Thanks for sharing, that would help explain why they had 65% of placements 'non response but verified via LinkedIn' for 2023 grads in CA.
Questions:
1. Are these people getting SWE roles or taking adjacent jobs?
2. If people are not responsive to Codesmith, how do you know the cohorts have 60% placement rates? Are you using LinkedIn yourself or are you using the unofficial channels.
(I ask because the alumni that have messaged me in the past few weeks have universally called their alumni channels "ghost towns" (they are 2024 though!)
3. Why do you think so many people are no longer responding to the emails compared to in 2022?
The three eras to me are defined not necessarily by dates but by bootcamp trends.
The dates in my original post don't align super well and I have to spend more time thinking of the dates if they matter at all.
1. Era 1: super intense in person bootcamps for super smart people that had to prove themselves to get it, worked crazy hard, and got very good outcomes.
This was very non-diverse, a lot of young single professionals with a lot of savings and no families or who could pack up their lives to move to SF.
This is where bootcamps came from when they started out.
The canonical one here would be the earliest days of Hack Reactor.
Big tech was hiring these people if they passed interviews. There weren't a lot of grads for a broad trend but some made it through!
2. Era 2: DEI. Big companies realized that non-traditional sources of talent could help increase diversity because CS grad…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I have a list of LinkedIns for Future Code people and a bunch are doing the same old experience exaggeration that students do.
I thought you couldn't have any experience or a CS degree going into Future Code and now I'm seeing these people retroactively having adjacent experience and computer science degrees in progress or computer science minors.
Future Code students - if you are reading this - don't lie on your resumes and don't believe Codesmith if they tell you aren't lying but just representing your "real capacities" and making your "perceived capacities" align with the real ones.
It might help you get a job but the industry looks down on this and if you get a job this why and OSLabs signs off on your background check, you'll have to live with the fact that you cheated your way into the industry and the consequences will catch up with you someday.
I've worked with a couple of Fu…
My suspicion was that it was a fake account. Codesmith has (or their 3rd party marketer) has had a bunch of fake posting activity here.
You all have to watch out for fake content on Reddit, some of it is very well hidden.
That person who appears like a student doing CSX and posting about it keeps sharing links to Codesmith with UTM tracking params in the URLs (which Reddit doesn't add and were added manually) indicating all of those posts are basically ads.
The person who signed letters is Phil Troutman who was Codesmith's Head Instructor for 10 years and left recently.
Codesmith's placement staff "help coordinate" letters for you if you have trouble.
And OSLabs phone number is intended to go to Phil.
The instructions presented to me offer support for "work verification", "background checks", and more and indicate that Phil is the primary person who does background check calls.
**The board members on the site, look into them:** one is Codesmith's lawyer, two I beleive are Codesmith alumni who don't advertise it much but show up on alumni lists.
The "director" is not affiliated with Codesmith but I'm not sure if she works there, last I chatted with her she was "on leave" and she reported some security problems I had to Annie - Codesmith's Director of Outcomes and Admissions who is present here on Reddit.
Finally, OSLabs tax records sho…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I was informed today that Codesmith is still signing letters of reference and background checks on behalf of OS Labs to confirm fake work experience.
I care less that people are lying on their resumes and care more the Codesmith has been participating in these lies for years and years.
Codesmith alumni, spread the word - 3 weeks of commits on a project isn't 7 months of unpaid work experience at OS Labs. Tell Codesmith this is unethical and let them know loud and clear.
People are sending me evidence of this stuff because maybe they are afraid to lose their jobs for being found out and it's sad.
If you feel guilty about this and don't want to be public - my DMs are open. I won't stand for this garbage behavior from people with no integrity.
I have dozens of screenshots and PDFs,.HTMl logs etc...but I don't have time to bundle it up, and I would also prefer discussing it with their team privately first so they can respond.
If they apologized and assured me it would never happen again I might just drop it.
The person's Reddit account was permanently suspended along with dozens of other accounts and a number of official Codesmith accounts as well. When all of the accounts were suspended I also noticed a bunch of accounts that have been harassing me for a year now for suspended too and since then I have had relatively little harassment on here.
I would love to publish a case study some time because the behavior is insane and hard to tell at first!
But revelaing this might also help the bad guys get away with it by understanding the sophistacted techniques I used :(
The fake accounts would warm up by posting and commenting…
Thanks for considering, I am very upset about Codesmith's behavioral and I'm sorry if I come across confrontational, I think we should all speak openly about Codesmith's outcomes and stories because even amongst the group of alumni I'm calling out above - those people on an individual basis are all really awesome people - working incredibly hard to have more impact and a better life (many with families), and don't want to come across as judging those people entirely. I'm judging Codesmith for selling those stories as a magic pill to change your life, instead of being transparent about how it all works.
