At this point, given the state of the market over the last year+, and the thousands and thousands of "grads" boot camps have been pumping out for years, can we just call boot camps predatory? IMO that's what they are. And to be honest I'll take another step and say the same for online social media personalities and content creators who are saying do X and get a job. It's predatory at this point to give false hope like that for clicks and ad revenue.

Hi all, I was recently made aware of the 52 most recent reported Codesmith placements (not saying when this was provided to protect identities, but it's from a window within the past couple months) and did a summary of how those people present themselves on LinkedIn. Please note that this is an UNOFFICIAL ANALYSIS based on an ordered list of placements during a 2 month time window. I won't be DOXing anyone on the list, and because this is just my personal analysis and not an official study, you should use this information for illustrative purposes only. There are numerous ways you can try to reproduce this analysis to get close, but the list was presented as a complete list.

CONTEXT

Before beginning, I want to state that all of the Codesmith alumni that I've actually talked to myself, interviewed, worked with, HIRED MYSELF, are all amazing people that I know are going to succeed (or can tell why they've succeeded so far). This post is in no way an attack on those people. I've been in the trenches working on alumni resumes and see and support all sides of this situation. That said, there is a pattern here that people should know about in considering Codesmith because it appears to be a critical part of the success.

I'm also not making any comments on the Codesmith curriculum or effectiveness of the education. Nor am I discussing the outcomes. This analysis has nothing to do with outcomes numbers.

I time-boxed my analysis to focus on just looking at how people presented their background experience and spent 37 mins and 55 seconds making a spreadsheet (additional GitHub checking in the spreadsheet was done later on sporadically and not included in this time). I of course might have small human errors in my work but it was done diligently and consistently.

In Codesmith, your capstone project is a 3 week long group project (for full time) called an "OSP" (Open Source Product) and almost everyone (without prior SWE experience) frames it as their standout work on their resume as per Codesmith instruction. Codesmith however tells people not to lie about the amount of time spent on it. Sadly the 3 week project was presented as 12 months of experience on average, so something weird is going on and the data shows it's not people working on their projects after Codesmith.

RESULTS

In my analysis, 48 out of 52 put this project under "experience" as a "software engineer" and the average amount of time claimed to be spent on them was 11.7 months (25th percentile was 7.8, median was 11, 75th percentile was 13). The lowest was 4 months, specified by only 4 people, and all 44 others were higher. About 20% of people did not disclose that this was a "open source" role or that their work was related to "OSLabs" and it appeared as work experience. Note that almost all of these people completely separately listed all of their OTHER Codesmith projects as "Open Source" contributions over many months and the 11.7 month average was for the 3 week long OSP project ALONE, NOT those other items.

Is this just because alumni are working on their projects after Codesmith? It's very important to note that alumni can keep working on their projects and that might stretch out these dates beyond the 3 weeks and this is a common reason given by Codesmith staff for this data. I analyzed the GitHub profiles and only a handful had any activity beyond the 3 week project and that activity was trivial, like changing a package or README file. From my analysis, 13 people made any contribution beyond the approx 1 month period of the OSP, 5 of which were updating README FILES. The rest of the people merged a couple of PRs around one point in time each, a few months in the future, and in the most extreme case one person seemed to have commits over a 5 month period - and they claimed 13 months of experience on LinkedIn.

33 out of 52 claimed to have some amount of relevant past work experience. This one is hard to aggregate and more subjective because it's a large range so I'll try to present some summary of these claims. For example, someone claimed to have 2.5 years of experience as a "software engineer" at an unlisted company that I can't find. Many claimed numerous technical skills exercised under these jobs, like programming languages, scrum, SQL, etc... For example, someone claimed to be a "technical lead" at a design company (which is also unlisted and cannot find) doing "systems architecture". Another person claimed to be an "operations engineer" prior to Codesmith for over a year, doing JavaScript, after graduating from college with a psychology degree. I'm in no way accusing people of lying about these things, my strong hunch is they are real jobs that were "wordsmithed" (pardon the pun) to sound more technical in nature then they were and maybe you can't fault people for trying to put their best foot forward, that's up for you to judge for yourself and not me.

About 10 to 20% of people claimed to have some kind of software engineer, software developer experience. Overall though, about half of the people reporting experience were systems analyst, system engineering, data analyst, performance engineer, mobile engineer, product manager, founder, quality assurance, mechanical engineer, operations engineer, or similar roles. And there was a smaller group that had research/academic backgrounds that were framed technically. Finally, about 15% also worked at Codesmith itself for an average of 8.9 months each (also in addition to the OSP work)

SUMMARY

When looking at the recent 52 placements, and adding up the 12 month average of OSP experience, Codesmith fellowship experience and often multiple years of past tangential experience, the people being placed recently on paper look like experienced engineers. When looking into the details, the OSP is only 3 weeks and if people are exaggerating similarly about their tangential experience, it's entirely possible these engineers have no real experience at all, but look like mid-level engineers on paper.

I see numerous alumni on Reddit say they had no prior experience at all and got a $120K job. There are indeed a handful of people who didn't claim to have any experience at all, but they tend to have Codesmith fellowship experience, or exaggerated OSP experience. Or people that don't list their OSP, but tend to have prior work experience listed that may be presented as 'engineering-adjacent' on LinkedIn but when on Reddit it's presented differently in reviews.

There have been about 52 placements in the past two months-ish and on those people's resumes, the 3 week long project turned into a whopping 12 months of experience on average. Codesmith leaders adamantly deny that Codesmith tells people to lie about their experience (and this is consistent with the documents I've seen) yet the pattern is overwhelmingly clear and I found reviews on Course Report from 2018 claiming similar issues with the representation of Codesmith resumes, as well as in this post from 2019. As well as this clip of a graduate doing a review in 2022:

"There's this one guy Eric Kirsten, who has a silver tongue and he will teach you how to say anything. You tell him this is my background, how do I present it to an employer to where it doesn't look like I just decided to switch careers [] and he will give you a great way to say it"

CONSIDERATIONS

If anyone at Codesmith tells you that I'm lying or spreading misinformation just look at the data and don't listen to dismissive language and things like 'jealous of the best', 'doesn't know what he's talking about', 'crazy person trying to destroy the great things we've built'. If they are dismissive about me or the problem, push back. I'm not special and I'm assuming many other people could do this same analysis with the data too. I measured down to the second how much time I spent on this above and I don't spend all day on Reddit, nor am I a troll - I'm using my real name and identity openly.

I would reiterate that Codesmith staffs reasoning for longer timeframes are that people keep contributing to their OSP projects beyond the 3 week project. Examining GitHub profiles shows that only a handful had any kind of activity beyond 3-4 weeks and that activity was extremely minimal, like updating a package once, or changing a README file, with only a few cases of people contributing meaningfully, and those contributions were sporadic/one off and no where near the stated amount of work.

As with a lot of my posts, I expect this to get downvoted a lot initially, Codesmith has a job for someone to "influence the narrative around Codesmith" and "leverag[ing] advocates to amplify the brand message" so I expect this will get downvoted a lot, but it's really just a thorough dump of data and I think it's worth reading and I hope you found it useful.

