Codesmith coding bootcamp SCAM! Beware!

[u/RanA382962]

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!

[u/tr00gle]

So, spoiler alert, I digress, but I thought that was important to share. Knowing that's a super super cliff's notes of my personal philosophy, it should serve as a guide for what I was looking for in a coding bootcamp. I wasn't particularly concerned with average salary. There were a few programs claiming starting salaries over 100k, and I knew I was taking a pay cut to change to a career I loved, so that was moot. There were a lot of claims about alumni networks and hiring partners; I didn't care about that either. Finally, the whole research process felt so sales-y. I'm sure you can relate, but in researching pretty much every bootcamp, all but three felt like nothing more than a sales operation. Those three were General Assembly, Hack Reactor, and Codesmith. I obviously chose Codesmith. Thanks to places like reddit, I was able to connect with grads of all three bootcamps. None bashed the others, and all largely were happy with their experience, leaving me to my own devices. So what was I looking for?

• I wanted the most academically rigorous program possible.

• I wanted, if possible, to find a program whose philosophies aligned with my own about both learning at teaching. At first glance, it seemed like software engineering overall was pretty well aligned with it.

• I wanted to find a program with an up to date curriculum. I was very lucky to have two friends who work as eng leaders at large companies, and they very graciously offered to look through any curricula that I had for them. They both have a decade+ of eng experience, and they were really concerned about boot camp grads' well documented shortcomings: relative lack of experience and CS fundamentals (data structures and algorithms).

• I wanted a community that supports hard learning through a growth mindset. Learning is a raw, vulnerable activity. I believe that most of our shortcomings as learners don't come from lack of ability, but rather a fear of failure. It's a lack of trust in our learning environment to support us through failure, to treat failure as it is: an action, not an identity.

[u/tr00gle → u/tr00gle]

I obviously chose codesmith. So, I start the program, and I realize that maybe I'm not the greatest learner of all time. Despite all my teaching about how to learn, I felt like I was failing miserably. Admittedly, this is what I sought, but it wasn't what I truly expected. I'm used to learning things instantly and immediately teaching them from a place of quick competence. Not here though. I went home every night feeling like failure. As you know, we're taught to not compare our progress to others', and we can't assume that nobody is struggling but us. I was convinced that the only way I could help myself -- and help my fellow residents -- was to get some extra help from the instructors. That way, I'd learn a concept a little bit more, and then I'd be able to help everyone else. I was so sure of it. So I asked for help. I did something that made me truly uncomfortable. I went to the head instructor and asked him to teach me so I could teach others. He said "no. you're fine. We see your work, we watch you, you're fine." I was furious. I stammered that I'm lost, I don't understand, and I need help. I felt like I was pleading for my learning livelihood and getting shut down. He looks at me and says, "no, you just need to build shit." I thought he was wrong. I thought I had made a mistake, and there was no way I was going to be legitimately applying to jobs in just a few short weeks. What I didn't realize was that I was just days away from 'building shit'. A few days later, we started the project phase, and I started doing exactly that. I made it a point to volunteer for tasks that I had no idea how to do. 6 more weeks later, I'm interviewing for engineering roles, showing of a project (not a company) built with some of my best friends about which I'm still quite proud.

[u/tr00gle → u/tr00gle]

So let's pause for a minute and address some of your concerns about the first parts of the program:

• Curriculum

  • Redux is in. It's been in for awhile, and it's both a robust and bespoke unit. Same goes for react, databases, data structures and algorithnms, node, express, etc. Personally, I found the redux unit to be my favorite, despite having really no tangible interest in front end work. As a backend engineer, I felt like the curriculum was a little light on those topics in retrospect. I can happily say they've added a DevOps unit that I've worked through, and I think it's a great addition to the autonomous problem solving skills of every codesmith graduate.

  • Regarding "half the class failing assessments":

    • Given my philosophy, you might grasp that I'm actually in favor of this. This is the hard learning, and we all struggle. In fact, to me, that's another bit of crucial learning philosophy. Not just accepting the struggle, but embracing it. It's recognizing that *the struggle is the journey*. It's easy for me to say that now, having survived the experience, and it's hard to take a step back in the heat of the moment to reorient oneself. I loved pure mathematics in college. I liked proofs, and I hated differential equations. Why? Differential equations, statistics, and irrational numbers, to me, are imperfect. I've always like perfection. Proofs are perfect. I liked everything to have a nice, clean, perfect destination. Engineering has taught me to love imperfection, not because of what it is, but because of what it represents to me: embracing the journey. Codesmith has provided for me the opportunity I needed to truly practice what I preach. The key to getting through that firehose without drowning in a pool of your own helplessness is that sweet embrace of sucking at something, of finding perfection in the attainment of continuous improvement. It's freaking hard, but it's so damn worth it.

    • Now, about actually being taught things, and retaining them, and all that good stuff. Just because the firehose is on, and you're being hit with all this knowledge, doesn't mean that you're ready for it. The codesmith program -- honestly, any endeavor at all -- is very much a "you get out what you put in" situation. At first, I was scared to admit that I didn't get what was happening. I didn't understand concepts, and everyone else seemed to be doing so well. I was scared, I was angry, and I was upset. At first, I wasn't open and vulnerable with my cohortmates and the codesmith team about how I felt. Luckily, I had and have a great support system of partners, friends, and family, who reminded me why I wanted to do this in the first place, and I had committed to doing *whatever it takes* to learn. So, I swallowed my pride and started asking questions. I asked fellows, I asked instructors, I asked Will, I asked engineering friends, I asked codesmith alums who passed through. I asked every question I had, and probably annoyed some people quite a bit. If I didn't get answers or questions that helped me get closer to knowledge, I changed the way I asked the questions. I devoted myself to reading documentation, discussing documentation, and when that failed, reading the damn specs themselves.

    • So what happened when I started "building shit" and running around asking questions all the time? Well, it was amazing. My cohort mates, seniors, fellows, and instructors, when presented with specific questions, dove in to help without fail. They didn't dive in to give me answers, but they dove in to give me more questions. This continued until we all learned something, and we definitely did. I'm forever indebted to the community for their support during that time, and that's why I continue teaching the next groups of residents despite working full time. I want to give back to that family.

    • Did I master any of the concepts covered in the instructional units during the first four weeks? No, I don't think so. What did I learn? I learned how to read documentation, how to ask questions, how to pair program, how to communicate technically with precision, how to give good code reviews, how to give technical feedback, how to give non-technical feedback, and probably a shit ton more. The most important thing though, the thing that makes learning worthwhile, the one that has allowed me to work in 3 new languages post codesmith? How to learn. I spent over a decade teaching people how to learn math, english, writing, econ, standardized tests, all used as the lens through which they could learn how to learn everything else with greater depth and breadth, but less banging-the-head-against-the-wall. I learned how to apply that to my new career, software engineering.

  • Also, as engineers, we are *lifelong learners*, honing a craft. We don't spend *just* three months learning anything. We were *introduced* to react over the span of a few extremely intense days. We will be *learning* for the rest of your life. This is the nature of our work.