I've been on contact with Codesmith and they haven't offered a call.
I'm still trying to get answers for harder questions, like why the ghosting rate went from 15% to about 65% in their CA government report and what caused that.
They have been evading the hard questions but I have a channel of communication open.
I feel like this post from Annie is trying to change the goal posts now from CIRR placement rates and salaries to overall offer count and salary increases. These new metrics might make sense but they are changing the goal posts to try to frame the numbers better instead of being transparent.
They know preliminary H1 2024 6 months placement rates for example and haven't shared them - which would be extremely relevant given their past data, and instead made up new metrics, just like the bootcamps they criticized who failed during Codesmith's rise to success.
Top level comments:
1. How many of the 102 offers were people job hunting over 1 year who would not be included in any reporting
2. 102 offers is a significant decline of offers per day from past reporting and a further decline deterioration of outcomes. can you clarify if this is that the job market is even worse in the end of 2024 or if this is because of significantly lower enrollment at Codesmith?
3. Similarly, $110,000 is possibly the lowest salary you've reported in 5 years or something. inflation has been running rampant and entry-level salaries have increased as well during that time. so can you give more explanation into this number? are people taking worse jobs or are they taking adjacent jobs that pay less that aren't software engineer jobs? or maybe just more insights into that number.
4. Why not publish preliminary H1 6-month placement rates now that 6 months have fully pas…
How about all of the times I said specific people should go to Codesmith in the past? Your read my 2000+ comments on Reddit?
Summary: I temporarily removed that recommendation in Feb 2024 when they laid off about half the staff and shrunk 2/3 in offerings. And then permanently maintained that when most of the promised changes in Feb 2024 never materialized the way I hoped they would, and outcomes tanked.
That's rational no?
If a program has an 80% placement rate that tanks to 40% (with the majority of the 40% ghosting and non responsive according to their report - whereas when it was 80% the majority were engaged) and keeps telling you everything is fine and changes the goal posts they are measured by, isn't that an insane red flag to reconsider? Or no?
Clearly SOME people are getting placed and it's very much possible that this person will get placed too... but I would argue this pe…
This is a common outcome I hear too, people get jobs but the people who gets jobs at levels above what they should be tend to have a lot of trouble year 2 to 5.
It doesn't discount how much impact Codesmith has on their initial transition and it's not a dis whatsoever, it's just one of the things you don't hear about on Reddit and a downside of the "go for mid level and senior jobs" strategy.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I can give my thoughts knowing a lot of Codesmith grads and what they've been saying recently:
1. Is it worth it for someone who literally has a Computer Science degree? (I tend to struggle a lot with building projects of my own due to demotivation or lack of people that want to build things with me)
Placements are hovering somewhere below 50% six months after finishing Codesmith, so you are looking at ANOTHER YEAR before you get a job and maybe 2 more years, even going through Codesmith. Their most recent data shared showed something like 15% of people having CS degrees. I suspect that has increased in the current tough market for CS grads. I also believe people with CS and adjacent degrees have faired better than those without (anecdotal).
1. What did you build, what were teammates like?
I used to review a lot of the OSP group projects because people asked me to and they didn't get…
Done updating the numbers, I would like some clarity on the California students numbers because something isn't adding up with my math.
I can't really comment on the 12 month placements rates, I estimated in other comments a 50 to 60% 12 month placement rate using CIRR rules and regulations but we don't have those on previous analogous reports to compare to.
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.
Here's my analysis:
Based on my close view of the market for the past 5 years, I would guess 2024 students will have similar placement rates to 2023 students.
Based on the anecdotes people share with me from Codesmith, there are hardly any placement and hardly any alumni engagement - specifically in the second half of 2024.
Codesmith itself loudly touts a CIRR-violating salary outcome and placement number on their website of 168 offers between March and August 2024 that we can also factor in.
1. Salaries they reported were DOWN from peak about 10% - when inflation ran rampant and salaries have gone up, this tanking salary shows that more people are taking non-SWE jobs, going back to their old jobs or taking temporary jobs as part of a longer term plan.
