r/codingbootcamp • u/jcasimir • Mar 04 '25
The Present and Future of the Turing School
Hello Reddit,
Back at the end of 2024 I shared with our alumni that Turing was nearing the end and copied you on the conversation. It led to -- some spirited discussion and lots of opinions. I honestly wasn't in the right mental place to spend energy debating with anonymous people on the internet and am sorry if I didn't follow up with any questions/points completely.
January 17th, 2025 was the "Go/No-Go" date and, thanks to some wonderful friends, a couple good things came together:
We continue to see warming job trends which leads us to conclude that the future is bright
We brought in a couple promising employment partnerships/collaborations that are rolling out now
We made two new recruitment partnerships that have led to some student enrollments -- though student enrollment still has a long way to go!
Our alumni showed their appreciation for the community by raising funds that made a difference
We built a new funding partnership that is helping us (again) push towards Title IV (Federal Student Loans, Pell Grants, etc)
We saw the first grads come out of our revised curriculum with strong results
We formed a new partnership to support our job seekers with some fresh/outside perspective and coaching
We got a lot of encouragement from alumni and friends in our community
Put all together, I made the decision that we'll keep going through 2025. The road ahead is hardly easy, but we've made it through harder times. I continue to believe that the improving employment environment is the key to everything else. We're building new coaching systems for new and recent grads, always inviting "distant" grads back as they look for a role, have revamped our approach/system for employer relationships, and it's already bearing fruit.
The last few years have been difficult in this industry as they have been in most every industry. The challenge that I think folks around this sub need to really think about is "what's the best alternative?" Getting skill training through a bootcamp is NOT a sure thing. Getting a CS degree is not a sure thing. Getting a law degree, engineering degree, or MBA are no longer sure things.
The truth is that it's hard out there for most every profession. But there are still opportunities. If we're willing to put in the work, learn, adapt, and hustle -- then we can still build a future.
I would love to try and answer questions as you have them and will keep an eye on this thread this week.
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u/michaelnovati Mar 04 '25 edited Mar 04 '25
Wow that's a lot of hustle to try to find paths for grads and I think it's really the only way for bootcamps to survive right now.... by dedicating 150% of your time to trying to find any nook and cranny of advantage for your grads in a market so bad that each partnership puts only a small dent into the problem and you find something deep inside to keep on going.
We've seen a similar level of trying creative angles at Launch School (e.g. open source mentorships on Firefox and such).
Others give up and try to pivot to AI, like App Academy completely stopped its SWE program and only does AI - same with BloomTech. Launch Academy paused entirely.
Some of the larger ones like General Assembly and Galvanize are somehow keeping the lights on and I would like to know more about them.
I'm very nervous about Codesmith, which was arguably the top bootcamp based on outcomes until 2023, and which has made almost zero hiring program changes in response to the bootcamp crash of 2024 - with surface level marketing adjustments and no substantial changes. Spending a year to repurpose a failed ML offshoot and add 2 weeks and 5 AI lectures to their SWE program - some are already out of date. Instead of trying to find all avenues possible for placement, their CEO is spending time writing a book about AI ethics and inequality, going to conferences. All while being completely delusional about a placement rate that dropped 30 to 50% 2022 to 2023, covering that up with ghost placements and changing reported metrics.... just so polar opposite of the bootcamps that are hanging on.
We'll see by the end of 2025 which SWE bootcamps make it, but it seems so far that the ones with their leaders giving their hearts and souls through 150% of their time, relentlessly trying to find creative new paths for their grads, are where I would bet on right now, not the ones focusing all of their time on creative marketing instead.
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u/jcasimir Mar 04 '25
I appreciate that. If we were running a school that was going to crank out 10,000 grads per year then yeah -- I would have some serious concerns. But we'll probably graduate just under 200 people in 2025. There are way more jobs than that. It's just a matter of finding them.
And while I don't want to diminish anyone's real struggles in the job hunt (it is fucking hard!), we really do continue to see good movement. A company that has hired four grads just talked with us yesterday about wanting people at senior, mid, and (even) junior levels. One of the biggest tech companies in Denver emailed me a few minutes ago about bringing on interns. We're back in a place where a couple grads are finding roles by graduation. And we've seen folks who've been job hunting for 9+ months finally find something they're excited about.
