Codesmith

Deciding on a bootcamp wasn't easy, going through the application process was one of the first signs Codesmith was for me. Coming to Codesmith, you are expected to be at a higher level than all other bootcamps, this ensures you get the most out of the 3 month process and aren't paying a premium to learn the basics.

The dev tool I created with my team at Codesmith is an asset that will set me apart from other bootcamp grads (no crud apps or games for final projects), and diving deep into a technology while building this product certainly helps with the non junior/entry level narative all bootcamp grads will face. 

Aside from the technical excellence the culture at Codesmith is incredible. They go above and beyond to ensure that people who join are not only a technical fit, but also a cultural one. This makes those 80+ hours weeks managable, working with a great group of cohort mates, instructors, and fellows who are all there to help you reach your goals. 

Overal I'm incredibly lucky to have wound up at Codemsith and couldn't imagine having attended another program.

P.S check out their free programs on tuesday and thursday to get a taste of what curriculum is like

Codesmith was a life-changing experience that exceeded my expectations in every way. While there are numerous things I appreciate about Codesmith, I would like to elaborate upon four. 

First, the Codesmith staff is incredible. Schno, the Head of Curriculum at Codesmith, and Augustine, the Lead Technical Mentor, are two of the best teachers I have ever had. They are dedicated, considerate, and extremely knowledgeable. Specifically, I appreciate Schno's ability to break complicated concepts down into their component parts. This greatly aided in the on-boarding process. I also appreciate the dedication of Augustine, who would stay at Codesmith as late as he needed to help his students. Sometimes, this even meant staying at Codesmith until 4:00 AM, just to show up bright and early the next morning.

Second, the Codesmith culture is extraordinary. I have never seen a place (except for the home) where there is so much support and kindness. From the "Family Dinners" on Mondays to the kickball tournaments during lunch, Codesmith's culture is truly remarkable. 

Third, the founder and CEO, Will Sentance, is an exceptional person who is active in the daily works. I find it remarkable how Will focuses on each student. He makes a concerted effort to know each student, their background, and their interests.

Fourth, the curriculum is continuously improving. No cohort has the experience because the curriculum continually evolves. 

To any who might be reading, I encourage you to attend Codesmith. Gaining admittance is challenging, but worth it in every regard.

I'm a LA Cohort 30 graduate. Prior to Codesmith, I graduated UCLA with a degree in physics. I didn't have much programming experience but had a lot of experience grinding. That's what codesmith is; a hardcore grind. We learn everything from vanillaJS, to React/Redux in the frontend, NodeJS/Express in the backend, MongoDB/Postgres for DB, and your very own niche topic that you'll spend 4 weeks on. Honestly, what other boot camp helps you make your own developer tool. The hiring process itself (how codesmith approaches finding interviews/etc) is worth the 18k honestly. I'm blown away at how strong the hiring process is and how they go about reaching out to companies. You will not regret your experience at codesmith. Cohort 30 best cohort :)

I just finished the JSB prep course and can't recommend it, or Codesmith, enough. I started looking into bootcamps as my next step in a career change out of social services. JSB was perfect for a beginner like myself; succinct but robust enough to provide a great jumping-off point for a future engineer. As a female and LGBTQIA+ person, it was important to me to choose a program that not only acknowledges marginalized communities in tech but actively works to reduce barriers and support their success. Codesmith does both. Their scholarship opportunities and proven course outcomes made my decision a no-brainer. I plan to continue my journey with CS Prep and later the immersive. While I'm in the very early stages of my coding journey, I'm so happy to have Codesmith on my side already!

This place literally changed my life.

I just finished the program on 08/30/19 and I just signed my offer letter yesterday for an engineering position well within the 6 figure salary range.

I just want to start by saying that you are not guaranteed a 6 figure salary by just attending. Codesmith gives you the perfect environment and resources necessary to succeed and grow at a rapid pace, but it is ultimately up to the individual to get the most out of their experience.

My Background: I graduated with my B.S. in a tech related major (not CS) last year in 2018 and I have been trying to break into the industry ever since. I took a few CS classes in Java and taught myself Python; I would say I was at a junior level after graduating, but I had no software engineering internships. After trying for so long with no luck, I realized I was doing something wrong. My application was rarely ever seen; having the required technical skills won't matter if you are never able to get into an interview room with engineers and show them.

I was very hesitant to go to a bootcamp, I already had some coding experience so I felt as though paying 17k for something I could teach myself was a waste of money. After a fair amount of research, a friend of mine recommended Codesmith. He went through the program after being in a similar situation as me and ended up at a successful startup making over 6 figures a month after finishing the program. I decided to attend the free workshops every Thursday night and I was sold after 2 weeks.

