They're definitely some successful alumni who graduated in 2023 the number of people getting really good jobs from my personal view smaller than in the past but it's not zero.
The people who are getting placed, though are not super keen on broadcasting into the world because they know that some other best friends and people who they were in the trenches with during the immersive didn't get placed and I think that's actually holding them back from talking. I also know some people who wouldn't recommend Codesmith at this time who got pretty good jobs eventually, but wow, it was a rough journey. Finally, I know people who are really exaggerating their resumes and they just don't even care or feel bad about it anymore because they have absolutely nothing to lose and they would just leave the industry entirely otherwise.
... I guess shit show of the market pretty much summarizes all this…
I have careful documentation of all of this too and it's desperate. Codesmith is not doing well, not filling their cohorts even though they have reduced them significantly.
They lowered the price of JSB and CSPrep to get more people into them even though JSB Flex videos are entirely free anyways in their website (unless this is an engineering mistake, there are so many odd engineering choices and user information being shared out from their website all over... I'm operating the assumption that this is all intentional because it's so widespread and pervasive it would be incompetent otherwise)
Before attacking me, look into the mirror Codesmith. If Hack Reactor was setup this way would you think they are the best of the best and maybe look within and fix things before coming after me.
Alumni: if you hate me at least try to understand what I'm saying and think about it s bit.
10% fight publicly for it, work there, keep in the community, keep doing talks and calls, etc... and "stay in the family"
Many more are positive or neutral-positive about Codesmith, thought it was worth it because of their outcome but not the content or the advice and they move on after settling into their careers.
I'm also bias there because the people that move on come to be too lol. The largest groups of people coming to me on a weekly basis are current students or recent alumni venting about something, and then older alumni who trust me because they feel like my analysis is spot on and want my advice about the industry.
I think it's about 10% of alumni and it's because they credit Codesmith with changing their lives. And I don't argue it didn't. Something can change your live and not be perfect.
The people that just can't acknowledge that are going to have a lot of problems later on in their careers, lots of struggles with progression. Codesmith is far too early to see that yet.
With $130K salaries come layoffs at the drop of a hat, and other negative things that will need to be confronted.
I've worked with a lot of alumni that love Codesmith. Both officially and unofficially and some more directly than others. I have no idea if they like me as person but I think they understand better where I'm coming from once actually getting to know me.
It's really sad that the staff are so locked in. I was talking to Eric Kirsten over email a bit but that died off when Will yelled at me for 3 minutes straight in a public talk and banished me from the community forever.
I've received a ton of screenshots and texts over the years and I still don't have a good picture. I think it's a combination of the folllowing:
1. Primarily - alumni are the product Codesmith (i.e. the community IS the product, not the education) makes and the ones most bought in where the product works they protect Codesmith fervently.
2. Leaders share around some of my post and ask people or imply they should 'help out the community'. Or calling me a 'jealous hater', or that 'when you are the best people always want to take you down', stuff like that.
I saw a video once of Will Sentance from 7-8 years ago where he had almost the exact same language. I think it's one of those things that if you tell yourself the same thing for 8 years you believe it.
Either it's incompetence at not understanding the levels and confidently calling 61 senior - even though the speaker herself says 61 is "mid-level", or it's intentional manipulation. I don't think the CEO is incompetent, so...
And yeah, the talk was awesome, the alumni is awesome, it's sad she's being used for marketing in this way, she deserves better.
⚠️ WARNING: Codesmith subreddit is mostly propaganda (resharing Codesmith content without full context and boosting with positive comments from accounts that mostly post about Codesmith only). Challenges and negative comments are called "lies" and you get banned. BE SMART AND THINK CRITICALLY.
NOTE: I'm not saying the content itself isn't true or that it's bad intentioned, but I am saying that it's marketing material that missing context and it's likely the people sharing it don't even realize this. I've accumulated a lot of information over the years and while I see a **A LOT OF GOOD THINGS CODESMITH IS DOING,** the outcomes have changed dramatically in 2023-2024 and these materials are not reflecting that.