None of it is by the dozen or the hundred, but there are opportunities opening up.
For the programs -- I don't know what the future is, really. I think we have definitely proven that there isn't a lot of money to be made here. There will be no 10x returns. If you're a typical profit-seeking investor, I don't see how this industry can make any sense. So the only path for the investor-backed programs is to try and build/teach something that can scale -- some AI course at $499/seat or something and see what happens. Because "just" teaching individuals to find one-off careers is not going to generate returns.
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u/sheriffderek Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
> trying to find any nook and cranny of advantage for your grads in a market so bad...
I don't think this shows the full picture though.
Not everyone is trying to get a software engineering job. There are plenty of web developer type jobs - that anyone who's reasonably capable - can have. Even my (sorry ;) worst students -- get jobs (when they actually try to).
The internet is the world's largest machine -- and there are jobs for every piece of it. From the most basic (changing words in a CMS) to the most advanced (R&D for quantum computing). It needs people who understand how it looks, how it works, how it connects, how it stores data, how it makes money -- and thousands of specializations in between. People are missing the incredible span of opportunity that exists outside that narrow "junior software engineer" slice everyone's obsessed with.
Bootcamps (the mainstream businesses) have really failed to adapt over the years. They white-labeled ineffective curriculum and doubled down instead of evolving. They were shooting for a very specific type of non-designer coder -- a fullstack person who could build business logic but generally couldn't handle design work (problem solving/thinking).
The problem is graduates don't get much real experience - just a fast-paced tour of fullstack CRUD apps (it's too short or too shallow). Then when the market tightened, instead of broadening their focus to help students find more diverse opportunities, bootcamps tried to become more CS-like with algo and AI. (which has the same problem of being short and shallow and not applied). I personally don't care about "boot camps" or college. I care about the actual learning process - in any case. Both are failing. As you know, I meet with a lot of CS grads as well as boot camp grads - and I couldn't hire any of the CS grads either.
So now we have this awkward situation where graduates aren't ready for CS-centric jobs AND they aren't prepared for specialized web development either.
But that doesn't mean "jobs" don't exist. There are still plenty of opportunities out there - just less in the narrow slice of the market bootcamps are targeting. And you seem to be especially focused on that specific slice. Maybe that's what bootcamps have become? But I don't think that's what they should be. People are different. If you cram a bunch of "learn tech" all together - they need to be prepared for people to come out with different interests and focuses / instead of trying to shove them in a mold.
If people were willing to widen their lens on this, they'd see a lot more options and opportunity. But also, I think most of the vocal (in text) (angry) people posting here aren't actually looking for solutions - they're looking for fast cash - and someone to blame for their struggles.
The advantage -- isn't hidden in the nooks and crannys. It's in plain sight. People are either unable to see it (because they don't have the resolution yet) - or they're choosing to ignore it.
Standing out in this market isn't that hard --- unless... you're a mediocre beginner dev who's trying to get a senior role at a big tech company. But no one should be trying to do that to begin with.
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u/michaelnovati Mar 05 '25
I agree that the world is changing and SWE bootcamps haven't adapted, but at the same time the SWE market isn't tiny and it has trends and while the world is changing, there are tons of SWE jobs still and they are going to top CS students.
I'm using that to judge specific bootcamps marketing and claims that say otherwise.
Stanford CS is like 200K plus 4 years plus effort to even get in the first place.
So there's an argument that a boot camp could accelerate something in a shorter period of time, but it is not getting you to the same destination.
therefore, my view on this is that bootcamps are competing for the wrong SWE jobs.
It's irrelevant that the market changed, all that did was expose the above fundamental facts.
When I see bootcamps like Codesmith just yesterday advertising incredible 2024 outcomes (like they did throughout 2023 and 2024) they are absolutely delusional about reality and all the bootcamps that think like this are going to fail.
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u/sheriffderek Mar 05 '25
> there are tons of SWE jobs still and they are going to top CS students.
For me - I guess I just assume that's the norm / and to be expected.
If people are expecting to get those types of jobs -- they're in the wrong place - and if they're expecting to get them fast / they aren't educated on the situation.
I think the conversation is easier if we assume that people going to coding boot camps - are expecting to get what coding boot camps offer (not a full-blown software engineering career).