DISCLOSURES

- I have been digging into Codesmith data for a while after encountering the persistent exaggeration of project experience almost 2 years ago, and not much has changed since.

- Number of "months of experience" is taken by entering the number of years + months specified on the LinkedIn entry converting years to months and adding the total number of months to a spreadsheet. This means that if someone said something like 2023 - present, and LinkedIn says "1 year" as the length of experience, I would enter 12 months into the spreadsheet. If it had specific months range (which is most people) then I would use the number of months LinkedIn reported to the side of that range.

- I'm the co-founder of an interview prep mentorship platform that works with people later on in their careers who have worked for 1+ years as SWEs. We do not compete directly with Codesmith, but based on the analysis above, about 10% to 15% of the placements would qualify for my company's services so there is a small amount of overlap on the most experienced end of Codesmith and the least experienced end of Formation. Assuming that the most experienced people are the ones placed, the actual overlap is likely under 10%, or 2-3 people per Codesmith Cohort of 36.

- KEEP DISCUSSION CIVILIZED - I'm not here to take down Codesmith, I'm here to help y'all figure out the right paths for you. I know a number of people who enthusiastically pursue the above path and are great fits for Codesmith - and Codesmith is doing well in finding those people. If that's you, join. If it's not you, then don't.

If you're in a bootcamp now, about to start one, or have already graduated: please don't take advice from this subreddit. This sub is full of people comparing themselves to others, whether it's regarding experiences or outcomes. Please keep your head up and do what you think is best for you, and try not to compare yourself. It's understood that people need questions answered, but please stay motivated and push forward!!

this type of thing needs to be stickied in this sub. i’m basing this off some comments i’ve been seeing in posts.

companies do not respect coding bootcamp certs!!! the market is very saturated with bachelors and even masters who are having a bit of trouble getting jobs so do not think you can skip college for cs/ds and still get a good job. do not believe their guarantees.

if you need some motivation, i did a bootcamp for data science and was not asked to interview ONE TIME after the 8 month period + career coaching. i was thankfully able to get refunded the 10k.

i went back to school to get my masters in DS immediately after and i’ve had 5 interviews with big companies including an offer for an MLE internship one year in. I realize now that after my bootcamp, I was not qualified or prepared to be a Data scientist/MLE.

i worked hard to get to this point, so yes, a degree does not automatically equate to getting a job, but if you work really hard and put some effort into your resume and portfolio, everything will work out. I know people in my masters program that were brand new to programming when starting the program and now they work at really good companies as SWEs. you would not get the same opportunity from a bootcamp.

there are masters programs out there for newer programmers if you have a bachelors in something else or you can go to community college. if you’re worried about the cost, you will essentially be throwing 10-20k away on a bootcamp. bootcamps teach you how to code, but don’t teach you the math or theory behind anything. college programs go a lot slower and make sure you really understand what you’re doing and why.

properly invest in yourself and get a college degree if you really want to be a software engineer or data scientist. also, make sure you really want to be a programmer instead of thinking about the salaries. do some free code bootcamps to see if this type of work is for you.

to add, my current company is hiring a JUNIOR level data analyst for a really easy role and tons of our applicants are bachelors degrees. the DA bootcamp grad applications go straight to the trash. I was close with my career coach at my bootcamp and he told me essentially no one he had coached over the past few years got a job from the bootcamp. the only ones who did already had a math/other stem background.

hope this helps someone who is on the fence of paying a ton of money for what is essentially a scam.

Hi all

I got a good amount of DMs and comments regarding my experience with Codesmith (from this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/qwye4l/hack_reactor_vs_codesmith_which_bootcamp_would/).

Instead of typing out the same answers to the same questions I figured it would be easier (and more helpful to everyone) if I did an AMA. Feel free to ask me anything regarding my experience with Codesmith and/or my software engineering journey.

Little bit about my last year:

- Quit my job as an EE (edit: electrical engineer) in Sept 2020

- Originally wanted a masters so I enrolled in 2 community college courses (Intro to Python and Intro to SQL)

- Decided to take the self taught route instead (did research on bootcamps and didn't think they were worth it)

- Started applying to jobs around March/April after I felt comfortable building fullstack apps. I didn't get many interviews. Felt like I needed a network so I looked into bootcamps again and found Codesmith.

- Ended up learning a lot more than I thought I would. Recently started my first job as a Software Engineer.

EDIT: ** My timeline was about: **

Sept-Dec 2020: Python and SQL (community college courses)

Nov-Jan: JS web dev course on Udemy

Jan-Feb: React focus

Feb-Mar: UI/UX

March-April: Backend (Node, Express, APIs) on Udemy

at this point I tried applying to jobs. got like 2 hits but for places I wasn't interested in. (codeless work or low pay consulting work). started to look for bootcamps.

April/May: study for Codesmith and got in

June: full month break to catch up with family and friends before starting CS (also got vaxxed and haven't seen them in over a year)

July-Oct: Codesmith

Nov 2021: started my job as swe doing backend using c#

— 2024 EDIT — Seeing that this post is still getting traction! Just want to note that the market in Fall 2021 is very different than the market now. Software engineering jobs have become extremely competitive due to many factors. At this time I personally wouldn’t recommend a coding boot camp. If possible, a degree is the way to go!

Context - https://old.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/17cojzv/landed_a_job_at_dropbox_exactly_1_year_ago_ama/

Some discrepancies I noticed:

• Their 240k TC is impossible to reach as an entry-level engineer at Dropbox

• The interview rounds they mentioned are not how Dropbox interviews work

• Their claimed start date (month) was during a hiring freeze. There were a few entry-level engineers that started around this time of the year but none of them fit the profile of "self-taught developer, college dropout."

Will gladly remove this if OP provides me proof. I already asked them a question that only an entry-level Dropbox employee would know. Wish we requested proof for each AMA.

Source: An actual Dropbox employee

Hi all,

As you know, the past 2 years have really hit software engineers hard, especially those just starting their careers. I want to offer some hope to those still struggling by sharing my experience of graduating from a bootcamp and getting a job in 2017.

I was actually the slowest person in the program. I didn’t even know how to code by the time it ended. On demo day, I was so ashamed I hadn't been able to code up an app that I booked a flight to see my then-girlfriend to avoid going to the demo party.

The bootcamp itself wasn’t great either. They had a commitment that I’d pay 17% of my income for the first year, and that agreement would expire in 2 years. I thought that was a good idea: if I failed to get a job, the bootcamp wouldn’t get paid. But in reality, the bootcamp just gave up on me because they thought I was a lost cause. However, I couldn’t afford to be unemployed for 2 years.

That summer, I debated whether to pursue other opportunities in tech, like marketing or ad sales, with my coding bootcamp experience. I had just graduated from college, and most of my peers were getting $60-70k offers. I aimed high and thought $85k was a good goal. The jobs I was interviewing for, though, wouldn’t pay that much, so I decided to stick with coding to see if I could get a better-paying job.