Those placements were accidents and people exaggerating on their resumes.
There isn't a single person with zero relevant experience who had an honest resume who got a senior role.
Did people get "senior" titled roles at Capital One (which map to entry level FAANG) by lying about their SWE experience and getting referred by other Codesmith grads and get coached on questions in a special Capital One channel? Yes.
Did people leverage past experience that maybe wasn't SWE work but had a lot of similar behavioral skills and call it "engineering" experience on their resume to squeeze into mid level roles? Yes.
Did most people put their 3 week long project as 8+ months of work experience? Yes.
Did people who were hourly TAs at Codesmith put down months of work experience as a Software Engineer at "CS Engineering" that Codesmith provided background checks for? Yes.
People who got these job…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
33 is a pretty big cohort too for 2024. If this is true, I really wish people would do their fricken research and stop believing their bullshit marketing and leader.
I used to have way more pros and cons about Codesmith and things have degraded to much over 2024 starting when they laid off everyone and promised amazing changes that never happened.
You can follow my history. I'm pissed off now but back then I very rationally paused my endorsement of Codesmith in February when those layoffs happened and then a few months later when things continued to decline I actively recommended not going there.
Now the leader is writing a book and barely involved, grads are less and less prepared and alumni complain to me more and more about grads who are faking their resumes but not accompanying if with the grit and hustle needed to fake it til you make it.
Codesmith CEO: here's a thought experime…
This came up in my Youtube queue: [https://youtu.be/yZomz9vPqjg?si=QJ0DHU\_PrGEMMdHP&t=683](https://youtu.be/yZomz9vPqjg?si=QJ0DHU_PrGEMMdHP&t=683)
Apparently the CEO totally is transparent that it's not that he's "not a very good engineer" but he's "barely one at all" and that "the stuff I was teaching \[\] I was learning as I go", "when I was making my hard parts workshops I didn't know how a map function works"
So I guess it's not really a secret that he new practically nothing about engineering when starting Codesmith and he actually considers it a strength.
But he does claim that he made the Hard Parts from scratch. Which was late 2010s, so even if it's true that the original materials were copied, it seems he entirely changed to a first principals approach at some point long ago such that any recent Codesmith student went through original curriculum.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
It's not that at all.
They are gaslighting critics of Codesmith hahaha by countering facts with cherry picked numbers and then telling the critics they are wrong.
But the students are genuinely rewiring their thinking to believe they are mid level and senior engineers.
It takes 12 weeks and lots of tactics:
- if you are ever negative you do correction meetings to readjust your mindset to be positive
- You have to emoji like every post and an instructor apparently complained they didn't get enough emoji reactions for example.
- you are told you have imposter syndrome and the solution is to follow Codesmith's resume advice to fix it and to trust them because you have imposter syndrome and aren't thinking properly about your work so you have to trust Codesmith's way as the "reality"
This stuff actually works though! Like people systematically come out thinking this way and when Codesmit…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
The way this has been framed to me:
1. the top couple of students usually get jobs quickly. they aren't on Reddit and they often aren't very engaged because they are in and out. others wonder why these people did Codesmith in the first place. when I've talked them I get a mix of responses: they were misled to believe Codesmith was more senior and they were way to advanced and we're advising the teachers, they needed some kind of structure and peers because doing it alone was emotionally challenging, and some people just wanted to do projects to refresh their skills and were misled that the codesmith projects were like work experience.
I hear people here saying that it wasn't really with it but that they enjoyed the community and didn't think it was a scam or entire waste of money, just probably wouldn't have done it in retrospect.
2. the 2nd tier of students get hired by Codesmith. T…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Apparently someone said there are no support engineers available for March for resume and mock interviews?
It's sad if Codesmith worked for you back in the day but it's imploding right now they don't deserve people's money right now.
I can't believe one of their leaders texted an alumni who was considering Formation and told them 'it's a waste of money and Codesmith will give them all they need for life'
Sure.... 'all they need'.... we have hundreds of mock interview slots available for the next week.
Does doing your research include looking at reports and asking critical questions and then interpreting answers?
Question: the ghosting rate for placements went from 15% to 65% from 2022 grads to 2023 in CA reports, what happened there? Why are alumni not responsive and is there a problem continuing in 2024?