2. It's possible that people taking non SWE jobs and worse jobs instead of waiting for their dream SWE job will result in a higher…
I agree that scenario isn't so clear and when there was a market inefficiency for hiring SWEs a lot of companies came up with ideas:
1. Bootcamps
2. Post-BACC CS diplomas
3. WGU - self paced quick CS degree
4. EdX free courses from MIT and Stanford
5. Udacity "Nano Degree"
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Ultimately - you just can't become a solid SWE in 12 weeks or a few months, it's a fiction and a myth. It would be like deciding to become a Lawyer in 12 weeks if you are an engineer by training.
You can develop skills, hyperfocus and accelerate your learning, but some of the process of getting there is just letting ideas bake in when they bake in, getting involved with lawyers and listening to them inside and outside of work, etc....
\------------------------
So then why do people come to Reddit saying Codesmith or HackReactor changed their life and went from school teacher to $150K…
Would you not agree that dropping from 90 to 70 to 29 though is something they should note and discuss a random students odds went from almost certain to the expected outcome being no placement in 6 months.
Codesmith defence in Feb 2024 was that everything is fine, the outcomes are strong, but people are taking 120 days instead of 90 days to place.
No discussion about how their placements are terrible but still better than CS.
Lastly, their market themselves as an alternative to an elite grad school and elot grad schools like Stanford have almost 100% placement and like $150K average salaries or something like that.
So I wouldn't accept a comparison to all CS but a comparison to the best schools.
During the boom times Codesmith posted something from Switch UP that their grads made more money than specific top CS schools.... let's see that same study in 2023/2024.
Yeah exactly, and on my side with my work hat on, I see a number of Codesmith grads (but really bootcamp grads more broadly) who still fell lost a few years into their careers.
Maybe there is a layoff, maybe you changed companies three times but aren't progressing to 'Senior', etc...
Codesmith in particular has some people in their career support that market themselves to grads as industry experts who are all you need for the rest of your career, and it's like two people who have reasonable points of view but FAR FROM 'all you need' and it's really HARMING GRADS I TALK TO.
Things like:
1. Someone told me today that a leader was telling people about a special deal to sell options to Codesmith's partner if you leave your startup and can't afford to exercise them when you leave.
This is something companies help with for 10 to 15+ YEARS, since the 2000 bubble, and there are all kinds of…
It's completely misleading yes and that's why I've been so hard on their marketing this past year! I've had anecdotal reports of numbers from reasonable sources for a while and found those numbers on their site completely misleading.
1. 29% is within six months of graduation. So people can get jobs after that and be reported int he 168 number of their website and also In their last CIRR report, they published 3 mo, 6mo, 12 mo numbers and their 6 month placement for 2022 grads was like 70% and their 12 mo was 80%, so of those 250 minus 70 people, I'm sure some of them got jobs in first half of 2024 (which would be post 6 months but less than 12 months)
2. The 168 number includes 2024 grads that got offers really fast. A small number of people with exceptional backgrounds, experience, networks, get jobs fast. Because they didn't specify how long those people were looking and when they gr…
BREAKING NEWS: Codesmith 2023 official outcomes published: CANNOT BE WORSE - placement rate crashed from 70% to 29%. Enrollment also tanked over 50%. The software engineering bootcamp era is over.
I'm going to keep this brief because the data tells the story pretty well.
Codesmith was once arguably the top bootcamp, and generally regarded as a top 5 bootcamp, and their outcomes have been completely decimated. They touted in their marketing in 2023 of past years' median placement salaries of up to $130K, 90% placement rates, and people didn't care how it happened just that it happened.
**Well the job market has humbled even the best and Codesmith's self-reported 2023 student placement rate is beyond terrible, it's evidence that SWE bootcamps are no longer a viable pathway into the industry no matter what the program says or does.**
[Link to Official Report](https://www.bppe.ca.gov/web…
If they go to someone's LinkedIn and the job has a start start, then they can count that as a placement.