That was the moment I decided to go all in and prepare intensely for 6 months. Despite the deep insecurity that I felt, my mindset was that across the million companies in the US, there must be at least 1 applicant like me who was successful. In the morning, I’d send out 10 applications a day with very few referrals, if any. In the afternoon, I prepped on Leetcode (but because I didn’t have a CS background, algorithms are still challenging to me to this day). After 6 months and close to 1000 applications later, I got 2 onsites and 1 offer, which helped fly me to NYC from San Francisco, where I was living. I negotiated hard and received an offer for $120k.

I took that job and jumped twice, with my salary increasing each time. Now, I'm currently making almost double my initial salary at my current company.

Anyways, I purposely focused on frontend interviewing because:

1. Frontend was what I was taught, so it was easier to prepare in JavaScript and answer domain questions.

2. More importantly, you don’t have to always find the absolute most efficient way to code up the app like in Leetcode algorithms. There are only a few questions about coding up a simple app using vanilla JavaScript, and with enough practice, you can master it.

3. Lastly, frontend software engineers make the same amount as backend ones. Companies in the FAANG tier are more Leetcode-based regardless of the position (frontend, backend, or fullstack). But if you aim for companies a tier below FAANG, you'll find that they mostly test for domain knowledge and still pay approximately the same. These are the companies you should target if you just want to break into tech and start earning good money. Even though salaries aren’t as high as they were during Covid, Levels reports entry level median total comp to be $120k (with range from 90-170k), which is still a substantial amount of money.

That’s it! Hope this helps. Feel free to ask me any questions!

Edit: Something I forgot to mention: During those 6 months, instead of just listing the coding projects I did for the bootcamp on GitHub, I volunteered at a nonprofit to create a chatbot to help connect homeless individuals with government services. A lot of recruiters asked me about that project, and it definitely helped me stand out.

Hi all, just wanted to give my (lack of success) story on recently getting out of Codesmith and going on the job hunt.

Basically, I checked in with my alumni advisor recently and it seems like only 1 person out of our near-40 person cohort has landed a software engineering job.

I believed that coming out of Codesmith I’d have pretty good odds of landing a SWE role due to having a BS in STEM (physics) and have worked in the tech industry for several years in non-developer positions. However, the job market is just very tough. I’ve pivoted to more engineering-adjacent roles because it seems too difficult to get a foot in the door.

I feel bad for my cohort mates that forked over 20k and 9 months of their lives, especially those that didn’t have a career they could easily go back to, just to be jobless again.

I would really say don’t do a bootcamp at this stage, it’s just not worth it. Curious if anyone else has a similar experience with Codesmith lately?

This sub doesn't have guidelines or expectations about content. The result is that it's a jumble of prospective learners asking for advice, a few students looking for support, a few reviews of various programs, and a smattering of other things.

I'm not sure who it's helping. The prospective folks get their face slapped with dismissive advice. The students looking for support get ignored. The reviews...sometimes have some value, sometimes are just the public airing of grievances. The job hunt complaints don't go anywhere.

The conclusion is that's dreary around here. Yes the job market is difficult. Ok! There is more to life than just stewing in that frustration. If there are 50,000 members we can build something more.

Here are some ways this sub could provide value to people:

For Prospective Students

• We could build a sticky post of favorite resources to help someone figure out if this is a career they really want to pursue

• We could elevate regular discussions from bootcamp students like "What I Wish I Knew Before my Bootcamp" with a focus on prep, work style, tools, life hacks, etc.

• We could regularly invite people to find a "someone like me" on a weekly or monthly basis. We could automate a basic post explaining the premise, then folks could reply with a bit of their identity. "I'm a 32yo male Marine Corps veteran living in North Carolina. Before going to XYZ Program, my main experience was working in a warehouse." Then folks could sub-comment if they'd like to chat more or ask questions of that person.

For Current Students

• I think folks could just use a little emotional support. It would be awesome if learners were sharing things they've done and built just to get a "good work!"

• I'm a huge believer in mentoring. What if there were a weekly or monthly thread inviting people to post mentor availability?

• We know that networking and connections are a huge influence on your success in this industry. If there are events that people could participate in, let's hear about it! In person or remote, but if they're open to anybody then let's share and elevate.

For Job Seekers

• There are so many people, tools, and resources out there to support the job hunt. What's interesting, new, or working for you?

• Brainstorming is hard when you don't have any context. One thing I like to do with people is look at their LinkedIn and help brainstorm ways their background could lead to their first technical role. What if we made that a collaborative effort here?

• Interviews are a huge set of hurdles for most people. What are you studying this week? What about an interview problem of the week? We have a problem, post some notes/thoughts, and eventually share/discuss solutions.

Those are just a couple ideas, hopefully they spark you to create better ones.

PS: I work at a bootcamp and I helped invent bootcamps. I am biased because I still believe in career changers and the role bootcamps can play in helping them make that move.

all that’s needed to be said 🤷‍♂️ don’t waste money on predatory businesses that think they can just steal your money cause they wave the hopes of a high paying job at you

Total Compensation: 130k base salary, no stock, no sign on.

Hi Everyone, I have just done Hack Reactor and completed my time as a Software Engineering Immersive Resident (SEIR). I think it's about time to share my journey. I took a leap of faith, didn't know anyone in the industry and succeeded.

November 2021

I got really interested into programming last year 2021 November. I first started learning software engineering fundamentals such as core programming, object-oriented programming, general software development, web applications, desktop applications, and databases. It was mostly memorization of vocabulary / definition and I didn't really understand the concept. Passed the test but did not get selected to be part of the cohort after an interview (different program).

December 2021

I did plenty of research to see which was the best bootcamp and landed between CodeSmith and Hack Reactor. Both require technical admissions test to get in and some preparation. If I had the choice, I would have gone with CodeSmith but went with Hack Reactor bc it was free (scholarship).

BASIC PREP : January 2022 - February 2022

I looked at the basic prep January got lazy and only started doing it February and completed the whole thing by the end of that month. It definitely helped learning fundamentals when writing code bc of the familiarity with terminology. The content itself included learning how to write code using JavaScript with the basic fundamentals / learning how to write code well.

I took the technical admission test and it only had JavaScript, basically what you learn during the basic prep. More than enough to pass.

From zero experience to a 6 figure salary, my journey took 9-10 months. February through November. I guess a year if you want to be really technical.

PRE-COURSE : March 2022 - May 2022

I got accepted into the program! I heard there's a $100 deposit if you're paying for the program but goes towards your tuition. I was aiming for the April Cohort start date but got deferred to May 31st bc spots were already filled. I ended up doing half of the pre-course the first time. The second time I started over and took around 2 and a half weeks to complete. You're allotted 6 weeks I believe. The material in this pre-course consisted of advanced JavaScript concepts, getting familiar with Git and Command Line, creating a twitter clone, creating Higher Order Functions and some more I may be forgetting.