How to join: You definitely need to have a solid understanding of JavaScript fundamentals to truly get the most out of CodeSmith, if you are completely brand new to JavaScript or coding, you definitely need to study before attending. The technical interviews required for admission do a good job at gauging this, if you are able to get accepted after the technicals, you should be at a good enough level to start.

Luckily, Codesmith provides a lot of free resources that can help you get to the level needed for entry. CSX, their online learning platform, and JavaScript the Hard Parts meetups every Thursday are 2 fantastic free resources Codesmith provides to the community.

What sets it apart from other programs?

I won't try too hard to sell it, the results and positive experience students have speak for itself.

I will say that the way I was thinking about it before joining was wrong. I did not pay 17k for the material they teach here; I could have learned that on my own, anyone could. I paid 17k for a lot more than just the material taught.

The 4 things that make Codesmith worth it: 

1) Learning how to problem solve

Codesmith believes in hard learning. For your own benefit, there is no spoon feeding at Codesmith. The units are designed in a way that you and your partner are bound to hit blocks. This is 100% intentional. The lectures give you a high level overview of the topic so that you are not completely lost in the unit, but you will have to dig deeper into specific parts of the technology with your partner in order to push through those blocks. You might think this is stupid, why are you paying so much money to end up teaching yourself ? This is a fair concern to have. To be clear, you have access to your partner, other cohort mates, your seniors, your fellows, and instructors as resources to help you break through those blocks. Still, no one here will flat out tell you the answer. It is absolutely essential for you to bridge that gap and have that moment of realization on your own, having someone simply tell you what to do robs you of that learning opportunity. You are bound to struggle, but I guarantee that you will have a deeper understanding of the topic after struggling with that block for so long. On the other hand, if someone just gave you the answer you might take it for granted and not fully understand what you did. Hard learning a topic is more likely to stick with you.

2) Building soft skills

Something that is often overlooked are the soft skills that you develop during your time at Codesmith. This is something that you absolutely cannot develop while studying on your own at home. Soft skills play a huge role during the hiring process and an even bigger role within the workplace. Soft skills become increasingly more important as you climb the software engineer ladder at work. The difference between a junior engineer and a mid-level engineer is that the junior needs to be told what to do while the mid-level is autonomous. A senior engineer has all that and can also teach/guide other engineers to make sure the team is on the same page. This requires a good mix of technical skills and soft skills.

Codesmith teaches you how to write your resume, present yourself, whiteboard effectively and technically communicate. Even pair programming every day helps build these soft skills while communicating with a partner. This is invaluable stuff.

3) Hiring support

The hiring support has been amazing. The job hunt is definitely a rough road, no one said it was going to be easy. I have been finished with codesmith for about 4 weeks now and the staff has kept in touch with me throughout these 4 weeks to make sure I am going about the job hunting process as efficiently as possible. It might be annoying at first, but it really forces you to self reflect and be real with yourself; if you are not getting any results then it means you must change what you are doing and try something else. I honeslty believe the only reason someone would not get hired after is if they don't put in the work required; its a really hard grind but you just have to make it to the light at the end of the tunnel. That being said, Codesmith does an amazing job at keeping morale high and making sure everyone is putting in the work necessary to get their dream job. You can also schedule mock interviews/resume reviews/ anything else you need with staff whenever you need help.

The negotiation advice given by a specialist at Codesmith alone was worth the 17k i paid; I was able to get an extra 10k a year on my base salary because of it.

4) Amazing community

I have met SO many amazing people since joining the Codesmith community around 5 months ago when I started going to the free workshops. This is something that might sound corny but its nice to be reminded that you are not alone in this process. After job hunting for so long on my own with no luck, I was starting to feel really down. Being in it together with a group of like minded individuals has helped me tremendously. They believed in me at times when I wasn't able to believe in myself. The staff does an amazing job at fostering a supportive community. Breaking into this industry will be scary and rough, but you don't have to do it alone.

When you are signing up for this immersive course, you must realize a few things.

- This is not for the weak.

- This is for people who are ready for change, and that can be daunting.

- Must be ready to temporarily put aside your social life.

 

CodeSmith's pedagogy is precise when it comes to evolving a Student into a well-spoken Software Engineer professional. 

Tip: Do not think that "just getting into CodeSmith" will qualify you to be worth 100k+ right away. You become worth that much after you put in the necessary work in CodeSmith. 