**DISCLAIMER: these are my personal opinions using publicly available information and my own insights.**
**MODERATOR NOTE: any comments talking about my own company will be delete…
I can't speak for people, the vast majority start of with: 'I'm a codesmith grad/alumni/etc... and I really appreciate you presenting things as they are. I don't agree with some of the advice and I'm majorly struggling and I feel like Codesmith isn't helping if I don't follow the norms, can you help'
And then I try genuinely hard to advise and help the people and get into conversations.
Line by Line Rebuttal to Codesmith CEO dodging question about placement rates in a challenging market
**DISCLAIMER: these views are my personal opinions as I see them and they don't represent anyone but me.**
u/WillSen If you call yourself the best of the best, you need to hold yourself to that bar and respect others who are holding you to that bar too by responding with facts and arguments to every challenge rather than ban people who point out things you don't want to answer. I'm unable to reply in the Codesmith subreddit because I'm permanently banned.
Anyways, someone asked the Codesmith CEO in an AMA today [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/codesmith/comments/1dofj3a/comment/la9fv9w/)
>There has been a large share of skepticism towards the results that Codesmith claims to produce with job acquisition rates, salaries, etc. since the company does not share its raw data, e.g., claimin…
I tell it how it is and Formation would be WAY better off if thousands of people went to bootcamps and went to Formation down the road, which is why I emphasize that these are my personal opinions. Our investors might get angry at me for deterring people away. Maybe read all of these comments instead of my little post :P: https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/s/maKdYSF2CC
Speaking on behalf of Formation, we do not accept bootcamp grads without any work experience right now and haven't for at least a year and they are not our target audience. If you are a bootcamp grad and can't get a job for a year, good luck, we can't help you, but come to Formation in a year or two after you do get a first job and we can help with the second, third, fourth, and fifth.
Thanks for sharing. This is the path Codesmith is calling the "Modern Engineer" by the way, which I strongly disagree with.... you aren't a modern engineer and instead took non SWE roles, and that's ok!!
I think your path is great for a bootcamp grad and while you aren't a SWE yet, you found a way to apply.yoir new technical skills to a more interesting job and it took a could of hops to get there.
Congrats! And good on you for keeping the motivation going.
Can I give you notes on your resume here? Happy to give via DM but it might be helpful to others to give them publicly too. This would be in a personal capacity and not representing Formation.
Your projects sound GREAT. They key is having real users and you have more than 99.5% of bootcamp grad 's personal projects.
These will help you in interviews (if you also speak about them well).
Your problem is going to be getting interviews because of lack of experience. You can't fabricate experience, but you can at least present what you have more strongly.
That said, you have a strong background for a non traditional engineer, so you have some ingredients to worth with at least.
2024 Bootcamp Predictions [MIDYEAR CHECKIN AND UPDATES!]
The past two years I've been making bootcamp predictions and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18ivago/2024_bootcamp_predictions_mega_post_revisiting_my/) is a link to my 2024 ones from six months ago.
I want to share my background for context in the spirit of openness and transparency. I try to write the best content I can, but everyone has biases and it's important to evaluate ones biases for every post you read.
BACKGROUND: I co-founded a mentorship platform and work with many bootcamp graduates as they progress in their careers and I'm a heavy contributor (and moderator) of this sub. Before this, I was at Facebook from 2009 to 2017, where I grew from intern to E7 principal engineer, conducted over 450 interviews, and participated in hiring committees. I keep in touch with hundreds of my former colleagu…
This is correct. Codesmith claims to not to ANY display advertising. Although a former employee was configuring Google Ads for them and they log a lot of stuff to various advertisers, they aren't running standard ads.
They put that budget to running free public events and their blog. Those events and posts are marketing. They were run by a marketing director (who was laid off end of last year) and they are bread and butter marketing.
Alumni telling others about Codesmith is also marketing.
At Codesmith, the **community is the product** - **you are the product** (they have almost no actual "code" that runs anything at Codesmith, just a website and a lot of Google Docs and 3rd party services) so you spreading the good word of Codesmith means they succeeded in their product efforts.