Codesmith's auditor called LinkedIn the "gospel"... which makes me want to flip a table because many Codesmith grads have all kinds of embellished "jobs" listed.
The people I know there tell me there are hardly any placements anymore and it's becoming a ghost town.
Is Codesmith acknowledging this and talking about it?
No, they double down on one off edge case placements from years ago to try to make an illusion that everyone is getting mid level and senior jobs.
The more I dig, the more I see it's an illusion... fake accounts promoting AMAs, etc...
There are incredible alumni who went to Codesmith and they deserve credit for that. But it's like not at all the normal outcome right now and this charade has to end.
CIRR 2025 Standards out - does not close loopholes to force transparency, only change is one that extends the list of reasons to exclude people from the data and increase placement rates on paper - I don't think anyone cares anymore though :(
CIRR Standards for 2025 are out [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zuNf-58OcxVyY1KnTxnfqhfftiNexb6S/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zuNf-58OcxVyY1KnTxnfqhfftiNexb6S/view?usp=drive_link)
In a year where bootcamps are disappearing left right and center and pivoting to AI programs and abandoning SWEs, I would have wanted CIRR to tighten up a number of the loopholes in their standard that schools get to exploit.
Here is a list of issues I pointed out last year: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bug0lv/linebyline\_critique\_of\_cirr\_standard\_document/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1bug0lv/li…
Hi, we work with people with salaries in that range yeah. If you are making over $200K a year, at a top tier tech, you have to look at performance bonuses and stock as well. For example the typical mid level Meta engineer offer is around $330K right now but the base is like $185K and the rest is stock and bonuses At the senior level, the bases are into the $200Ks and TC around $450 to $500K.
We don't guarantee your outcome or any specific base salary but the performance based pricing is $5K upfront and the rest is $0 to $15K extra depending on the INCREASE in BASE salary so some people with high bases coming in choose that option because they don't expect to increase their salary enough to hit the $10K tier and if they do then they made so much money they'll happily pay more.
These numbers are based on bigger cities and many top companies require you to move right now. If you get a re…
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…
I've heard this narrative at Codesmith a few times: traditionally non tech companies need to become tech companies so they are hiring tons of engineers.
1. These companies are not hiring the best of the best (because their business doesn't have high enough margins to pay what FAANG pays), so if you want to be a best of the best engineering, you need to go to a top company and learn from the best. Even if there are more jobs here, you might be slowing down your career by taking them, especially if you are ambitious.
2. A lot of these non-tech companies outsource to top companies by buying their products and integrating them. They want to buy the best software from DataBricks because they can't remotely hire the same talent as DataBricks to build similar software in house. They also outsource more development to contracting firms abroad. So the growth in need for programming doesn't nece…
This is somewhat similar to what Codesmith (their competitor for "top bootcamp") does as well, called the "Where are they now report".
I don't see the complete methodology, but these kinds of reports can be extremely bias. I haven't seen them audit and track the number of people who did NOT reply, so all the people who failed out, gave up, changed jobs don't reply and they take an average of people who DID reply.
Just like any other reports, like CIRR, just because it looks legit it doesn't mean you shouldn't think critically and try to understand the words being used. Just like CIRR was created as a marketing group for bootcamps to promote bootcamps, and Course Report gets paid by bootcamps to send people to them (and wouldn't exist without bootcamps), thinking critically is extremely important in understanding the way things are.
Things to watch out for:
1. Not showing how many pe…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I see 78.6% placed in 180 days in H1 2022 (301 grads) and 70.1% in FY 2022 (732 graduates). So that means that about a 62% placement rate in H2 2022.
79% -> 62% is a tanking placement rate. And that was a relatively better 2022 grads.
Anecdotally and based on numbers I can find - which are not official and not necessarily accurate, show 2023 grads 180 day placements with something below 50%. And since this number should have been known internally since June 2024 (with at least an estimate) they are free to clear this up for the record. Even if they don't have all the data in yet because they are delayed, if they even have 50% in 180 days already they can let us know that.
I really won't listen to any marketing spins on this that make it sound good and anyone trying to do that needs an integrity check.