 

What I loved about CodeSmith: As you can imagine, trying to prove yourself to someone else (to get hired) can be very intimidating. CodeSmith has professional software engineer veterans who help students with the imposter monster (imposter syndrome) they may be facing by giving them the right honest advice. It all may sound unbelievable and what not (trust me, I am hard-headed myself to start believing things). But you can trust CodeSmith to give you the right kind of support you need to be successful. 

 

There is so much more I can say about CodeSmith.

 

If you are interested in joining a Bootcamp, visit CodeSmith first. 

 

P.S. One of the greatest things about CodeSmith is that I also made new life long friends who I became very close with.

I graduated from Codesmith LA back in May and have been working for a few months as a Frontend Developer. I got my first job from their hiring day, which is actually one of the things that set Codesmith apart from other bootcamps. Towards the end of your bootcamp, Codesmith invites a handful of tech companies around the area to do a round robin / speed dating event with the cohort. Casual, not a lot of pressure and great experience to practice interviewing with real companies. Two people from my cohort actually got jobs from the hiring day with a bunch of others getting take home assignments and onsite interviews. So if you come to Codesmith, take hiring day seriously, you could get a job out of it. 

  Curriculum - When I was shopping around for bootcamps, they all seemed to have mostly the same curriculum. Algorithms, Javascript, React, Node. I did notice that one of my current co-workers that came out of Hack Reactor LA had zero experience with testing, devops, and barely any redux. Hack Reactor might have changed their curriculum since then but I actually didn't know how good I had it with Codesmith until working with him.    Post Grad Support - Another great thing about Codesmith and actually the reason why I'm here writing this review. Their resident business advisor/consultant/support?, Eric, is awesome. He's the one that coaches you on how to interview, accept offers and negotiate. Even after your first job out of Codesmith you can still text him, "Hey Eric, I just got an offer from ___ for $$$ and here is how everything went down, what do you think?" and he'll either call you back in a few minutes or text you to coach you on how to proceed with negotiations or to just take it because it's a great offer!    So for anyone looking for a coding bootcamp, you can't really go wrong with Codesmith. The only advice I would have for them is to keep the cohorts small. I came from a cohort of 14 which was awesome, but some of the ones after me started getting pretty big. I feel like you lose out on quality when you go for quantity but I could be wrong. Also don't rely on any coding bootcamp as an easy way to change careers because software engineering is not easy. You're going to spend a ton of hours at your bootcamp and even then that will not be enough to become a decent software engineer. Bootcamp is only 3 months so if you want to become great you're going to have to keep learning and working on your own until you get that first job. If you love learning new things in a field that's constantly changing then this is for you. If you're lazy and don't like to learn new things then don't waste your time.   

I graduated from Codesmith in July, but my journey here isn't over yet. I was asked to stay on for another 3 months as an engineering fellow. I'm going to update this review once I move on to my next job outside of Codesmith, but I figured I'd mark this spot in time with my current thoughts and feelings on what I've done so far here.

Unfortunately it's hard to talk objectively about something when you've become so personally invested in it, and when its community has become your second family, but I'll try.

Codesmith has warm and fuzzies aplenty, but these exist solely to better serve the development of the students here. Codesmith demands a lot from you - "immersive" doesn't begin to convey it. The small cohort sizes mean that every single person is an integral part of the bigger team.

The program is established enough to have thoroughly iterated its curriculum and pedagogy, but young and agile enough to still be continually iterating and adapting (e.g. recently including units on Docker/AWS and ML). All of the technologies you'd expect from a fullstack JavaScript program are here, of course, but way they're instilled is (I think) unusual - lectures are given to provide a general overview of a particular subject (say, Redux), but then you are forced to work together to fight through the code implementation and do a lot of active, hard learning. While support is *always* available on multiple levels, there is zero hand-holding. Every bit of knowledge is hard-fought, and that's the kind of knowledge that sticks.

The curriculum is only a small percentage of the program, though - after the first several weeks, all of your time is spent working on projects of various sizes with varying objectives, with the free reign (if not outright pressure) to push well beyond the confines of the standard MERN stack into technologies like gRPC, GraphQL, Kafka, and whatever else you can imagine. In additional to expanding the scope of your tech fluency, it forces you to practice real-world practices like Scrum methodology, Kanban boards, Git workflows, and just general empathetic team engineering.

The hiring portion is also intense. You might not realize it initially while your brain is struggling to digest new and disparate technologies every 2 days, but every step of the program is designed with the ultimate goal (the job search) in mind. The reason why Codesmith outcomes are so impressive is that students are constantly being pushed to think not just in terms of how to use a certain technology, but *how* that technology fits into the larger tech landscape, and why certain choices are better than others when it comes to architecting software. Projects have to be approved by the team - to make sure that what they're working on will grow them as engineers that will be very soon sitting in the interview chair. Resumes are repeatedly iterated upon and also must be approved before the end of the program. Mock interviews and systems design whiteboarding sessions pepper the last several weeks.