I don't care enough to deep dive, but people with all kinds of relationships have sent me screenshots of conversations and I know that at various points in time it has been a) alumni, b) staff members, c) leaders but I really have no idea who's doing it now.
What I do know is that, like all bootcamps, Codesmith isn't doing well now. They might be even doing better than many others, but as you said, best of crap might be crap - which I don't think any of the top bootcamps are at all).
The "cult vibes" I also don't have a direct source of, but I have three notes:
1. The CEO speaks about the "community" he's built over 9 years as the product that Codesmith built, not the curriculum and not the class. So if you are an alumni, you ARE THE PRODUCT of Codesmith and if they did a good job, you were produced to be a strong community member.
2. CEO Control - this is multi-part. First, they ha…
Yeah I agree. We don't have apprenticeships en masse so what should someone do? It's a free for all and I don't think there is one way to do it, but the result is bootcamp grads fighting to find edge cases and one off opportunities to get a foot in the door.
Now that the entry level market was wiped out and there are no loopholes we're seeing a bunch of bootcamps struggling and shutting down and laying off.
The response has been to rebrand tangential engineering jobs as just as good or better than SWE jobs and have people go there.
Codesmith had a grad go to Palantir as a customer support engineer and framed it as a new role for the modern engineer.... when it's an age old role that is NOT a SWE role even though it is indeed a great job.
But these are the times we're in. If there are no SWE jobs and you can't rebrand, you will fail, not enough entry level SWE jobs to make a program t…
I started a mod thread about this and was encouraged to ban all of you, which I'm not doing because I think that's wrong.
But seriously get it together and stop making stuff up, just ask and believe my answers or discuss them without making false accusations. If you don't trust me and I'm a moderator and you don't like this place, leave and go spend your time more effectively elsewhere.
I got banned from the Codesmith sub, from Codesmith CSX Slack, permanently banned from all Codesmith events, for pointing out an alumni placement they were highlight is no longer employed at the company they said he was.
Not all communities are for everyone and if this one isn't for you, you can leave!
1. As I told you privately before this post, I had our team check and we do not bid on any keywords containing the word "bootcamp" other than "formation bootcamp", and none of our Google ads say we are a bootcamp.
2. As I'm sure people here will attest, we flat out automatically reject people who don't have a year of SWE WORK experience since mid 2023. So a struggling bootcamp grad will not be a candidate for Formation right now.
3. I openly acknowledged my conflicts transparently. The individuals whose close allies have informed me lurk this sub anonymously and manipulate by engaging under the radar are who you should be going after if you care about conflicts and integrity.
Yeah I mean the number of alumni in 2023 vs 2022 is about the same and I expect 2024 to have like 1/4 of the number of alumni and they are more "ready" for the process mentally speaking. I don't know if that means they'll get more jobs.
I know Codesmith for example, people are starting to tangential jobs and be celebrated for it. Like customer support engineering roles, whereas historically people got SWE roles and all they talked about was mid level SWE.
Got long, TLDR: agree a bootcamp should do what it needs to to help you get your first job, including career services, but ultimately you are paying a bootcamp to teach out and not paying for a job and that has the following consequences.
-----
I have had super intense arguments with Codesmith people about this who adamently INSIST their lifetime mock interviews are amazing and any other service (like [Interviewing.io](http://Interviewing.io) or my company) are a waste of money.
There is a massive difference in a mock interview run like a real interview with a former Google engineer who has interviewed people on the job recently, than an alumni or teacher doing a mock interview and giving you feedback.