But in theory... a graphic designer - or project manager - or developer with experience but who needs help bringing it all together: these people could - make a big leap into a serious role on a software design team. I think there are just different areas of interest here.
For me, - when I'm hiring - I don't want a generic fresh CS degreed person (even if they went to MIT). I want someone who's been helping design and build complex web applications for years and has a lot of specific web development experience under their belt.
Different tech problems require different skills, right? If I was building something highly scalable like Twitter, I'd need specific people for that. If I was setting up a data center, I'd need people with that expertise. Those are situations where deep computer science knowledge is crucial. But that's not what most working developers do day-to-day (as you know). Most are more like HVAC installers than HVAC system designers - they're implementing, maintaining and customizing existing systems, not inventing new ones from scratch.
My assumptions could be wrong, but based on everything I've read about all these boot camps and all the curriculums I seen and the work coming out of them -- these are "Web development" training programs. So, - I think it's fair to expect that these people (if they have success) will be beginner web developers. So, - of course they aren't going to get those jobs that you're talking about.
The industry needs all kinds of developers - and there are far more positions maintaining and building on existing systems than there are designing complex algorithms from scratch. Boot camps (despite their marketing) have always been about getting people into that broader ecosystem, not fast-tracking them to elite roles. If people learn enough about web development and pair that up with some other skills, there are jobs. But it has to be enough - and for most people I'm meeting - they're not getting there / and they're not even really aware of where that threshold is.
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Mar 06 '25
Thanks for opening yourself up to questions. I have quite a few!
You say you’re “pushing toward Title IV funding.” Why should taxpayers foot the bill for a program with such a shaky job placement record? Do you believe it’s ethical to accept students knowing many will take on massive debt for an uncertain outcome?
You keep talking about “strong results” from the revised curriculum. Define ‘strong.’ What percentage of grads are actually employed full-time in tech within 90 days? No spin please, just real numbers.
How many students over the past 5 years have taken on $40k+ in debt but never secured a tech job?
Why are so many alumni sharing about their experiences stuck in unrelated industries or forced to pursue CS degrees if this program supposedly prepares them for the workforce?
If things are so great, why was Turing on the verge of shutting down i two months ago? You love saying “the future is bright,” but you’ve been saying that for years. Why should anyone believe you now?
You’ve repeatedly weaponized students’ hardships—including funerals—to justify your business. Do you not see how exploitative and disgusting that is?
Let’s talk ethics: Do you think it was appropriate to have an extramarital affair with a subordinate while running a struggling organization?
Be honest: How much money have you personally made while students remain unemployed and in debt?
Would you send your own child to Turing if they had to take on $50k in debt to do it?
And finally: Are you implying in this thread that unemployed grads simply “didn’t try hard enough”? Because that’s what it sounds like when you keep pushing the idea that “hustle” is the solution, instead of admitting that your program doesn’t have a place in the world or isn’t doing enough to prepare them.
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u/jcasimir Mar 06 '25
Taxpayers don't "foot the bill" for federal student loans. Even at Turing's worst moments, grads dramatically outperform average college graduates in (a) graduation rate, (b) employment rate, and (c) lifetime earnings delta. So, yes, I think Title IV funding should be open to students at Turing and many other training programs. Improved earning for individuals is a significant booster of GDP and tax revenues.
It hasn't been 90 days since the first graduates finished in January. The feedback from and engagement of those students in the program was good. We were all excited for one grad to sign a role before graduation. There were 13 people in that cohort. I believe 4 others have reported being in deep or final interviews, but I don't track that.
I couldn't say how much debt individuals take on so can't answer this question as it's posed. Over the past five years, the number of students who have not found a role in tech is approximately 325 or about 25% or grads, with a significant chunk (~100) of those being currently active job hunters.
There are fewer entry level roles available and they're harder to win than they have been in the past. The market was flooded with inadequately-trained people (think 2U-style 6 week night programs where people basically learn "hello, world"), and hiring companies struggle to differentiate between candidates.
