are key right now.
Now if you don't agree and want to look at different supplemental options...
Consider a bootcamp like Codesmith if you are an ambitious hustler and want to produce a nice looking resume that is optimized to get through recruiter screens. You won't absorb that much actual skill but if you are the right personality it might be the most effective way to get a job for you.
Consider Formation if you want to fill in…