Notice I said "DIFFERENCE" and not that one is better or worse, both are good. The bootcamp should do what it does because it's super helpful to have multiple points of view and types…
Unofficial Analysis: a top bootcamp's 2023 grad placement rates APPEAR TO DROP ALMOST HALF from 2022 grad placement rates (from about 80% to 45%). Even the best can't beat the market right now. [Illustrative only, may contain errors]
DISCLAIMER: I'm a moderator of this sub and I'm the co-founder of mentorship and interview prep platform aimed at helping existing SWE's prepare for upcoming interviews and level up their SWE jobs. We do not compete with bootcamps but I have a conflict of interest because we work with a bunch of bootcamp grads later in their careers. More bootcamp grads === more customers in a couple years, so I believe I have a bias to encourage people to go to bootcamps rather than be doom and gloom on the industry like this post largely is. BUT having worked with so many bootcamp grads I think it's imperative people have as much information as possible if they are inve…
1. Yeah we'll see, I hope that's what happens too and it's what's broadly expected. A number of bootcamps that are not doing so well though are banking on this happening to avoid further layoffs or shutdowns. If I'm planning ahead for multiple outcomes I would bias towards your view here, but I wouldn't bank the survival of my company on it.
2. Agree to disagree, I don't think my view is the only view here and it does depend on a bunch of personal factors. Agree there are startups that can be fantastic to go to as well.
3. Yeah it's old and it's Galvanize so I assume it's bias. I have a bunch of friends leaving Climate Tech to go to AI companies, so my personal view is bias and I tried to find other resources and couldn't find any showing that Climate Tech will dominate hiring this year.
RE: CODESMITH - long story. But the triggering point is that they are an advanced bootcamp that t…
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
I mean it's very optimistic about ML creating more jobs and I share that optimism.
But at the same time, in the past year, Rithm has had layoffs, Launch Academy, Turing School, Hack Reactor, Tech Elevator, and even Codesmith has laid off almost half the staff. CodeUp shut down. Epicodus shut down.
Like I don't want to be a big rain cloud hovering over the parade, but there are legitimate concerns for a typical student looking to join a bootcamp right now that didn't exist 2+ years ago. And to not acknowledge them is irresponsible.
Acknowledging them doesn't have to be doom and gloom though.
Living in an imperfect world and trying to be bring positivity to it, doesn't have to mean you ignore anything negative.
The ones at Stanford, MIT, and CMU are haha.
I'm from Canada originally my program was 100% engineering courses other than three electives my entire four years. When I did an internship down here, I was housed with a bunch of Carnegie Mellon students and they stayed up till 2 AM every night just talking about different rhythms and technological approaches and debating the pros and cons and stuff like that. It was like a magically eye-opening experience that made me regret commuting from home.
Obviously, that's not the norm, but if you're someone like Codesmith who is comparing themselves to ivy league grad schools then that's I'm holding them to.
If you want to talk about like a decent state school compared to a Bootcamp, then I would expect graduates to also have a hard time finding jobs if they don't have a lot of internships and didn't spend most of their time engufled in software.…
Sorry to hear this and it's an unfortunate reality of the industry.
**!!! A 12 to 16 BOOTCAMP CANNOT PREPARE YOU TO BE EQUAL TO SOMEONE WITH MORE EXPERIENCE !!! EVEN CODESMITH DESPITE WHAT THEY TELL YOU (**Actually read the following notes on why everyone!)
I see day in and day out people from bootcamps, people who are self taught, CS grads, all in later stages of their careers, these are my notes:
1. Everyone is unique. Any person's unique journey cannot represent a bootcamp, a background, a city, or whatever aspects you are trying to generalize about the person.
2. Grit, hustle and effort can get you very far in this industry. If you are less experienced than a new grad and outwork them you likely will have better initial traction on your job. You might get accolades and a promotion. If you are a CS grad who has grid and hustle, it will be really hard for a bootcamp grad to outpace…
How do you know you couldn't have gotten that outcome anywhere else?
One of the interesting patterns I've observed is Codesmith students who have low self confidence + high ambition, work ethic and are naturally smart and Codesmith re-programs you to get over "importer syndrome" by building your self confidence.
I think it's incredibly amazing if a program can systematically build self confidence in people - that's like probably worth more money than any bootcamp.
But when I see people who will irrationally fight for Codesmith because it changed their lives, it feels like it's from the above \^\^\^.