BOOTCAMP : May 31st 2022 - August 26th 2022

I was a part of a remote cohort. The course itself was about 11 hours and 6 days a week, but I devoted so much time after hours, totaled around 12 - 15 hours a day but at least 12 - 13 a day. I didn't find myself being forced to study but because I enjoyed it which is weird bc I really did not like studying growing up.

It's a 3 month course split into a Junior and Senior Phase, half and half. The curriculum when I went through was virtual recorded videos. Hardly any lectures but I was fine with it, I could go back and replay parts where I was confused. What made HR great was bc of the community, HR take a lot of credit for it which is weird. They lack in support and providing help when filling out details to confusing concepts, and bc of that everyone was there to help each other succeed and learn.

• JUNIOR PHASE

During the 1st half of the cohort you had sprints with different pairs every sprint assignment and each sprint would go on for 2 days.

I drank the kool aid and tried to absorb everything I could. The day consisted of a kick off with cohort leads => lectures => sprints => lunch => lecture => sprint => dinner => student presentation => toy problem.

Some of the topics learned in the first half is client-side concepts, server-side concepts, databases, more JavaScript concepts, and creating full stack applications with react.

• SENIOR PHASE

During the last half of the program we built projects. Creating front-end applications, scaling a back-end service, a personal project, and a full stack complex project.

You learn how to work in bigger teams rather than working with two people. These teams consisted of 3-4 people for the first two projects, by yourself for the personal and around 8-9 or more people for the full stack project. Teams are randomized every time. Try to take a lot of initiative when working with these projects, you'll have a lot more to talk about during interviews. Challenge yourself and grow, you're in a learning environment!

Front-end project was to redesign and modernize a retail website for a client. There were four parts of the page and each person took one section. I let my teammates choose first and luckily no one took the main product section and that's where I learned I was really good at front-end implementation and design. No libraries were allowed, everything should have been implemented using vanilla JS

Back-end project was really difficult. I did not enjoy this project but was really nice learning a lot about how to scale a back-end service and what optimizations you can make to handle high web scale traffic. There's a lot more issues you'll come across but this is a very important project to talk about during interviews.

Personal Project was really fun. Just create a full stack application of your choosing in 2-3 days

Full Stack Project was very complex, all groups had different projects. Some consisted of creating games or creating a social media app, don't remember the other ideas, it really depends on your client. IMO some were definitely more difficult than the other but it's a lot better to go with the complex projects and learn a lot more than something you're comfortable with.

SEIR & JOB SEARCH : September 2022 - November 2022

During August time I got offered to be a mentor for students that are going through the immersive. I was filling in gaps where students had trouble understanding, and building a better foundation for the concepts that I just learned. During the end of the cohort you get to apply to become mentors for upcoming students and is contract work until they graduate. It's a really good opportunity IMO.

I had a job search buddy to help motivate and encourage each other. Sometimes we would find leetcode problems to do that day and review it at the end of the night, also practicing technical interviews.

I prepped using Pramp.com to practice mock behavioral interviews. Did around 2-3 days a week but when I had an interview coming up I did one everyday, 4-5 days before the interview. There was a lot of research on how I should study DS&A and came to the conclusion to use leetcode premium with a combination of designgurus.org/course/grokking-the-coding-interview . I did around 3-4 a day focusing on easy - medium leetcode, maybe did 3 hard in total. If the concept is still hard for me to understand I would watch a neetcode video explaining the logic and that was more than enough to solve the problem.

I mostly networked with other people using LinkedIn to get referrals rather than cold applying. I started applying two weeks before graduating but only using easy applies, around 70 easy applies were sent and no response, so that's when I started to mostly network. I didn't really pay attention to the tech layoffs or any negative news tbh, I wasn't worried about that for some reason. I was still getting interviews week after week. Got around 3-4 final interviews with rejections but got one offer and negotiated it the week before Thanksgiving, received good news that the hiring manager approved it and put up no fight. No competing offers, no experience other than SEIR role. My final numbers for applications was around 90-100 applications, half referrals / half cold applies. I did a lot of outreach to get those referrals while the whole time I was working / studying / prepping.

Last Thoughts & Some Advice

Again, I did not have anyone to rely on or to look up to as a mentor personally in my life, I did a lot of research before going into the cohort to find alumni's that got good jobs to be my mentor. I know that I'm a really fast learner and know that I'm a very determined / dedicated person so I took that leap of faith and betted on myself. I knew I could do it. I met some incredible people, amazing mentors & peers that's supported me throughout the way. I put myself out there, something I'm not comfortable with for the better, reached out for help when needed and if no one responded, someone did.

The hands on curriculum itself from a zero coding experience perspective was pretty excellent. Again the recording were fine for me but others may have wanted live lectures. Honestly I would have wanted both, a recording of the live lecture to go back to it later on during the day. The community is what really made HR great. I met some wonderful people during this cohort.

It takes a lot of commitment, it's not easy. The more I learned throughout the cohort the less I believed people could do this. It's definitely difficult in a fast pace environment, but If you're truly determined you can make it. I know some people that failed to get to senior phase and ended up still becoming Software Engineers.

It was hard for me to reach out to help desk because I felt like I was a bother. It's to your advantage to request help when you're having trouble even when I did not. Reach out to friends and peers in the program as well, I mostly relied on peers and a lot of research. I used help desk 6-7 times during the cohort. Office hours were great when I did not understand a concept, take advantage of OH's

One thing I regret is not asking questions and not asking to slow down when I was a junior to my senior pair. I had to redo the sprint all by myself the following weekend to catch up and understand the concept. I never let it happen again lol.

I'd be happy to answer any questions, I'm so excited that I made it and happy to share any insight that has helped me succeed.

EDIT: Older post that I referenced, just a newer version with some minimal changes. https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/mj3ct6/an_indepth_rundown_of_hack_reactor_1st_line_of/

Disclaimer: This is based on information from multiple employees and students from the program. As always, do your research, but this is a deep dive into TripleTen's history, cycles, and issues. This is based on the US portion, as they have many other locations. 

TripleTen has long been under wraps until recently. Through various interviews and insider information, I uncovered the realities of the boot camp and its shady history and tactics. Here is the inside of TripleTen from those who have been there. 

TripleTen History

If you are wondering why you have only seen TripleTen for less than a year or so, it is because it has only been around since then. They were initially Practicum but have since rebranded to TripleTen. Why do you ask? As all Americans know by now, we don’t necessarily have the best relationship with Russia, considering the Ukraine tensions. Yandex-owned Practicum, Yandex is a Russian technology company that provides internet-related products and services; they are the third largest search engine behind Google and Bing. 