Codesmith can go to town saying how they are doing better than OTHER BOOTCAMPS but…
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…
Codesmith's 2023 CIRR report showed tanking H2 2022 results (but they were averaged into a full year) so I expect their 2024 report to be equally tanking, unless CIRR changes the rules again.
Their 180 placement rate absolutely tanked and people post 360 days are excluded from the reports.
Codesmith randomly shared outcomes from a carefully chosen window of April 2024 to August 2024 in violation of CIRR and haven't updated that, and even those were really bad, so I can't imagine the outcomes are good right now.
Now they are adding in alumni's future jobs in their Slack reporting making some of those jobs look like first jobs to boost morale as the number of people getting first jobs within 6 months is very poor.
The statement is a bit hyperbolized but it's true.
Bootcamp grads resumes get thrown in the trash and it's why you see grads from places like Codesmith not mentioning at all that they went there and putting 3 week long group projects as 1 years of work experience instead.
It's so sad to me when I see someone proudly talk about their "first SWE job" bootcamp placement and then you look them up on LinkedIn and see "3 years as SWE at self employed" (some made up experience).
This kind of thing has exhausted the industry and they now throw bootcamp resumes on the trash.
It's harsh but true and you have to figure out how to navigate the industry instead of pretending this isn't true and being delusional.
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…
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…
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 see this kind of thing often. I started doing an analysis of bootcamps grads trajectories and if they still had their first job a year out. I didn't complete it, but it was a shockingly high number of people who changed jobs or didn't have a job within a year or so after their first one.
The job is just the beginning. Bootcamps sell you the job as the end because for them that's when they advertise you everywhere and call it a day.
There's even a bootcamp Codesmith that after promising support for life after, just launched a cash grab AI followup course for $900 for alumni. A completely untested gamble and having the audacity to charge alumni for it. In all fairness, they don't charge for the classroom part of the course as they offer that in their bootcamp now and retroactively give that to alumni for free, so you are paying $900 for 4 Saturday workshops and a monthly "leadersh…
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…
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…
yeah 3-6 months post graduation is quite fast right now. if someone was starting today how much time would you recommend they budget and account for?
totally understand the challenges when someone takes a part time job to pay the bills - it's very good idea for the person, but challenging for DATA lol.
I'm crazy busy right now, might have more q's, but one more question is how engaged are alumni during the job hunt and how confident are you you are hearing from all of them when they get jobs etc... This is a problem with CIRR right now. We saw in the recent Codesmith report that there was a spike in H2 2022 grads who were non-responsive and placed via their LinkedIn's listing a job.
Which is fine, a placement is a placement, but I'm just curious about that more personally. If there are things you do post graduation to keep people engaged, etc...
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…
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…
My understanding is they exclude people hired by Codesmith. I'm very confident people hired short term as TAs (fellows) are excluded as they are not considered placements for CIRR. I'm reasonably confident that it excludes instructors. But if it did, the number of instructors hired in that time is 2 and wouldn't impact this data.
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…
I'm fairly familiar with this and can offer my 2 cents, in no particular order:
1. I heard that instructors, mentors, and fellows (TAs) were listing Codesmith as their recent job, but it was becoming less effective, because people recognized it as a bootcamp and it makes sense that people would perceive "Senior Software Engineer at Codesmith" as really just a bootcamp STUDENT embellishing their resume. It wasn't made clear to me who's idea this was, but someone came up with the idea of creating a "CS Engineering" brand that these people could list to differentiate their REAL jobs from coming across like a student.
2. In all fairness, I think that's reasonable because people actually had jobs with Codesmith that they should get credit for. My opinion is the need for "CS Engineering" as a brand is a very clear sign of the problems of appearing to work at a bootcamp and how you get writte…
Exclusive ex-Meta Engineering poll results: Almost no one is considering AI skills when hiring software engineers at their companies! Bootcamps pivoting to AI might be marketing a fictional gold rush so that they can sell you an expensive shovel that you don't need right now.