The thing to watch out for is that the job is step one. Getting the right first job has a major impact on your career. Codesmith gets many people great first jobs, but more than other bootcamps, I've seen great alumni go to the wrong jobs. They posted on Reddit FERVANTLY, attacked me FERV…
I mean reading between the lines from everyone, things aren't going great and the top bootcamps aren't filling cohorts or are filling them last minute.
If there isn't demand to fill a cohort, a school has to decide - lower the bar? increase marketing costs (which can kill the company if they don't work because it's expensive)? give successful alumni free stuff to post reviews (like Codesmith is doing haha)?
Or you can accept the fact that it's not great for bootcamps and turtle up, shrink to the minimal size to survive. Don't make many changes, and try to ride out the market.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Similar to other feedback, this person graduated Codesmith in 2017, and has had 3 jobs since then and her trajectory and path don't reflect what a person going to Codesmith today will experience.
I love reading profiles about people and their trajectories and I loved reading this post, I'm just giving feedback that Codesmith needs to deal with the market today more directly and not the market they want to have. And appeal to people who they think will succeed in this market through Codesmith.
I would love to read a profile about someone who is struggling on the job market and doesn't have a job yet and how much they love Codesmith anyways and how Codesmith is helping them the best they can. That is representative of the common grad right now unlike when the person above graduated and started their career.
u/michaelnovatireplied·DELETED · archived copy★ FEATURED
Prior experience as a SWE or prior experience in tech? Those are two completely different things. Prior experience as a legit SWE, do not do Codesmith. Prior experience as SWE-adjacent or other tech role, consider Codesmith.
Since you are answering this "Official AMA" representing Codesmith, be careful misrepresenting the company.
The vast majority of alumni according to your own data had no prior SWE experience and it's not even super correlated to Codesmith outcomes (it is a bit, but not really).
If you haven't seen your own data ask for it before trusting other Codesmith staff.
The one off single anecdote about a PayPal manage graduated Codesmith SIX YEARS AGO and took THREE YEARS to become a manager.
I'm familiar with all three of those grads actually yeah, but I'm curious what data is backing this narrative. From hearing Will it seems to hypothesis on the idea that "capacities" are all that matters, but no one is giving me hard experimental evidence this hypothesis stands up - it's all anecdotal and quotes from individual alumni. And all you need is single counter examples to disprove a hypothesis so this is not a valid argument and I want to know more!!!
Like I know these people and I wouldn't say these are reproducible paths that any Codesmith student could choose to follow.
For example, if you had a bunch of alumni at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity and generalized from them and resulted in each person with a unique path, that would make more sense to me.
But if everyone is a unique case not in these large scale consistent AI roles as hiring managers and building orgs of tho…
Hi James! I have some tough questions about the logistics. Codesmith markets itself as the best so I have some tough questions I expect answers to from the best :D.
1. How do systematically measure the impact of curriculum updates on placements and outcomes?
2. Related to 1, how do decide what updates to make based on the job market? For example, I have talked to a bunch of the top AI companies and if you aren't being hired for an ML role with a PhD and 10 years of ML experience, they don't actually want or need any AI experienced whatsoever to hire you for product and infra roles. So I'm curious where the decision to add AI/ML comes from if it's not related to getting people jobs.
3. How do you systematically identify and prioritize "best practices across the software engineering landscape"? I'm aware of a survey that's given to alumni and a curriculum panel of 6 or so alumni in in…
I would probably talk way less about Codesmith if their CEO commented on here, because the discussions would be efficient. I will absolutely grill him on the facts, but respect his views and people would efficiently see different sides of the argument, no name calling and anonymous attacks from people making false assumptions.
Without that voice, we have a dozen alumni contributing pieces of that discussion and not being qualified to respond to challenges about the pedagogy and strategy.
Conflicts of interest exist whether you call them out or not and a lot of people have them... discussing what I may or may not have is an incredibly fortunate opportunity we're in.
Imagine anonymous accounts claiming to be normal alumni that are people employed by a school with no way to check it out.