The problem, whether you think I have biases or not, is that I **do my research** and I show it to people. When things are good, I publish good.
There has been nothing good in the past 2 years, no silver lining, nothing. There have been anecdotal one off success cases.
Codesmith added 5 lectures of AI to their curriculum that are already dated and worse than the free stuff from Andrej Karpathy on Youtube... and they intentionally chose to go all in on an AI curriculum that they knew was changing daily and they didn't have any unique expertise in teaching.
Like I wish I had more…
But why is it taking longer just because supply is low.
I reiterate, If there's nothing that codesmith can do about this because of the market, then they shouldn't exist right now
So I'm trying to open the door for them to be able to do something within their control to produce the placement numbers that could justify paying $22,000 for.
If they've made all the changes they can and they don't think there's anything else then they're done right?
Their CEO is off writing a book about ai and inequality and doesn't seem interested to be spending 12 hours a day on the ground with every single alumni helping them in whatever way they can.
So maybe that's a sign that they've tried everything they can and these are the best the results are going to be and if that's the case, they're not good enough to justify their existence right now or at least their cost.
A lot of people say that but what do you think that means?
Like does it mean that people need to continuously apply and they finally get lucky at month 12?
Or do they need to do more supplemental work and then job hunt when they have more experience?
Are they waiting for a local maximum in hiring to get into a job?
Are people fishing interviews from competitiveness?
And whatever the factor is, why isn't Codesmitb addressing that factor to strengthen grads in the areas slowing them down?
Codesmith's CEO loud and clear said that Codesmith style applications have a 20% response rate so why the heck would it take so long.... someone could spend an ENTIRE DAY doing a Codesmith style application and get a response a week.
They don't seem to understand the market or how to navigate it and keep telling people that the same old same old works, gaslighting alumni, not making enough changes,…
What I'm observing is around half of the placements I see... which is not many anymore, take over a year to get packed and their LinkedIn has them 'working at' their 3 week group project (listed as a company) for the entire time... often offer a year.
This looks to the untrained eye like the person has a year of experience and the longer someone is job hunting the more experience this item shows.
So I think it's indeed taking people longer because they need to have a year or more experience to even be taken seriously on the market.
But all that said, their ghosting rate of alumni skyrocketed and that indicates that alumni are not engaged and disappearing after six months so even if they are getting jobs and it's taking longer, they are figuring it out on their own.
My 2 cents is relative outcomes are important and as long as a bootcamp is consistent in it's measurement and explains the trends then we're good.
It's not good if see something like Codesmith where they change the goal posts (e.g. 12 month placements instead of 6 months - conveniently changing in a terrible market when their placement rate tanked) and trying to post metrics and numbers that look good, while insulting you by calling it rigorous transparency - that's scam behavior.
I expect Turing to continue to publish the numbers they have been and explaining the trends proactively.
I don't think Turing's recent struggles have been hidden or misleading anyone.
I would push on what 'market turning around a little bit in 2025' means.
I'm not seeing anything turn around for entry level roles and there are two possibilities:
1. The partnerships they are making are helping some people…
Our full year report has been on our blog since December.
I think I wrote tens of thousands of words explaining our outcomes and there is no question I will not answer honestly.
Our main goals are salary increase and top tier placements because that's what people pay us to achieve.
We don't have a concept of a placement rate because it doesn't make sense for an interview prep program with a month to month membership that allows ramping up and ramping down week to week. It's not useful.
I've explained this to people on your team repeatedly and I struggle to believe you don't comprehend what I'm saying. If you have specific questions I try to elucidate or if you disagree and think we are bootcamp that can publish these things then explain why and I can respond or clarify misconceptions.
Better yet talk to your alumni that have done Formation and find A SINGLE PERSON who thinks Format…
I dunno, I think it's totally fine and good for Codesmith to make a case for themselves, but I completely agree their response is more defensive and out of touch than making a legit case.
Making a case for themselves would be something like:
1. Codesmith staff work really hard to help people change careers successfully
2. For the right people, they feel confident in placing you, but for the wrong people, it's not working out anymore and there are no more shortcuts
3. Codesmith is focused on finding the right people, and if you want to see if that's you - apply and work with them on that.
4. Here are ANECDOTAL (not systematic) examples of what that looks like for people that it works for, and here are their backgrounds, LinkedIns, and strategies employeed to get jobs, and if you think you align with those, it might be a good fit for you too.
\------
Instead the defensive responses…
Currently we require 2+ years of SWE work experience or we will decline working with you, so no brand new CS or bootcamp grads.