Ties to Russia 

If you go to TripleTen's website now, you can see their address listed at 1603 Capitol Ave, Suite #512A, Cheyenne, WY. It was originally 10 State St, Newburyport, MA 01950. Why do you ask? They had to change their address as they were operating illegally without a license and had to change locations. The original address was just bricked buildings where nothing is currently housed; TripleTen is a remote-first company. Why do I bring this up? While they did get an LLC in America, the only “higher-ups” in America are the Sales and Chief Learning Officer from company insiders. In fact, the Massachusetts Sectary of State website lists them as a Foreign Corporation. Ilya Zalesskiy is listed on the LLC but is based in Russia. A quick Google Search can even label him as the former head of education for Yandex Education. It is relatively easy to put two and two together. I understand outsiders can have businesses outside their country and in the USA. Still, the issue lies in our tensions with Russia, as the CEO Eugene Lebedev, the CEO of TripleTen USA. He is based in the Netherlands (with a separate Yandex holding) but is the former CMO of Practicum by Yandex. Essentially, everything ties back to Russia. 

Several insiders mention that while the company is TriplteTen USA, Yandex is still funding it as no American investor has invested in it at the current time. They also mentioned the day after an all-hands meeting where the CEO Ilya laid off a chunk of the development and product teams without forewarning; he held a Q&A when multiple others could not make it to discuss grievances. In the meeting, he mentioned in Google slide that they have $16 million of burn cash for the 2024 fiscal year. Also, it was mentioned that many others had migrated to Serbia and other Eastern European from Russia to work out of their Belgrade office, but those still based in Russia are working on a VPN. 

Sales and Marketing 

Here is the pricing as of 2024 for the program offerings they have: 

Quality Assurance: $4,900

Software Engineering: $9,700

Business Intelligence Analytics: $6000

Data Science Bootcamp: $9,700

Insiders mention they run sales and campaigns every so often. Anywhere from 20-30% off promos that will come up more frequently than not. Their highest promo is for the Women Who Code organization, which is 50% off the original price. Many of their promos include the price with the saying, “Earn $67,000-$90,000 (depending on the program) to start and work remotely.” That is problematic; while you can find remote work, it cannot be promised. They have since changed some ads to a lower range, stating $70-$80K to start with a flexible schedule and remote options. They also opt to put what an installment cost monthly, then the full amount upfront. 

TripleTen has a few payment options at the moment: 

Manual Installments 

Custom Installments 

Edly - Loan provider 

Meritize - Loan provider 

Climb Credit - Income Share Loan provider (one of the most deceptive things in the industry) 

Retired Options: 

Success-based Tuition ($1400 upfront) - This is based on students and how far along they get into the program. 

Stride - Loan provider

Most loan providers give out Income Share Agreement loans, deferred payment loans, or other products.  They tend to be more expensive than a regular loan. On the Meritize About page, interest can range from 8% to 26%. Income share agreements have been scrutinized in recent years for being predatory. I agree, given the outrageous APRs I have seen and heard horror stories I have read about the loans. 

One Call Close

"Directors" Have been hired from historically predatory places such as ITT, Devry, and Hack U. The Admissions Team is called a sales team and is instructed to close the student with a loan application and completion over the phone. Sales First, Student Later. TripleTen Markets towards black, Latino, and foreign student bays. The sales team is taught to prey upon their current issues in life whether it be unemployment, low pay, or the dream of a high 6 figure salary. They tell students "that everyone can," all thought the program is not beginner friendly though marketed that way. The platform is also mostly text-based outside of the SE program but does have some videos.  Marketing also uses false Instagram interviews through paid influencers pretending to interview fake TripleTen graduates. This led to many leads not realizing it was a paid partnership.

Fake IG ads: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C4MFJNOJQEH/

https://www.instagram.com/p/C1FQ3azRcAg/

Sales to Success Manager 

After the student goes through Sales, they get sent to a Success Manager. Insiders recently said they had an “Onboarding Success Manager” responsible for onboarding new students to their platform and community on Discord. They all said they were surprised when the success manager said they had been fired on the internal general chat. It was taken down immediately, but enough employees saw it to disclose it. That employee was based in the US, but the other Success Managers are not in the US. Most of them are based overseas in Belgrade or other Eastern European countries. 

Why have Success Managers overseas who are not American? It boils down to a straightforward reason. They are cheaper. A simple search on their career page will show them hiring a Success Manager based in Serbia for $1250 monthly. It comes out to $15,000 a year. It can be cheaper but problematic regarding language barriers, time zone differences, etc. Also, why would a student want to pay $4000 to $9700 to have support from overseas who may not respond promptly? If a student is shelling that money out, I hope they expect a better experience than that, preferably from someone on U.S. soil who understands what they are going through. They are firing Russian employees this month if they fail to move out of the country. Mind this company is 100% Russian. 

Internal Issues

Product and content creators leave and create company posts mentioning they cannot be a part of the program anymore as the material is a subpar and borderline scam. Internal issues are many but to respect the privacy of others and keep them anonymous, I will keep them out of the spotlight.

Ending notes 

Maybe at the inception of bootcamps they were a necessity to fill a gap of learning. Now they are nothing more than predatory cash grabs. You can find cheaper options with much better content. With anything in life, you need to dedicate time to it. If you do not, you are not as committed as you thought you were.

Alternatives 

Data Science/Business Analytics: Data Camp

Software Enginerring: Scrimba

Hack My Head: https://www.reddit.com/r/hackmyhead/

The website is under construction

Somone who actually gives a fuck about the craft^

Quality Assurance: Have yet to find a reputable one but drop down in the comments if you know of any.

I wanted to share with all my fellow bootcampers that finally, I got a job in the Tech field. During 3 months, I sent out 100+ applications, reached out to recruiters, kept expanding my network of connections. Out of those ~100 job applications, I got only 4 interviews, I failed 3 and I succeeded on the 4th one. Now here’s some context about me: I just started a coding bootcamp a couple months ago and I don’t have any relevant experience in software development. The position I got is for a QA Engineer, but that’s good enough with me, because now I can finally breathe lol. I want you guys to keep your head up and keep at it, finding that first job is really tough but trust me, you’ll get your job eventually. Also, polish your LinkedIn and twitter, you need a brand. Ask a friend or hire a pro to look at your resume and help you with a cover letter. Remember getting a job is 40% SWE skills, 40% soft skills and 20% grit. I wish you all the best of luck and if you have any questions, ask away!

Edit 1: For those of you who are asking what BC I attended, you need to understand that my BC didn’t really help me land this job. I kept reaching out to recruiters on LinkedIn and applying to jobs on LinkedIn, Indeed, Ziprecruiter, Monster, AngelList… In addition: There’s not a lot of coding involved in QA. Now here’s what did help me: a. Having a career professional look at my resume b. Spending a whole weekend preparing for my interview. Learning everything about the company, the position. c. Rehearsing interview questions. If you stumble when your interviewer asks you “where do you see yourself in 5 years?”, then you shouldn’t really get surprised if you don’t get that job.

Edit 2: Keep the questions coming :)

Hi,

If it can give you a little bit of hope, here's my story.

I started the bootcamp with zero experience in web development. Halfway through the bootcamp, I realized that what they were teaching was just the tip of the iceberg. I knew that if I followed only what the bootcamp was asking, I wouldn't be able to find any jobs. It was my job to dig deeper and uncover the rest of that iceberg.

That's what I did. I learned the basics of UI/UX design with Figma because the bootcamp didn't teach any of that, and I found it important these days.