DISCLAIMER: I'm a moderator of the sub and co-founder of a mentorship program for experienced SWEs (2+ YOE currently) to help them prepare for interviews. I don't believe I have any conflicts of interest but I am bias by the fact that my corner of the market is top tier big tech (including top tier small tech startups) and not the long tail of companies hiring engineers right now. The below analysis is my personal interpretation of the poll and reflects my personal opinions and insights on the raw numbers presented.
Note: I might update poll numbers as more votes come in.
I ran a poll with a group a few thousand…
Bootcamps work for a specific slice of people.
Launch School is the only program I know that systematically tries to find those people though a multi step, months long process of getting through to Capstone.
And surprise, it works better! But you don't know if it will work for you until you try getting through, and you might be capable of getting a job through a bootcamp, just not through Launch School.
Launch School has like under 100 capstone students a year.
The problem with bootcamps, which particularly hit Codesmith hard and they haven't fully recovered is that they scaled from 100 students a year to over a 1000, thinking that if it worked for so many of their students when they are small, it would work for everyone who passes the bar.
While Launch School has maintained a relatively high placement rates. Unofficially reported Codesmith placement rates have gone down drasticall…
I don't know what they told you when you graduated but they are telling new grads that they have "2 to 4 years of functional experience" so they can put that in applications and their resume.
From the materials I've seen, the changes seem irrelevant to getting a job right now.
A couple of people have Gen AI related jobs but most people are getting SWE jobs with zero AI, followed by tangential jobs, like support engineering and technical writers.
If the market rebounds enough for people to get jobs, I'm curious to see if they stay the course with the "modern engineer" or just double down on classic Codesmith techniques.
So I'm not even convinced the changes they made are correcting anything, but I could be wrong, I'm going off my corner of the market. Maybe Mavis Tire will hire a ton of modern engineers while FAANG keeps doing its same old same old.
We do not compete with you. Our marketing and recruiting team have not mentioned a single person that they can remember in the past year even mentioning considering Codesmith, but many are asking about Interview Kickstart and Pathrise. Do you guys think you compete with Pathrise and Interview Kickstart as well?
I'm not sure if you are delusional or have incompetent internal communication processes but I explained in detail to Eric Kirsten on your team via email a number of months ago.
I full on recommend Launch School at this time. Do you consider them a competitor? Why would I recommend them if I'm here to take down competitors?
As usual you all are big on words and small on details and execution.
RE: Reducing Prices
That's a fair argument to make it more accessible. Why didn't you make it more accessible in 2022 or 2023 and why make it accessible now then?
Launch School Core Liv…
Yeah I would say it's relatively reasonable picture. I just did a search myself and it's quite a mix of people:
- mentors
- early career people with jobs that just haven't started yet
- early career people who got entry level jobs listed
- people who are doing well and chugging along just fine at their expected pace, regardless of what their time is at Formation (which is why again - placement time is really hard to figure out)
- people are are severely struggling to get any interviews
I'm not sure what the point is, like I'm extremely open that there are a small number of people we admitted when we required less experience (6mo to 1 year) who have been with us a very long time and we keep supporting and we've spent more money mentoring them they they will even pay us... I think this evidence that we stick to our promises and means a lot to people.
1. I do so for bootcamps because I work with a bunch of bootcamp grads later on in their careers and feel like I can combine that with my FAANG experience to give solid advice to peple looking at bootcamps. Formation isn't a bootcamp. If you are going to keep putting in that bucket despite my repeated attempts to explain the difference then that's on you, but I see no problems talking about BOOTCAMPS that have nothing to do with what I do.
2. Yeah we could come up with some kind of aggregated 'amount of time to get a job' data I think, but we have to account for week to week workload adjustments people meet (which is very frequent, vacations and pauses, offer times vs interview times, which topics people were working on and weren't at which times, time to first offer versus time to offer accepted (since people can get multiple offers and intentionally DELAY THEIR JOB HUNT to create a co…
DIRECT ANSWERS TO POINTS/QUESTIONS:
Generally speaking about the word "job guarantee", I flagged this earlier for our team to think about, so we'll see but it's a uncommon phrase we use in one place with limited spacing that I can see, and there are way more common phrases, slogans, and thousands of other words in our contract to read that are much more important to understand. I standby the accuracy of that in the context, but I think the hundreds or thousands of words, and phone calls, and emails, make it clear to people what that means contractually before signing up.