But in theory yes, and we have informal connections to many bootcamps who recommend Formation to alumni in their future job hunts and we have positive relationships - even though I'm equally hard on them about their outcomes and many have closed or paused/
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…
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…
Hi, a lot of people that go into Codesmith have non-technical degrees from pretty good schools and doing a CS masters can be an option. This is the best all around for brand, quality, cost: [https://omscs.gatech.edu/](https://omscs.gatech.edu/)
To clarify though there are two aspects to this post:
1. Codesmith hasn't degraded or gotten worse in the educational experience, it's the same it's always been + 5 new AI lectures. So comparing Codesmith to other bootcamps, it might still be one of the better ones. **BUT best of bad options doesn't mean you should choose it, it just means you probably shouldn't choose another bootcamp instead if Codesmith was the one for you.**
2. The lack of integrity (my opinion) / "carefully selected marketing" (fact) on their side (both in how they didn't tell anyone about this in Feb 2024 - when half of their students already hit the 6 month post grad ma…
I'm seeing a lot of bootcamps pivoting to AI in a cash grab, many paused their SWE programs while they do so.
I'm REALLY nervous about bootcamps trying to exploit their alumni for cash like Codesmith is with their AI/ML Leadership course.
I've reviewed the course and this free YouTube video from an industry leader with 10+ years of AI experience across two of the top research labs + OpenAI + Tesla Director of AI: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xTGNNLPyMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xTGNNLPyMI)
I feel for Codesmith - their AI course is taught by some awesome individuals, but they have like 1 year of SWE experience each and it just doesn't stack up in any way to Andrei and Andrei's course is 100% free.
I quite frankly don't really know what anyone at Codesmith can do to catch up to someone like Andrei in teaching AI directly now that Andrei started a company to teach people AI…
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"
\-----------------------
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.
I agree with these arguments as well but Codesmith compared themselves to the best of the best. Marketing as an alternative to an elite grad school.
So they need to be compared to Stanford which is still like 100% of job seekers and average base salaries like $150K.
If the marketing is to be better than a non name CS degree then I might agree with that, or at least consider them closer.
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…
I posted about this in another thread somewhere but the new administrations stance in the USA about DEI is also causing a lot of apprenticeships and programs for non traditional pathways to be shutdown, and while that impacts a lot of sources of people, it doesn't help bootcamp grads at all.
A world of "meritocracy" does not favor a bootcamp grad with ZERO SWE experience, no matter how much potential they have. They are going to have to build experience with unpaid internships, contracts, etc... to compete with 'meritocracy'
On the other hand, a new trend is the "IQ Test" approach - ignore background and do an IQ test and if it's high enough then you get the job regardless.
This might give some bootcamp grads a shot who have high IQs but you can't increase your IQ with a bootcamp, so.... I don't think it will keep the bootcamp industry alive but it might open up more direct paths fo…
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…
If I disregard AI then I would say that nothing at all would change and it's the new normal. And it's likely the new normal from "traditional SWE" roles.
I think schools like Launch School that are very small and take a very long time to get into will produce exceptions to the norm and that's about it.
I'm more optimistic in AI creating a ton of new jobs that are tech-adjacent but not tech jobs. And that people will need to transition from their non-tech job into these roles. E.g. accountant -> AI enabled accountant. Kind of like how accountants BEFORE Microsoft Excel had to learn Excel and now it's just a given. A ton of accountants will have to learn AI-enabled tools and it will be a given.
Now SWE bootcamps might be done and over with, but maybe AI bootcamps that **VERY CLEARLY IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AS TRAINING YOU FOR ADJACENT JOBS AND NOT SWE JOBS** might be able to help people ge…
Hey, yeah CIRR is business league responsible to supporting the businesses of it's bootcamp members - it's not impartial.
1. CIRR has only 3 reporting companies left, one of which had like 15 grads in 2022, one is in Indonesia and didn't report FY 2022 properly, so **Codesmith IS CIRR at this point**.
2. CIRR changing the standards last year to report 360 day outcomes instead of 180 day outcomes was a massive coverup to conceal terrible H2 2022 outcomes. Since Codesmith filed H1 2022 and FY 2022 outcomes, you can calculate the H2 2022 outcomes from that data and they did indeed tank really bad.
3. Not only is a Codesmith Advisor on the board, but she brought in other board members who are friendly with her
4. A former Codesmith grad was temporarily working for CIRR to rebuild their new website after they got locked out and lost all their old website stuff.
\---------------------
I…
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.