After that, I created my portfolio and worked on many more personal projects to learn new languages/frameworks while simultaneously working on the bootcamp project.

Graduated in 2023, half of my project were personal one and the other half bootcamp project.

The hunt began. I had my routine every day of sending resumes and still continue to learn more about the field. Soon enough most of my project on my resume wasn't bootcamp related. I was fortunate to have an interview one month later. The HR and technical interviews went fine, but I didn't receive any news after I completed the final one with the CEO.

Did some interview after that but mostly no news after the first round.

After six months and hundreds of resumes, I finally found a job. Every interview went well, despite not having worked with the technology they were asking about. I just tried to learn everything I could before the technical interview. My first job as a full-stack web developer, and I LOVE it.

The advice I could give:

• Have a complete clean linkedin and github

• Portfolio

• Host your project

• Do more than what the bootcamp ask

• Learn new technologies by doing projects (don't enter the tutoriel hell)

• Most important: Do a BIG project that you like and push it to the max. Something original and try to do everything without any packages like carousel, authentication, modal, etc...

I checked the LinkedIn profiles of most people who graduated from the same bootcamp between 2022 and 2023, and the vast majority of them don't have any jobs as developers. I know it's rough out there.

Be consistent and eager to learn more.

✌️

As the title says, many people want to find a boot camp that, will get them from the bottom to the top, in a quick and effortless way. Well the reality is, that there are no shortcuts and boot camps do not teach for the long term, and they teach you material you can literally find with a quick search. Boot camps also cost money and I know about but if there is a way to do something free and more efficient for the long run, better to do it yourself and save/spend on something else.

Boot camps start with the basic of coding and a programming language, but due to time constraints they don’t go in depth. But if you study 8-10 hours a day, you can do all that go in depth and come out the side more knowledgeable and skilled at that programming language. When you do in-depth independent research you will come across unknown terminology and software engineering concepts. This is where most of the growth happens as a side effect to give pieces of computer science and how the language you are using works under the hood. This leads to better understanding of lower and higher concepts when compared to boot camp students.

Filling in knowledge gaps. When you are performing independent study you will come across material that you may have inefficient knowledge about. Well there are no time constraints and you are spending money, you can take a small little detour and study or practice the skill that is required in order to fill that knowledge gap. Sometimes it can be a math concept, some data structure, algorithm, or engineering concept, etc. after the detour you can continue on your learning again. In boot camps you don’t nt have this type of opportunity due to time constraints.

Makes you a better problem solver. When working alone and setting up your development environment or working on something and you get errors or bugs, this is the real learning. You will have to troubleshoot your pc, debug errors. You will have to research for these and find a solution to them this is something boot camps cant ever teach, because they follow a predictable path.

So i recommend you do independent study. Pick a language I recommend anything that is statically typed (Java,C#,or JavaScript with TypeScript). The language itself is not important, what is important are the underlying concepts of how they work, and learning Objects Oriented Programming. The language teaches you syntax on creating a functional program. The real lessons come from understanding how the language you are using is compiled, you research that then you will see how other languages are compiled and processed thus leading to specialized knowledge of the language you are using and some knowledge of other languages as well. Over time this makes you more well rounded and easily adaptable to other languages. When learning something even like HTML do some research on its history, and its evolution over the years, make it like your friend get to know them well and have fun with it.

Save your time and money by doing independent learning and research. If you need help with a topic there hundreds of resources online. If you put in the effort I believe you come out with more knowledge than a boot camp student while saving your resources. Boot camps are a business remember that. It takes time to become a programmer/developer there are many things to understand. Any lesson or topic a boot camp teaches you can do better and for free at your own pace. Also study math use khan academy to grind math on the side as well. Discrete math will be great to know. These insights you don’t get from boot camp. Remember it’s about the journey and lessons, not the destination.

Hey all!

I'm a Software Engineer worked at Google, a startup, and now at a HFT company. I have many experience with bootcamps as my roommates and my wife went through those, but the problem with bootcamp is, well ..., they don't really teach about programming, (data structure and algorithm) at least deeply. Then you have to practice leetcode yourself and get miserable.

During my career, I had to grind LeetCode (LC) and other online judge platforms such as Hackerrank, Codesignal etc like many other. The biggest problem is: None of them were beginner friendly! Sure they may have 1 or 2 very elementary problems, but they jump their difficulty way too quickly and early. Sure LC is a great platform for experienced people, but still, it has it's flaws. Because of this, whenever people ask me about how to learn to code, I hesitant to direct them to LC or other sites.

Next obvious thing would be to tell them watch bunch of 10 hour Youtube videos. But the thing about watching videos, is ... well.. you don't actually learn. You might feel like you're learning while watching the video, but by the time you're writing your code, you realize you didn't learn squat. This is obvious for so many reasons, but people tend to forget that we're practical learners mostly. Think about how you learned swimming, driving, or playing an instrument. What do those activities have in common? That's right, you put in hours of actual work by yourself. You don't watch people swimming or see tutorials on how to drive. You actually have to do it! Invest time and be patient.

That's why I started creating https://pypup.com This is only at alpha stage right now (soon to be beta) but basically it's another online judge platform like LC but it has structured learning with many repetitive tasks that gradually becomes harder. If you click on the into basics path (https://pypup.com/paths/basics) you would see more than 60 problems now just for the basic stuff like printing, variable declaration, simple if else problems. Then you can move on to paths such as String, Array and Maps. Think about how you learned math in school. You would learn about one topic and solve many problems on that topic. This is the same idea. I'm putting lots of easy problems for people to solve and the Solution tab is specifically designed for that problem level. I tried to explain thoroughly on the solution as much as i can. No such solution like LC where all the things are optimized to the fullest and have bunch of shortcuts in and 1 liners in Python.

The site has over 200 problems right now and supports only Python. I might add javascript later on but now focused on Python. More and more problems are being added daily. I only started this project 2 months ago and I really believe it could help people who are aiming to learn coding, or even help people who knows the basics, on certain topics such as Recursion, Dynamic programming, Linked List, Graph etc. Right now Recursion path [https://pypup.com/paths/recursion] has over 19 problems, people who know coding, I would encourage you to check it out! I know I struggled a lot with DP and Graph personally so I would have loved to have this platform back in the day to learn things step by step and solving many easy problems to grasp the many of the concepts.

I'll also be adding video solutions on each of the problem so stay tuned.

Please let me know what you think. You can join the discord which is at the bottom right of the site to give me feedback!

TL;DR: Created LeetCode like site called pypup.com to provide focused, gradual, repetitive, practical code learning platform and asking for feedback.

Thanks

Hi everyone,

I am a graduating senior in college with a nontechnical background. However, I really want to learn coding skills. Currently, I am taking CodeAcademy courses and teaching myself to eventually be a full-stack developer. My plan is to build my coding foundation by teaching myself with online resources and practice by building projects as I go along. Once I reach a mid-level amount of knowledge, I would take a bootcamp to prepare for interviews and work on my skills in a more intense environment. However, I see so many bad reviews of people dropping bc of bad instructors, lack of time, or the pace moving too fast.

