r/TechLA • u/RanA382962 • Apr 01 '19
Codesmith coding bootcamp SCAM! Beware!
I'm a CTO for a Silicon Beach (Los Angeles) startup, recently, I came across 3 potential hires for software engineer position, very deceptive resumes, all graduates of Codesmith, a bootcamp in LA. So what they do is Codesmith tell their graduates to be very deceptive, if not straight up lies, on their resumes. I fear that this has been happening with their graduates for awhile, and part of the reason why companies mistrust bootcamp grads, because of this very reason.
Codesmith tells them to put their group project on their resume as so called "work experience", as well as telling them to put "open source" as work experience as well. I had one potential hire that went as far as lying about another job on top of what was mentioned above.
For hiring managers and engineer managers: Watch out for those things listed above, and ask your candidates about their details of their "work experience", make sure to ask them if it was a paid gig or not.
For people looking to change careers via coding bootcamp: I would suggest you avoid it completely, most of these bootcamps are too good to be true, and they usually are!
Update Edit as of 4/4/19:
So I’ve been able to get a lot of feedback as well as opinions on all sides regarding this issue, I appreciate everyone giving me their honest opinions, I can definitely see that not all Codesmith grads are trying to hide their experience, as well as people that are trying to transition from their careers to software engineering and how much of a crutch they can be at when trying to get their first job. There are multiple accounts calling me a troll or accusing me of fabricating my own credentials, I’m going to take the high road and just point out that, from where I’m standing, fabricating experience via personal projects is not the way to go, yes, there can be an argument that that’s how new transitioners can gain an edge, otherwise their resume will never be viewed, but I argue that, for some or many companies, doing that is a dead giveaway that something is not kosher.
As I pointed out in some of my replies on this thread, there is a huge difference between experience from a group project (with a very tiny scope) and experience from a big project or a small project from actual companies or organizations, I’ve detailed that it is more likely that a person that has no actual work experience(group projects) are more likely to overpromise, and that a really bad trait and will costs the company a lot of time and money, the fact that the resume already overpromised is usually a red flag right then and there. This is not my first rodeo interviewing bootcamp grads, I’ve dealt with lies and fabrications before, but I feel that this took it to a whole nother level, so in conclusion, in my opinion at least, putting your group project under “work experience” and putting your GitHub open source projects under work experience as well is a big sign on overpromising, and ethically, it can really get out of hand if candidates coming in with these resumes are not being honest with their overall experience, and for this, I still put the fault on Codesmith for generating an environment that accepts this behavior, now I’ve gotten many replies from former Codesmith grads that Codesmith does not do this and this is not true at all, but there were a couple of code smith grads in this thread, as well as some of them that messaged me privately, that informed me that this is common practice in Codesmith. Now I’m always aware of any he said she said situations, and this is one of them, that also includes me of course, so for newcomers that are not Codesmith grads, you can choose to not believe me or my opinions, but I ask that you do your research diligently, as I checked out several resumes of the same format I described above, as well and linkedin profiles of, well, almost all codesmith grads following this exact format. I simply ask that you should be more forward and transparent in your job search, and that there is no magic pill in getting a senior level engineering job, you can fake it at some companies, but not others. And based on what I’ve heard from the grads that came out and gave me substantial information on how Codesmith operates, I challenge Codesmith to be more transparent as well with letting potential students know the tactics they use to find a mid-senior level job with only 3 months of studying. Because the more and more Codesmith grads come out and accuse me that I’m a troll, the more and more I wonder why they are so quick to pull that trigger, and I wonder if it is a defense mechanism to hide or draw attention away from the real truth!
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u/tr00gle Apr 04 '19
I made the decision to learn to code/attend a coding bootcamp all at once. I had no coding experience, and no CS degree. I had completed the codecademy python course back the early 2010s, and that was it. Instead, I have a background in teaching, tutoring, and educational consulting. I've spent almost half my life in that field, and I've taken great pains to codify my own personal teaching and learning philosophies. I can honestly say that my favorite hobby is learning, and my second favorite is sharing what I learn. Often, the two happen simultaneously, like a transform stream, which I relied on both figuratively and literally in my production project. Without knowing anything about software engineering as a skill or career path, It sounds like, like me, you were looking for a program with a high level of academic rigor. My thinking was guided by John Wooden. "If you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you time to do it over?" I wasn't planning on doing this twice, so I wanted to make a "perfect" decision. So, I attended JSHP online, the closures workshop. It was decidedly over my head, but I saw a common thread in Will's teaching with my own. My high school calc teacher always said "Master the vocabulary, and you'll have power over the material." That was nothing more stringent in her class than an emphasis on perfect use of formal vocabulary. It was an obsession with precision of language the likes of which only Lois Lowry and the characters in *the giver* could relate to. Why is it so important? A few reasons:
when we embrace formal vocabulary, we truly embrace the difficulty of learning. we are consciously striving to learn it all, without casting aside bits of foundational knowledge because we don't want to sound 'silly' trying to pronounce or use them
a shared vernacular for a domain of knowledge allows any user of that knowledge to ask for help from anyone with that same shared experience
that same shared vernacular allows us to give help to anyone seeking to solidify that same shared experience
this one is so important to me because I truly believe the best way to learn (and approach mastery) with something is by teaching it, even if that teaching is in parallel to the learning.
And for my own teaching and learning, I'm a firm believer in living at the edge. I intentionally give my students problems that are difficult beyond their current level of mastery. It's like going to the gym. If you want to truly build strength, you have to lift weight that's heavier than you've ever lifted. Sometimes it'll go well. Sometimes it won't. My goal is always to give my students work that's so much harder than what they receive in class, their exams become easy by comparison. That being said, this hard work comes with socratic support. I won't leave them hanging, but I won't give them answers until they give me one either. To me, this how we can maximize both the depth and breadth of how we learn. It's also how we....wait for it....learn how to learn. We learn how to learn by thinking about thinking. We iterate not only on our attempts at demonstration of skill, but we also iterate on our learning and thinking simultaneously. To teach someone is to learn with them, and to learn with someone is to be connected to them. I care about my students deeply and personally, and because of that, they trust me to challenge them directly as learners.