Or people claiming they got a job with no experience but their LinkedIn says they have "10 years of experience" and I can't say anything without DOX'ing them.
These are two cases I know about and can't say anything about without DOX'ing people and how I know, but these kinds of things go completely UNQUESTIONED because people are non transparent like I am.
I except to be respectfully challenged but that also involves listening to what I say and judging the facts and not making false conclusions because you are suspicious.
Hi, yeah there just aren't that many of us around because it's kind of a new idea. We compete with Pathrise and Interview Kickstart directly. Interview Prep or Career Accelerator maybe?
The idea of getting like a "personal trainer" for your career is kind of new and some people are still shy about sharing that they went to these places.
As you pointed out it's crazy different to have like 10+ year Google hiring managers who have really seen a lot and genuinely have insights advise you than at a bootcamp where an alumni who worked at Google for a year is advising you who hasn't interviewed anyone yet, neverless managed, or done dozens of hiring committee reviews, etc...
On the recruitment side, it's not super lucrative yet for these companies. There are still so many people applying naturally big tech doesn't really need to partner with anyone and there has to be a reason. Will these c…
Another CIRR school pauses enrollment due to the market. Bootcamps have to face reality or they will not survive 2024. If you are looking at bootcamp that doesn't warn you about the market for bootcamp grads, run for the hills!
SOURCE: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/launch-academy-announces-strategic-pause-immersive-pamjc/)
Selected Excerpts:
>While our graduates are of high caliber, there is a difficult cognitive leap for hiring managers to overcome when comparing our entry-level graduates with established engineers affected by recent layoffs. With such an ample supply of the latter, it leaves the former at a strategic disadvantage. Even with the best available preparation, there is no substitute for work experience.
>
With so much seniority in the job market, it's difficult even for the str…
Lying on your resume works, but it's kind of like being the person who always "takes a penny" and never leaves one in the "take a penny leave a penny" jar.
If everyone takes a penny, there's nothing left for anyone, including the people who actually need a penny.
RE: Background checks. It will absolutely come up with legit companies that run standard background checks through Hire Right and Checkr, etc...
What will happen is it will come back as "unable to verify" and the consequences are up to the company to decide if they care or not.
Some companies care about date discrepancies and some don't, and the magnitude of the discrepencies matter.
I know a common strategy amongst alum from Codesmith is to exaggerate on their resumes with a footnote that their experience is "developed under OSLabs".
When it comes to the background check, even though it's on the resume, a person can not…
There is only about 6 or 7 weeks of materials and you spend like 1 to 2 days on major topics that individually take months to become even intermediate in.
You work on projects and get trained in how to communicate in your resume in messaging how to pass recruiting screens.
I pulled up the LinkedIns five people who just released one of their projects called ReacType and all five of them portrayed this project as full-time software engineer work at a Company for 3 months without specifying that it was a open source group project for a bootcamp and that it was 4 weeks of work.
Yeah sure DM me, I talked to a good number of people about bringing out of Codesmith is a good fit or not them.
If you are a good fit for how it actually works under the hood than it is a very, very uniquely good place to go.
If you are not a good fit for how it works under the hood. then you will not be so ha…
Yeah it's really a good option if you live in NYC and meet the stringent criteria.
You are required to have little to no programming experience, and Codesmith claims that CSX's free curriculum prepares people to be junior engineers.
So presumably to qualify you can't even have don't CSX and have to be REALLY beginner.
I'm curious how the people will place and what kinds of jobs they'll get, the info says people are targeting $65K jobs which is lower than Codesmith's median Immersive ENTRANCE STUDENT HAS!!
The other risk is the time - 8 hours days 9 to 5 for 6 months is a VERY long time. People can't work day jobs and have to work nights and weekends, and that's not easy.
But all of this aside, if you meet the requirements and this works for you, this is a great option FOR FREE!!! compared to a lot of other options you have.
Codesmith has been asking alumni to write reviews over the past two weeks, resulting in 14 reviews in the past 2 weeks after having 2 reviews in the 3 MONTHS prior.