Currently not recommending any bootcamps overall for everyone and only recommending specific ones to specific people based on their personal circumstances.
Unfortunately there have been so many downsizings and meetings that and layoffs that even a bootcamp that was good six months ago but be completely different now.
Someone on YouTube just started Codesmith this week and said it seemed like a "cult" and their instructors can't answer basic questions and the CEO is never around and the person seemed very upset. And while I've always criticized Codesmith, it seems to be getting worse and worse the more they shed staff. I used to recommend them as a top bootcamp and paused when they made major cutbacks in February and promised tons of changes. Then officially recommended avoiding them after they didn't make many changes and started new marketing campaigns doubling down on their mediocre…
Are the Codesmith announcements:
1. people's promotions and 2nd or 3rd jobs
2. people reporting jobs several months after they placed
3. people job hunting for around a year or more
The reason I ask is that people have pointed out that Codesmith recently started adding alumnis new jobs to those announcements and intermixing them with new placements.
I do agree with the "Codesmith Method" of applying for jobs though. I also talked to a number of grads about it. Based on their sentiment I think there is a reason people have removed themselves from the Alumni List because they were being inundated with Codesmith grads who have zero experience. One person told me they removed themselves because they felt so awkward, like people attending timeshare meetings and feeling they have to listen to this embellished pitch and just want to get the heck out.
Hi! I'm the co-founder of Formation. Sorry about your experience, I'm not sure what happened, but if you DM me I can look into it. Most of our team was off today for an extra holiday because the time has been operating at 110% and we wanted to give them an extra day off.
I absolutely recommend talking to alumni and current Fellows as well. Specifically ones with a similar background to yourself. We also change quite fast so I would try to take to someone who started in the past few months.
We have a surprising number of people who come back to Formation for future job hunts and pay us a second or third time, because each time is different and unique, so that's why talking to the people most similar to you is important.
The day to day at Formation is quite unique, and unlike anything else so we really want you to learn how it works and be on the same page, otherwise it's a waste of tim…
Yeah exactly, that's why people tell me this stuff, they need the support and aren't happy about it.
It can make people feel like they have to pay for this AI course to continue to get people's attention.
I stand by my opinion that if they have the resources to build this AI course, those resources should first make sure their SWE immersive is in good shape first. The instructors working on AI should be doing these career services.
Again, I see the argument for abandoning alumni and going all on in AI stuff - which is the trend - they just can't in the same breath say that SWE students are getting a world class best experience.
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…
Honestly out of those ones Codesmith is still probably the best if you are entrepreneurial. Recent students and grads have reported that the bar has dropped from the past for technical skills, but it's high on communication and people tend to be driven achievers who go there. For all of the mess I mentioned, former employees describe it as even a mess internally during the peak times that was never run like a "real company" (reference from employee), and ultimately I think they try to produce a consistent experience for you the student.
It's a very uniquely weird one of all the others (which are more similar to each other)... it has a "cult-like following" (not in the religious sense, but colloquially). People who go in skeptical, tend to see it for what it looks like under the hood and feel like it's overpriced, the instructors almost all have no SWE experience, lots of superficial stu…
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…
Some alumni have talked to me about the materials yeah. They said they only received the 5 lectures but that the projects weren't done yet. I think the people starting Codesmith now will get the real material for the first time in abouf 2 months. Which is why it's insane to me they are charging $3200 (discounted for the first cohort in Jan) instead of making it free. They both have to iron out the bugs and also have no idea how useful this course will be.
The lectures sound laughable as you said. Like RAG and fine tuning spent defining all of these techniques that were invented in the past year but not really being that useful.
There are some excellent free under the hood YouTube series on AI. There is an amazing one I watched part of that is like dozens of lectures for 2-3 hours each that really explains from basics how everything works, and still often says things alike "this is a si…
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...
The definition of an engineer is a problem solver.
Story time.
When I graduated college they gave everyone an "iron ring". It was forged from the materials of a collapsed bridge, where the engineers were found liable for screwing up.
I didn't want to wear my ring because I felt like software was so fuzzy - how can I be responsible for people's lives.
I've changed my tune. Software engineers are just as responsible for their code as a civil engineer is for their bridge.
Now ask yourself. Is a 12 week bootcamp grad someone who you would trust to build a bridge for you.
Obviously not. I would barely/likely not trust a new grad engineer to do it.
Telling bootcamp grads they are mid level and senior engineers is not just offensive, misleading and irresponsible.... it's reckless.
Encouraging a bootcamp grad to build a bridge and telling them they are a super senior engineer because o…