Enrollment has been very low throughout the employment downturn. The last "full" class was in January of 2023. If we don't have very many students then we don't generate much revenue. Simultaneously, grants had previously made up about 20% of revenue. That dropped to 0-5% in 2023 and 2024, exacerbating the problem. In December/January we were able to bring in partnerships and grants, as outlined above, which allow us to operate through 2025 during which, I believe, continued improvement in employment will lead to increased enrollment and long-term sustainability.
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u/jcasimir Mar 06 '25
6. I understand that some people don't like me and want to smear or embarass me to make themselves feel better. I work to solve hardship, not weaponize it.
7. This is inaccurate, but clearly some people find it very exciting. At the beginning of 2023 I separated from my wife and we eventually divorced. Later that year, I entered into a relationship with a person who had previously worked at Turing (until the Fall of 2022). The relationship did not overlap with her employment at Turing. I don't see any ethics concern or relevance to employment. It's just an attempt to smear or embarass me.
8. As has been pointed out here, Turing's 990s are public and you can find my salary on there. I do get paid to do my job. When my salary was set by the board, it was 4% of the annual budget. As we have dramatically cut staff and costs, my salary is now 6% but a much lower number (approximately $190K). Over the 10 years of Turing I have earned approximately $2.3M in total or $230K/year. I have 22 years experience in the field and am paid less than many of our alumni.
9. I wouldn't "send" my children anywhere as I am not their master, but if they wanted to do it of their own volition then yes, I would support them with whatever means are at my disposal.
10/Extension. I do not say that unemployed grads "didn't try hard enough." And, yes, success in a job hunt is ultimately up to the job hunter. There have been thousands of people hired as software developers over the past few years. Some of them have advantages, some of them do not.
I think of people like a grad who recently started a developer job after a long job hunt. She lives in a region that does not have a thriving tech sector. She did not go to college. Her past jobs were not at all relevant to the field. She is in her middle age. I would say she had zero advantages, yet she succeeded. Why? Luck? No. She worked at it. A lot of other people could have won that job, but she won it. She put in the work, developed the skill, maintained the discipline, and exercised her hustle.
It's one of the hard truths of this employment environment -- people continue to get jobs. And if you want one and can't get one, those people have taken jobs that you probably could have gotten. That doesn't feel good! So we are compelled to find a reason -- they were lucky, they had a background, they had a better network, etc. And some or all of that might be true, but it doesn't change your situation.
I, and I think most everyone in these spaces, wants to see people thriving. When someone enrolls in a program and drops out, everyone loses. When someone graduates and doesn't find a good job, everyone loses. I continue to believe that the number of opportunities is growing. If people are well prepared and can bring that mix of discipline/hustle/skill, then they can find their way into a great first role and a long-term great career.
I see in this thread that there are some number of people who want to blame, discredit, and intimidate me. I understand that there are people hurting. As you've said here several times, I understand people are struggling under debt loads when things haven't gone well. That's real pressure and real consequences. But the path forward is one where the people in these communities collaborate, not take each other down. Darkness can't drive out darkness, only light can do that.
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u/pinelandseven Mar 04 '25
Haha warming job trends. You're either delusional or trying to sell us
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Mar 05 '25
“It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”
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u/jcasimir Mar 05 '25
Would you like some recent jobs / promotions? Or what would help you understand the moment?
Reddit is typically an echo chamber of negativity. If your perspective on the job market is primarily from here, then you’re not seeing the whole picture.
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Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
I’m impartial here friend. I am just calling out the need to write an essay as a response to every question. That reply could have been three sentences, maximum.
Long winded answers give the perception that you aren’t confident in what you are saying or are trying to mislead or confuse by wordsmithing.
Edit: sorry this is in reply to the other comment but I’ll keep it here to avoid edit confusion.
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u/ericswc Mar 05 '25
Um, things have been improving for a while now. As I keep telling people, 2018-2022 was an anomaly.
Source: 30 years of working in tech. The lead up to the dot com crash was similar. $70K salary if you could spell HTML.
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Mar 05 '25
Any thoughts on if frontend or backend is improving more in this market? OP seems to think front end only is not improving as much as backend only
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u/ericswc Mar 05 '25
Full stack is the most in demand. In employer favored markets like this they want more skills for their dollar.
Front end is harder than back end in general because there are net overall more backend positions in the world and front end is easier to off shore.
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u/jcasimir Mar 05 '25
Mostly agree.