Can you DM me with more information about who is choosing between Codesmith and Formation? I think you have a super wrong view about what Formation is and does. If you don't want to reach out to clear this up, please refrain from misrepresenting Formation.
**12 out of 14 mention they were career switching and 2 don't say either way. ZERO of these alumni would have been admitted to Formation when they started Codesmith. 100% of them might be admitted to Formation now as alumni and moved on. And our new data (to be published Friday) shows that we helped engineers who placed in 2024 so far increase their first year total comp by** [**$109K**](https://formation.dev/terms#outcomes)
**So if anything, Codesmith + Formation would…
1. "I know people from Codesmith"... yes but if you look at all the Codesmith students you see that it is a very small number of people compared to the "3500+" alumni. Outside of Capital One, Amazon is a highest with a couple dozen, Apple, Google, Intuit, Square are single digit-ish special cases.... out of 3500 people. I'm not making any comments about Codesmith here, like if it can get 5 out of 100 people amazing outcomes then that's notable, but anyone who portrays that as the norm is misleading people as to how Codesmith works - that's my point. If I think you have a very strong chance of being one of those people, I will 100%, no strings attached, recommend you go to Codesmith, and I actively try to do that.
2. 100% agree Codesmith does NOT encourage any lying. It's almost awkward how they tell you so upfront "don't lie". But I thoroughly agree with this. That said, I cought the Di…
The resume itself would get through to an interview, and a recruiter or hiring manager at a big tech company would definitely figure it out during the interview.
I think this is why Codesmith grads who do this approach specifically typically end up at smaller companies. By the time they get the interview, if they do well, the companies is more open to taking a chance at that point... and like you said, they don't always do or care about background checks.
At Meta, the hiring committees will grill your resume too and it's just not possible to get through without having several errors take place. It's why if you look carefully at the Codesmith alumni at Meta, most were TEMPORARY CONTRACTORS FOR A CONTRACTING COMPANY!! and didn't work there, one or two were in non-SWE roles, and almost all of them are no longer there.
So short answer - it works at smaller companies and that's why Codesm…
It depends on what kinds of jobs and how you are framing your resume.
I've seen LinkedIn after LinkedIn full if extreme exaggerations and it might not even matter what you say about your bootcamp :(
Example:
There is a Codesmith grad that has the following LinkedIn (I'm not disclosing it for DOXing reasons but I'm characterizing it 100% accurately):
Jan 2024-Present: Senior Software Developer: - Large Fashion Company
Jul 2023-Dec 2023: Software Engineer, Contract - Small Company
->\[NOTE: Undisclosed subsidiary of the bootcamp itself\]
Jan 2023-Dec 2023: Software Engineer - Small Company
->\[NOTE: Undisclosed bootcamp side project framed as a company\]
Jan 2022-Jan 2023: Software Engineer - Small Company
->\[NOTE: Undisclosed 4 week long bootcamp group project framed as a company with no mention of the bootcamp\]
2016-2022: Full Stack Web Developer - Self Employer
-…
+1 to the industry needs to stop focusing on outcomes. I push the arguments for this a lot and often and get tremendous pushback from the Codesmith alumni and staff (including a leader that pushed back publicly).
Bootcamps shouldn't be 12 weeks and they shouldn't be about getting jobs only. Those types of bootcamps are done and over with.
They should be about the quality of the experience and education and about marketing to the right people that they think their program will work for.
It's why I push back on CIRR trying to force bootcamps into joining it by asking students to demand CIRR outcomes.
It's not 2021 and people focused on outcomes only are joining bootcamps for the wrong reasons - whether it ends up working or not.
In terms of ISAs though I just think you have to think of it as a loan nothing more. You have 3 options:
1. pay $X upfront
2. pay $Y a month for 4 years on…
Thanks that helps!
There are a few routes:
1. Try to get a data analyst-type internship this summer AND/or aim for data analyst jobs that will give you the chance to do scripting and coding on the job. And THEN try to transition to being a SWE - ideally at the same company by converting jobs there.