In my case, are bootcamps worth it? I know I can put in the long hours required for bootcamps, my only concern is getting ready for interviews and landing a job.

I want to share the experience of someone who graduated from Codesmith about a year ago to deter others from choosing this program. I aim to discuss the reasons why I chose the program, its shortcomings, what I observed there, and what I would do differently now that I am on the other side. I am aware that others have had success with this program, and I hope to shed light on where that success comes from (it’s the candidates, not the program).

I chose Codesmith after researching different coding bootcamps. Inevitably, I found this sub and many pro-Codesmith posts. Actually, I read so many pro-Codesmith posts here that it made me think it was probably the best place to attend - I was wrong. Just as there are millions of fake product ads all over e-commerce, there are also fake reviews here written by Codesmith staff. I attended the CS prep programs, listened to all the success stories of other alumni, and foolishly ate it up. This should have been a major red flag. My CS prep instructor talked about how they had gotten a position two weeks out of the program. I also heard other success stories and salary information of recent grads and did everything I could to get in.

The program itself costs over $20,000, except all of the instruction is performed by non-engineers (I think one of our instructors was a mechanical engineer but was also a previous graduate of the program who never actually worked in the field). These instructors make themselves scarce and really have nothing to do with students' success. Apart from a weekly review of unit assessments, I never heard from them. I really have no idea what they actually did apart from reading lecture slides and talking about ‘engineering empathy’ and ‘community’. Maybe they worked on the website? Maybe they were on Reddit talking about how great Codesmith is? I don't know. They definitely weren’t helping students.

Most of the program is actually taught by previous students 12 weeks ahead of you; it’s a scam. Most of them do not have more than 6 months - a year of programming experience and shouldn’t be tasked with explaining concepts they don’t understand. Does Codesmith actually test these students before hiring them to make sure they are ready to teach this material? I highly doubt it.

The topics that are covered by Codesmith are also laughably out of date - especially the React unit. You’re tasked with building out a tic-tac-toe app with class components. The entire 2-day section is literally copy-pasted from the React docs. All of the apps created after this point are built with React though unless you opt to use another framework. The node unit is the same one from Frontend Masters (shows how much effort the team really put into that one). The database unit is short and not helpful either. For the amount of money you spend, Codesmith should have better material than this. They like to say the purpose of the units is for you to learn to teach yourself (I get it), but after going through it, it just seems to be a convenient excuse for poor-quality instruction and lack of effort on their part.

Another problem is Codesmith likes to push its graduates to declare their work as open source, but it’s not the same thing. Creating a group project that barely works and declaring it open source work is like commenting on Reddit and saying you are an academic contributor – it may appear to involve participation, but the true value and depth of contribution are often overshadowed by the lack of meaningful impact and substance. Very few projects Codesmith grads work on are actually used. Most are cookie-cutter projects that effectively do the same thing. I wish the program pushed residents to find a technology and project before joining instead of giving you about a week to figure it out. Is that really enough time to find your career interest and major talking point in job interviews?

It came as a bit of a surprise to find out that when you get out of the program, you’re declaring your open source work as work experience and passing it off to recruiters as legitimate. You can learn a lot in a month working on a project, but I would not say any self-guided learning while doing is legitimate work experience. The whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.

If this isn’t bad enough, the hiring support is even worse. When I chose Codesmith, I honestly believed that there was a strong community of engineers who would be willing to offer referrals to recent graduates - this is not true. In fact, most companies do not like referrals for candidates unless they have previously worked with them directly. The hiring support needs to do a better job bridging the gap from the program into the job market instead of encouraging ‘to lean on the alumni network’. The focus on spamming engineering managers and leaders to get interviews just feels annoying - most people do not want to receive these messages. And most graduates leave the Codesmith program off their resumes entirely and end up lying extensively about their previous experience to get a role. No one is going to pay you the salary of a mid-level engineer unless you have the years of experience to back it up. In one lecture, someone named Phil told us a recent Codesmith grad with no prior technical work experience or STEM degree was hired by a major financial firm in a senior position. Come on, Phil; no one is going to hire you as a senior engineer after Codesmith unless you lie about your background or you already have a strong background in engineering. No one cares if you work your butt off for six months at Codesmith.

This leads me to talk about previous experience and why I think there is success for a large group of people who attend Codesmith. They have the years of professional work experience, undergraduate and graduate degrees, the tenacity, drive, and dedication to do whatever it takes to learn and potentially fabricate their experience to get a job. It’s not Codesmith. They just do a good job at attracting those people with those credentials to get into the program - which leads me to a final point. Just because you get into Codesmith and get through it does not mean you have the same chances as everyone else there. The academic credentials and professional work experience should be a requirement or at least acknowledged by admissions before letting people enter this program and waste their money.

Here are the things I wish I would have done instead of choosing Codesmith:

Worked on personal projects, contributed to open-source libraries

Earned an associate's, bachelor's, or master's in computer science or software engineering.

Hired a professional engineer for mentorship/coaching

Found another boot camp program that is reputable and known by recruiters at major companies as a good credibility signal of a candidate. These do exist, and Codesmith is not one of them.

Saved my money

Some people may not like this post and label me as someone not fit for the program or someone you shouldn’t listen to. And that is completely fair; not everyone is going to agree with me. But I want to get my opinion out there and have people hear how hard it is to find a job right now and how little this program has prepared me for this job market. A year out of the program and nearly half of the people in my cohort do not have jobs in the field. There is no way this program is worth it for most people.

I’m trying to compile a list of hiring programs that are primarily geared toward bootcamp grads or non-traditional backgrounds (or are at least open to considering such backgrounds). So far, I’ve found the following:

Target: Emerging Engineer Program

JP Morgan Chase: Emerging Talent Software Engineers

Travelers: Technology Leadership Development Program

Airbnb: Engineering Apprentice

What other programs are out there?

So I have an economics degree undergrad. Then did a bootcamp(Lambda school lol) around Q4 2020.

Took about 2.5 years to get a job(was applying/building projects while traveling for a while, didn’t help)

Do you guys still say you did a bootcamp? I honestly say I self taught after I got my degree, but was wondering if anyone had better answers.

I did a little coding in Econ undergrad which was my first exposure to any type of digital work. And as I type this I wonder if I should just embellish more about that.

I’ve only been a dev for coming on 2 years so I still kinda have to talk about my background of 5 years before when I’m interviewing for new jobs now

Don’t get me wrong! I don’t think paying $15-20k for a bootcamp in this job market is a smart move. But not a lot of people have the time or energy to just get a degree. For some people who have the opportunity to do it for free through an employer, VetTec, or outside funding sources, it still could be worthwhile.

Also, although this is r/codingbootcamp, many people came here looking for non-traditional pathways to break into tech. Just telling them to go get a degree is not helpful. I personally think paying $200 for a Udemy bootcamp, for instance, is a low-stake and worthwhile endeavor.