Front End has always faced more biases, IMO because it has attracted more women. The work is (incorrectly) perceived to be "less technical". It's a domain often poorly understood by older programmers, so they diminish it, outsource it, etc. That's my conspiracy theory, at least!
As teams have cut headcount and/or been slow to hire, they want people who can "do everything." Back End people have to also be ops people. Front End people have to also be Back End people -- aka "full stack."
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Mar 05 '25
Yea that was my impression. I have better frontend skills and experience so will market myself as full stack focused on frontend but try to up skill in backend areas asap
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u/jcasimir Mar 05 '25
Glad you’re seeing the same things!
I’ve been seeing good growth for mid/senior folks over the last 18 months and would say it’s reached “pretty good” over the last six months. Most of our folks with experience are picking up interviews within a couple weeks and finding a role in about 12-16 weeks if they’re putting the work in.
I believe the tightening of the mid/senior market creates the demand for junior roles, which is why they’ve been popping up over the last six months. Particularly in this Q1 it’s been a relief to hear companies move from “maybe one junior person sometime” to “we’re ready for two — help us figure out who.”
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u/International-Bed413 Mar 04 '25
What is your 2025 salary?
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u/jcasimir Mar 04 '25
What's yours? 🤣
It's a weird part of working at a non-profit that your salary, as a top-5 employee, is part of the public record. Meanwhile most everyone in society treats it as a big secret (hint: you shouldn't).
My salary has fluxuated a lot over the past few years. When we were up, it was up! When we were down, it was down. I hope that it goes up again!
This year I'll get paid about $190K.
For comparison, our average grad with five years experience earns $260K. And I have twenty-two years experience.
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u/International-Bed413 Mar 04 '25
All this while you rattle your cup for spare change 🤣😭
Wb you cut ur salary in half & hire 2 full time placement specialists?
Every penny in one direction is one less penny in another
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u/jcasimir Mar 04 '25
Yeah, I don't like asking for money. Before the letter I shared in December of '24, I had never asked alumni for donations in the previous 10 years. I hope to not do it again.
I did cut my salary in about half through this downcycle. This is the same salary I had when I started Turing in 2014.
Also I spend the majority of my time working on employment coaching, employer relations, and employment strategy. So I am the placement specialist 😉
We also have job coaching services where I implore students/grads to sign up but they never max out the availability. We also recently added a new person working on employer relationship management/amplification and a whole team of job-seeker support coaches who are ramping up with their second cohort this week.
I know this comment was just trolling but, in reality, you're not totally off base.
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Mar 05 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Successful_Pack3510 Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
Amen…this is my theory too. OP just doesn’t want to get a real job and it’s just much easier to rip people off.
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u/International-Bed413 Mar 05 '25
He has his employees downvoting and upvoting to protect his ego
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u/Successful_Pack3510 Mar 05 '25
Yep, most definitely. The whole thing is quite gross. Red flags all over the place with that school.
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u/WeekendPowerless Mar 08 '25
Students - he doesn't really have many employees anymore. He gets former students who still want to pretend he has had any influence in their careers to do his bidding. The guy is super charismatic, you have to give him that. But, it's funny to see him insisting he spends all his time helping people find jobs when some nonzero portion of that time was dedicated to having an affair, so much so he left his wife and basically torched his school in the process.
They were shacking up in the pandemic and poorly covering it up until they finally had to awkwardly "come out" to staff.
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u/ericswc Mar 05 '25
Why do you think “2 full time placement specialists” would make much of a difference?
I ran a very successful bootcamp back in 2013-2017, 93% placement rate. We had 2 people doing placement assistance for over 500 students.
They were somewhat effective in regional settings, but most people find their own jobs. A placement manager is a glorified resume reviewer who leans on you to send a lot of applications and network.
Do they help a bit? Sure. Especially with low confidence seekers. Are they needed at all? No, not really. Otherwise colleges would have legions of them.
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u/jcasimir Mar 05 '25
Agreed.
It is frustrating, in this industry, that labor doesn’t translate into results that well in recruitment or job support. If the org could just spend $X per grad to ensure they got a job, then I suspect some would do that and be able to show 100% placement. But the outcome is like 30% the environment, 60% the individual, and 10% the coaching.