2. Do a post-bacc or extend a year and cram in as many CS courses as you can, and then go for new grad CS jobs. Big opportunity to cost to not working for a year, and a job is far from guaranteed, but his will give you the best computer science education.
3. Do a bootcamp. This is fast, so you don't lose as much opportunity cost from time. BUT bootcamps outcomes rely on a lot of luck right now and it's far from guaranteed. The cost is also probably higher than another year at Sac State (but arguably wouldn't matter because of the opportunity cost). If it doesn't work out, you don't rea…
Codesmith's new Future Code Program is coming together, (free program for NY residents with no programming experience, aiming for a $65K+ first computer job), applications in May, starts July 29th
This page has been around for a while but it's coming together and just updated with the dates and more info about the program: [https://www.codesmith.io/future-code-nyc](https://www.codesmith.io/future-code-nyc)
This is a great program if you meet the requirements below!
Note that you have to have **"Limited or no prior experience with the basics of coding, no paid professional web development or similar experience, and do not have a Computer Science degree"**
It's going to be very interesting to see how these alumni market their experience and resumes and what jobs they end up getting.
The job market is tough and maybe the government has jobs lined up, otherwise this might be the only ti…
1. I've explained numerous times why Formation doesn't publish CIRR or similar outcomes and that we aren't a coding bootcamp.
Since you seem to know Formation better than I do, explain to me what "graduation" means at Formation? This is the core principal of all bootcamp outcome standards that I can't figure out what that means for us.
If you can't explain "graduation" accurately then just back off and stop spreading nonsense about us. If you can thoughtfully read the specs and propose what it means for us, then we can talk keep talking about it productively about why I agree or not.
2. We advertise all over Reddit and we re-target people who visit our website. Drawing false conclusions is not fact. Raw data is fact. So asking "Why do I see ads for Formation in this sub?" and getting a completely open and transparent answer is exactly what I'm talking about being open and transparent…
Line-by-Line Critique of CIRR Standard Document. Opinion: good intentioned organization but spec is not rigorous and robust and I point out all of the problems that make it one of the weaker specifications I've read in my opinion.
There have been numerous discussions around CIRR lately and there are too many words being thrown around, along with ad hominem attacks, and no one other than me seems to be reading the standard - even the CIRR board misquoted it.
I refuse to debate anyone further on here until they acknowledge this post and read it because any counter arguments not based on a thorough analysis of the spec are garbage conversations that don't belong on here. Thoughtful debates over lines of the spec are appreciated.
This is long and thorough and if it's too boring for you to read the whole thing then don't share your opinions about it.
If someone calls CIRR "**rigorous"**,…
1. This is a completely different thread about CIRR and you didn't give any context, didn't give any feedback privately or on that other thread, and are bringing it up here on a thread about Codesmith - all without any context. **I absolutely copied that comment from that person from CSX Slack in that thread,** and I don't apologize for it at all. Anonymizing a comment from a 20,000 public Slack community that anyone is invited to join is not morally or ethically wrong.
2. She said she was new to the community and then that "we" (without clarifying) started the Codesmith sub for "especially those who are new to Codesmith like me!"... to me that implied that all the people who started it were new to the community. I agree this could be ambiguous, and I think I should have stated something like 'I am interpreting this to mean that it was started from people only new to the community for p…
I stay told to not comment on the AMA, but my questions weren't critical. they were just hard questions. They are looking at data intelligently and asking questions from it. I saw a Launch School AMA where all of the questions were like that and they were extremely strong supporters of the program that asked them.
I was super concerned that the Codesmith poster also expressed concern that she feels like I'm ever present in her work and I have no idea where that came from and I've never seen her before until the call yesterday that they had where I was present camera on with my full name.
Codesmith shares so much student and user information, code, content widely that if she is unaware of that I think that that's on them to figure out and not to blame on me. But now I see where this attitude comes from. If a leader feels like that, it tells me they have absolutely no clue whatsoever how…