I take the feedback that you think we should only use that phrase accompanied with stronger data showing that guarantee turns into a job and I've shared that feedback.
1.“**Don't be blinded by their marketing**..." Formations' 2024 numbers are insanes so far. 75% top tier placements, average first year comp gain of 1…
PART 2:
2. Yeah I comment on those. I'm aware of two Reddit posts. One is a person who left and ended up going out of SWE for their career and it was the right thing. The other person I don't know who they are but I do know someone who commented on that thread in support of the primary person recently tried to come back to Formation a second time, so maybe their opinion changed haha, but I want to go through the points.
**MOST IMPORTANTLY - we make hundreds of changes (literally) a week and Formation today is not Formation a few months ago, is not Formation a year ago.** I'm going to answer these as they would be TODAY, and I stand by my previous comments on those posts at the time they were posted.
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1. "**Don't be blinded by their marketing**...". We absolutely have people that are still with us and very low morale. There are a number of people who joined us…
Happy to keep discussing yeah, we're not perfect and some of our reasons might not be good enough but I can at least explain what those reason are directly from one of the founders 🙂.
PART 1:
1. I hear you on clarifying what "guaranteed means", because there are qualifiers that I explained, and maybe there is a better one liner for it. The support is guaranteed until you get a job is how I would respond/state it given your framing.
RE: " lifetime career support, job hunt help", my gosh some bootcamps promise this and it's not remotely the same as what any of these four programs offer and not nearly the same as what Formation offers. I don't want to write paragraphs here but to put it one way, a number of "DS&A career support engineers" at a top bootcamp like Codesmith have come to Formation themselves to work on their skills and get their next job.
Years ago I had debates on people…
1. Yes, if you join the Unlimited option we will work with you for however long it takes and you aren't forced to take your first offer. So as long as you keep job hunting, applying, interviewing, and accepting our feedback and guidance (and don't have to withdraw for personal reasons, unexpected emergencies, or change your goal and don't what to job hunt anymore) then we keep supporting you. We have some people with us for two years and counting haha. We don't have strict requirements to meet to maintain this either. We have a two way trusting relationship and as long as you are continuously intending to job hunt we do our part. We don't hand you a job though and it's not a place to sign up expected to be handed interviews and a job on a plate.
2. Yeah sounds like you've read my views on this. It makes a lot more sense when you do Formation and see how individually unique each person's…
Hi, thanks for sharing, I've heard similar things. Interestingly, Codesmith isolates each cohort so it's actually fairly hard to figure out how others are doing. People know their own cohort and the ones before and after who they interact with as junior/seniors.
Do you have any comments on how Codesmith staff have communicated to you? Like if they have told you it's not good or there, or they say things are fine instead?
But yeah, the 6 month placement rate for end of 2023 and early 2024 grads has tanked and Codesmith isn't saying a word - instead they are saying things that make it sound like everything is fine and Codesmith is doing great.
Launch School transparently had a 75% 6 month placement rate and because of Codesmith delusion above I've actively recommended not going there and actively recommended Launch School.
Anyways, if others in your cohort feel the same, share this pos…
The slow path is to get a job using your existing degree that is at a big tech company and use internal resources to transition over the course of a few years.
I've seen some people do this and it's worked out extremely well.
1. You learn along the way
2. You get a good salary and benefits
3. You have a ton of context to help add value in a transition while you ramp up on technical
4. Some companies pay for masters
5. Many companies have internal engineering training you can try to participate in.
Now if you can't get a job at a top tech company, try to find something that hits on some of these.
Like maybe finding a job at a company that will pay for your masters.
Or finding a non tech job at a tech company that has zero chance at ever becoming an engineering job