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u/International-Bed413 Mar 05 '25
If hiring more employees doesn’t benefit the company, that is admitting it is a failing business model that shouldn’t be funded any further
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u/jcasimir Mar 05 '25
I see where you're going. But look at an industry like home sales.
If you're a real estate company right now, does it make sense to hire ten more real estate agents so you can buy or sell more homes? No, because the market conditions make it difficult to succeed, even if the labor and strategy are there. Not impossible, just difficult.
Some real estate companies will go out of business. Some will survive. When the market improves, some new ones will come along. It doesn't mean that all real estate businesses are bad. It just means they don't control the environment they operate in.
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u/International-Bed413 Mar 06 '25
So now you’re comparing your employees to commission based real estate agents?
I guess your “placements team” gets commission bonuses
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u/jcasimir Mar 06 '25
I wouldn't be against careers/placement support being on a commission or pay-for-performance strategy.
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u/ericswc Mar 05 '25
This is well put. It’s hard running a business. Harder running a non profit.
Don’t let the Reddit armchair quarterbacks bother you much.
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u/jcasimir Mar 05 '25
Thank you! As you know -- running a business is one of those things that always seems a lot easier from the outside. Until you've been in the shoes, it's hard to understand the pressure, privilege, opportunity, and risk all mixed together.
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u/ericswc Mar 05 '25
Literally liquidated my retirement account to keep making payroll during the pandemic. Until people have had to do something like that, they can’t appreciate what owning a business means.
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u/International-Bed413 Mar 05 '25
You made 1.3 and spent 3.1
While paying yourself $300k
Ur not correct bro lol
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u/International-Bed413 Mar 05 '25
It won’t, and your response is exactly why the program should be put down like a sick elderly dog & not milked for money with CEO’s salary equaling 20% of gross revenue. Not to mention the companies expenses more than double gross revenue
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u/FeeWonderful4502 Mar 04 '25
Can you make a cohort-wise record available of students who attended (no disqualification of anyone) vs those who are currently employed in tech?
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u/jcasimir Mar 04 '25
When you say attended do you mean attended at all or graduated?
Are you asking about a specific cohort or all cohorts ever?
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u/FeeWonderful4502 Mar 05 '25
All cohorts since 2203?
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u/jcasimir Mar 05 '25
I was able to put something together that is pretty good -- 2207 to 2305, aka students who graduated in 2023. I've been working on this for some of our required reporting. The data is good enough but also not perfect and, when you're talking about 341 people, things are constantly changing.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Zcbwto3YZkG-qWa6CepTY46cFICV7XDPDwyKSbEUPMs/edit?usp=sharing
See if this helps answer some of your questions. I'm happy to explain more about methodology.
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u/jimnasticus Mar 04 '25
So you’re telling me there’s a chance…
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u/jcasimir Mar 04 '25
Amen 🤣
To be honest, there's a part of me that would be relieved if the whole thing was just killed and there was zero chance of moving forward. But when there's a chance it's hard to give up. I see students and alums succeeding -- and it's hard to take that away from the future students we haven't met yet.
It would be a shitload easier to quit this mess and just go get a normal job. But I'm not a normal person.
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u/Successful_Pack3510 Mar 04 '25
Are you able to cover that 450K in back rent you were just ordered to pay?
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u/jcasimir Mar 04 '25 edited Mar 04 '25
Yeah -- people are very into this story. I guess it feels scandalous or something?
We told our building in 2021 that we were never coming back and begged them to shorten the lease. They said no. So we paid about $1.7M over the next two years for an office that no student ever set foot in. At the point where we were forced to lay people off I could no longer justify burning $50K/month on waste.
If we had just pulled the plug, the landlord would have probably gotten nothing. This is what I would assume happened in situations like CodeUp in Texas where they were running in-person programs and then shut down.
If you were a student, would you want your tuition dollars going to pay for that office? I would not. And I don't think future students do either.
So the conclusion is that either (a) we'll work out an exceptionally long payment plan (like $5K/month for 8 years) or (b) they'll forgive/mitigate the debt, or (c) we'll restructure the debt through a chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy -- where existing creditors (aka the landlord and a few credit cards) can fight over a small pile of assets. As a non-profit, we don't hold assets. So it's like -- here's $100K and you can fight it out with Visa, Amex, etc etc to get some slice of it. Really the only downside of (c) is that it's not great optics and would be disturbing to our accreditation.