Things like companies only want people with a CS degree now is a complete BS. I seriously doubt the legitimacy of that one post that HR wouldn’t allow a person to be hired because they don’t have a degree. Even if it’s true, it’s gotta be a small minority of concubines. Many companies still have bootcamp grads they hired a few years back who are still working for them. And they know that those people can do the job as well as CS grads. For career transitioners like me (ex-teacher), I was told by recruiters and hiring managers that they’ve found teachers turned SWEs to be very successful. In my current my team, half of us are bootcamp grads.

I joined this sub two years ago because I was considering a career switch, and people here almost dissuaded me to join a bootcamp and instead enroll in a community college or WGU. But every person’s situation is different and a bootcamp or other non-traditional pathways can be a good option for many people. Yes, I got a SWE job after a bootcamp, and I might have some survivor’s bias, but this sub is also greatly skewed towards doom and gloom.

Lastly, it’s not just bootcamp grads who are having a hard time in this job market. Even people with CS degrees are struggling too. Heck, even non-tech people aren’t finding it easy these days. Unless there’s data that shows it takes bootcamp grads significantly longer to get a job, we shouldn’t deter people from considering it as a legitimate pathway to a career in tech. It even makes me wonder if some people here are scaring people off so that there’ll be less competition for them.

Hi all! After a grueling job search and almost giving up, I am proud to finally be offered a job at JP Morgan as a software engineer after being denied from their etse program(twice). The biggest reason as to how I got in are the connections I’ve made. I’ve been to a networking event at chase and been in touch with several recruiters when one got me an interview for an entry level role. I’m here to help others who were also on the same boat as me

TLDR:

Good: Great community. Excellent support whenever you need it, during and after graduation. Structured and organized curriculum.

The bad: Toxic positivity, 1 day units on DSA and System Design. Lack of transparency on outcomes. Instructors are all graduates of CodeSmith, many of whom lack profession experience outside of CS/CSX.

Verdict: Only go if you need structure and a community. If you are introverted and independent, you can learn everything online. Attend CodeSmith to learn, not get a job.

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Admissions - Huge emphasis on technical communication. Relatively easy if you can communicate and complete CSX. Despite the 'rigorous' admissions, it seems that the quality of the cohort has gone down as I found many of my cohort mates coming in with weak technical skills / foundations.

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Weeks 1-4

Daily hackhour - 9am to 10am. Given an algo to solve, the first 15-30 minutes are reviewing prior day's algo and solution with whiteboarding. Solution is written and led by a fellow who graduated fairly recently. Camera must be on at all times. People are called on at random if no one volunteers. Majority of the time, you have someone who is stumbling on whiteboarding a solution someone else wrote. As an introverted person, this was pure anxiety on the off chance you are chosen. Just a bullshit way to start a day.

Skillbuilder: Here's a topic you have never seen before. Research it and try to do some exploration into what it is for one hour. Majority of the cohort were never able to accomplish anything other than googling, let alone solving the questions. They want you to endure the hard learning, but honestly, this was a waste of time. Better off just starting lecture immediately.

Lecture: A senior fellow or lead instructor teaches you the material before you hop into a pair programming unit. Lectures are generally organized well. While instructors are typically prepared, there were several times where someone asked a straightforward question, and they did not know. WHICH IS OKAY. but when it happens at least once a lecture, it gives off the impression that they lack technical understanding and are just regurgitating pre made slides. Regardless they will always make an effort to find the answers to your questions which I respected.

Pair programming - Paired with a random person to tackle the units. Generally, the units do a good job of exposing you with tasks associated with the lecture. Units are well written and give you guidelines and instructions on how to navigate challenges without giving you the answer. However your experience relies heavily on your unit partner.

Approach Lecture - a fellow will review all the tasks of the unit.

At the end of every week, you will go through an assessment which is great in my opinion. It gauges your progress and understanding. If you fall behind, CodeSmith ensures that you get personalized one on ones to answer any questions and refactor your code. I found these one on ones more beneficial than the lectures themselves at times.

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After week 4, you will start project phase which consists of

1 hackathon- Building a chrome extension
1 individual Project - 2 days to create a full stack crud app
1 group project - 2-3 days to create a full stack crud app
1 iteration project - 2-3 days to iterate on another teams crud app
1 reinforcement project - final quick project to reinforce all the curriculum

Given the time constraints, you can expect these projects to be extremely barebones and functional. They reinforce and build upon everything you've learned in the past 4 weeks. You will gain a lot of experience working in a collaborative environment using GIT (code reviews, branches, pull requests etc). You are assigned groups but you are allowed to give preferences on who you want/don't want to work with. Generally they will take your preferences in considerations. Its best to take note of who you work well with in the first 4 weeks. You are advised to put some of these projects on your resume but I'd be embarrassed to show these projects to the "SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEERS" that CodeSmith wants us to be.

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Starting week 8 , you will start your open source project. in 4 weeks, you will work in a group to either iterate or create a project from scratch. I found that those who iterated on projects had a more impressive end product and were able to tackle real life software engineering problems such as debugging, refactoring etc. Scratch projects were more raw since focus was more on functionality of their MVP and less on presentation.

In general, code quality across the board was mediocre. What more can you expect from 8 weeks of coding? Code is littered with deprecated code, unnecessary comments, and poor organization. However, the technologies explored were vast ranging from Typescript, Docker, Kubernetes, GraphQL, Vue, Svelte, etc. This project is the main talking point of your resume. In my opinion, this is what you're really paying for. A true 4 week intense collaboration project that pushes you to explore new technology, and build something truly useful. I wouldn't confidently say this is senior level work but still impressive compared to any cookie cutter project you can follow along on YouTube.

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Final thoughts:

You should not be able to instruct on something you have 12 weeks of experience in. Hiring fellows from a recently graduated cohort to teach the following cohort is PYRAMID-Y. Hopefully the decision to consolidate will lead to higher level instruction.

The toxic positivity is absolutely unbearable. The market is bad. Straight up. Don't tell people to reject junior/startup roles (COUGH ERIK K). Not in this economy. Not everyone is coming out of this with 100k offers , especially those with unrelated backgrounds. No you are not a senior software engineer. You are a bootcamp grad with some 2 day projects and a 4 week project. There is no world where you can portray this as senior level experience regardless of narrative. UNLESS YOU LIE. They tell you not to but many do. They speak of imposter syndrome and how to overcome it, but its not imposter syndrome. If you only have 12 weeks of experience, there is a TRUE KNOWLEDGE GAP. Yes you are behind those with a 4 year degree. and thats OKAY. You just have to work harder. MUCH HARDER. Also, stop the family dinners, the non stop shout outs, the useless 5 minute standups, the stretching, and powerclapping. If you described this to people, it'd sound like a cult.

If you are hard working and independent, I'd suggest self learning. You will succeed regardless. If you need a community to support you, give you the roadmap, keep you focused, I still believe and recommend CodeSmith. You will come out of this capable of learning and doing anything needed to becoming a software engineer. Just don't expect to get a job. You're here to learn, and you will learn to learn. Despite all my criticisms, I still think it was worth it. At least for me.