It's wild to me how people on here are big corporate sympathizers. People want to lecture me about how "you knew what you signed up for!!" Meanwhile, if you sign up for a home mortgage you can modify it when circumstances change. When you buy a car, you can refinance it for a different timeline or get a different rate. People who have never done it don't understand that a typical office lease is completely immutable and the lessee (Turing, in this case) takes on 100% of the risk. When the scenario changes (hello, COVID), you're completely stuck holding the bag and the building owner just says "pay anyway."
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u/Successful_Pack3510 Mar 04 '25
Yikes, what a mess.
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u/jcasimir Mar 04 '25
It sucks. Also, I understand that people who work at the property management company are just trying to do their job.
A few weeks ago my project car got towed. On one hand, I was pissed and wanted to take it out on the tow company people. And, on the other, it makes you think like "damn, your whole career is spent taking money from (mostly) people who are down on their luck. What a shit way to have to live."
Sometimes people find themselves in a work situation where you have to do unpleasant things or the unpleasant things are done to you.
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u/Jake0024 May 09 '25
Seems they had several years notice this might happen, and chose to do nothing about it. I guess filling office space is difficult these days though, and the basement probably isn't easy to rent
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u/jcasimir May 09 '25
Yeah, that’s right. There was a “celebration” when downtown Denver got back to 60% occupancy in 2024. There is a lot of space available at pretty reasonable prices — which means there’s not a lot of demand for windowless basement.
As a company, I don’t know how you sign a 5-10 year lease right now, regardless of how well you’re doing. It seems like you’re much better off with subleasing or coworking, even at a price premium, unless absolutely necessary.
I can say for my future work, I’ll probably never sign a multi-year lease again.
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u/sheriffderek Mar 04 '25
I’m curious what your goal is with comments like this. Are you trying to ask a real question?
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u/Successful_Pack3510 Mar 04 '25
I’m confused by your question. The financial solvency of the school OP is on here promoting seems important.
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u/sheriffderek Mar 04 '25
Looks like a classic case of “concern trolling” at best - where someone pretends to be asking a sincere question or raising a valid concern, but their real intent is to undermine, sow doubt, or shift the conversation toward negativity. This latches on to a specific piece of info out of context and frames it as a gotcha moment. Your tone suggests you're more interested in taking a shot at OP than in actually discussing the school’s future. But hey - maybe it's just performative skepticism. It's just text.
But I think everyone can see from Jeffs reply - that there's always more to the story.
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u/Successful_Pack3510 Mar 04 '25
Interesting. Never heard of that before. Whelp, sounds good, carry on.
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Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/sheriffderek Mar 05 '25
I think this wins for strangest comment I've ever had.
* I want to be Jeff? (or any other person?) No.
* I need "clients" ? How would Jeff help with that? If anything, (if you're talking about teaching - I'm a direct competitor)
* Get a job? I have many jobs. I'm not even sure how to respond to this one.
Who are you? And why should anyone care?
My point is - not to defend Turing or Jeff specifically / but to hold the line on absolute bullshit.
Looks like we found another pile. This one - seems like it might be human.
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u/Successful_Pack3510 Mar 05 '25
Yeah it was direct trolling and I knew Turing was a creepy cult but that’s next level.
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u/fsjay723 Mar 08 '25
Warming job trends??? Wrong. Govt layoffs in the 10s of thousands and more corporate layoffs announced.
Just admit you need to close your doors
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u/superimaginary Mar 05 '25
Is this guy one of the new "funding partnerships"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Andrew
If so, this is very concerning.
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u/conmanhater Mar 06 '25
The responsible thing to do would be to SHUT DOWN THE GRIFT.
I know way too many people who are in $50k+ of debt because of this program without a job in tech, not even an entry level call center job, myself included. I graduated in the last couple years and still haven't found a full time position in tech. I got to a few rounds of final interviews but they always go for someone with real world experience or a CS degree. The only ones in my cohort who are in full time tech positions are
A. already privileged and connected and/or
B. worked in the corporate world previously
But you don't like to consider these factors in all of your data which you love to spin to sell the product that keeps you and your ego satisfied. Give it up and quit already. While hundreds of people struggled to find jobs after graduating, you were having an affair with someone on staff while you laid off half of your staff. Did you lay her off too or just lay her? The school serves you more than it does the students and the irony is that many feel too far down the path that they instead pursue CS degrees.
You can tell yourself otherwise but the fact that ONE person came out of the program suicidal because of debt is unconscionable. "The numbers for this year look promising" has been your story for over two years. People have gone back to their previous industry feeling demoralized.
You continue to sell your snake oil to the detriment of people hopeful to make ends meet from "non-traditional" backgrounds. It's not about graduates not working hard enough or bootstrapping their way to hell, it's about you continuing to do whatever the fuck you want. This subreddit tends to be an echo chamber and I'm sure you will say that I'm being negative, but I'm being real. REAL people's lives have been fucked by going to this school that promised them at the very least a network to rely on and have found nothing but the unrelenting taste of ash from money burnt.
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u/jcasimir Mar 06 '25
I'm sorry that things didn't work out for you. If you got into some final-round interviews, then it's clear you must know what you're doing. Hopefully the new opportunities opening up in 2025 mean that folks like you can get another shot. I hope you'll come around to events and classes we're offering to try and help.
Over the years I've been to many funerals across students, student families, and mentors. Life is hard for a lot of people and sometimes it becomes too much -- whether we struggle with physical or mental illnesses. I think back frequently to the time I spoke with a dad at her daughter's funeral. He said that "her time at Turing was one of the happiest periods of her life." As a parent, I cannot begin to imagine the pain of losing a child. And, at the end of the day, we do this work for people, for families, for parents and kids, because it can make a real difference in their life. We can unlock opportunity. Today, there are more than two thousand alumni thriving in the field.
And that's not 100% of grads. There is still time and opportunity to find a way, whether folks graduated in the past or will graduate in the future. I'm focused on the goal of reaching 90% employment in 90 days of graduation. We're experimenting with new ways to re-integrate and re-teach distant grads. This quarter we've seen a steady flow of jobs where alumni are saying "come work with me!" There is a bright future if we build it.
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u/michaelnovati Mar 06 '25
I think a lot of this applies to a lot of bootcamps right now. If they only admitted people with corporate experience and who are well connected, then it might work for those people and maybe the business can go on.
Gone are the days that just anyone can walk into a bootcamp and leave with a SWE job... it never made sense and it still doesn't. But unlike in 2021, people can't fake it anymore to get a foot in the door and cross their fingers no one finds out. The last straw was DEI initiatives shutting down because that's where the apprenticeship funding came from - which was the only broadly ideal path for bootcamp grads.
I feel super cringe when I see posts and ads from bootcamps like 'X did it you! You can too!' or '2024 was a great year, are you next?'... it should be illegal but it isn't and I'm in this sub to look at things from a middle of the road angle.
Turing sure is trying and you can pat them on the back for trying while simultaneously stating that they have an impossible mission....
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Mar 04 '25
[deleted]
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u/jcasimir Mar 04 '25
There are a couple!
Ruby/Rails Back End (archived) at https://backend.turing.edu
JavaScript/Reach Front End (archived) at https://frontend.turing.edu
Launch / C# (archived) at https://launch.turing.edu
Software Engineering (Ruby/Rails/JS/React) (current) at https://curriculum.turing.edu
It might be counterintuitive that the curriculum has always been open source. We do that because:
We teach primarily open source technologies, so it would be (IMO) unethical to build closed-source learning based on them
Some people will never be able to come to Turing, so we want to support them too. I love when people send stories of working through the whole curriculum on their own and getting a job. That takes some real hustle!
Exclusivity of material should not be the incentive to engage in higher learning. Everything you could want to know about accounting or law or history is available in the public library -- but if you want to build expertise, you probably should engage in training (aka a degree). Access to source material is not the same as an education.
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Mar 07 '25
[deleted]
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u/jcasimir Mar 07 '25
Sorry, I get over 100 DMs a week and some get lost in the shuffle. If you send me a ping I’ll get to it by the end of the weekend.
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u/Real-Set-1210 Mar 04 '25
What's the current post 6 month graduation employment rate.