I imagine all "bootcamps" (for lack of a better word) are crucibles of growth to a degree, but it's very hard to imagine one that has the precision and intensity that Codesmith does. It's hard to imagine other environements where people can willingly, joyfully, engagedly spend 13-16 hours of their day productively engaged in growth.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with how evangelize-y and preachey this review is, because it goes against my general skeptical, jaded nature, but Codesmith really is an unusually special place. I'm a person from a non-technical background (I first pondered the idea of learning to code in January) and generally lacking in self-assuredness, but Codesmith has in a short period of time gotten me to a place where I feel genuinely confident to enter the coding workforce, and not just at an entry level (not that there's anything wrong with that). I'm already seeing it happening in my cohortmates that have secured amazing jobs, and I see the growth in myself.

Also, I forgot to mention this earlier, but Codesmith is very explicitly welcoming of people from all backgrounds (speaking as a person who is trans, at least). Again, I'm sure other programs are fine in this regard as well, but from the team down to the fellows to the residents, the amount of representation from all walks of life is really inspiring.

 

Okay, this is already way too long, and I honestly don't know why you're still reading. If you're on the fence, go to the free weekly workshops (JavaScript The Easy Parts or Hard Parts) and say hi. There are no gimmicks or nonsense. What you see is what you get, and what you put in here is what you get out.

A great and accurate descriptor for the experience I've had and the people I've met on this journey!

There are three things that I think set Codesmith apart, and are things that I would like to highlight for people wondering why they should choose Codesmith over other programs.

Curriculum integration:

There is no shortage of options out there for fullstack engineering programs, and a lot follow a similar or identical tech stack to the one you will receive here, but Codesmith's execution in this respect is what sets them apart. Here, Codesmith focuses on two key elements to progress you through the program’s completion. These are pair programming and collaboration. The core curriculum is divided into units, and each unit covering a web technology is followed by a pair programming session with another resident to complete a related challenge. This strengthens your technical communication; you are challenged not only in putting into practice what you just covered, but also navigating the communication required to effectively present the concepts of the technology and your thought process to another engineer. Once you move into the projects phase, you are placed groups with other residents in order to prepare you for the collaboration that will be required of you at a job, when you’re working as part of a team. It’s also important to note that the projects aren’t given to you, like assignments would be, but instead are ideas and tools that you and your group come up with and decide to work on.

Hiring program:

When considering what you’ll learn from an engineering program, usually the focus is on the tech stack and the technical skills you’ll pick up, but Codesmith has a period of time set aside for something just as important for people who will be entering the job market. Navigating this market, and standing out in it requires a different kind of preparation, and a professional presence that not many take the time to craft. Codesmith educates its residents in everything from crafting distinguished resumes, to increasing conversion rates through strategically composed applications, to tightening communication and confidence throughout the interview process. The best part of it is that the support doesn’t stop once you graduate. Codesmith continues to follow up as you go through the application process, and give you feedback, and offers help through things like mock interview practices and emotional support.

Community:

I’ve saved community for last because I believe it’s all-encompassing, and is probably the best descriptor of what really glues all the best parts of Codesmith together to create the best engineering program experience. It is not an exaggeration for me to call Codesmith a family. If you’ve ever had the chance to come to a few of the meetups hosted by them, you can get a glimpse of the strong sense of community between everyone involved at Codesmith, residents, staff, alumni, and visitors alike. This is something that is nurtured every step of the way during your time as a resident in the program. The pair programming, the group projects, the support encouraged between not just the staff and residents, but also between the residents as well. This sense of community carries on way after graduation, with a strong network of alumni and staff that are always happy to help in any way they can.

Above and beyond is really the only way I can describe my Codesmith experience. My time there has marked a clear distinction in my life as far as the person and engineer I was before, and the person and engineer I've grown into by having gone through it. It has been the most challenging and most rewarding investment I've made in my education and professional development. It requires a great level of grit and perseverance, for sure, but when you emerge on the other end, you do it with a family of peers and supporting staff that provide you with a sense of community, and with the technical knowledge and experience to know that any engineering challenge you face is just another obstacle like the many ones you've just surpassed.

There are so many more things I could say about Codesmith, but I hope this review helps anyone condering taking this next step in their career.

Yes way! And it is all because of the curriculum, the hiring portion and the people.   After completing Codesmith, I understand why the students are able to achieve the results Codesmith speak of. I had the chance to attend another competing coding program free of charge, but I decided to pay $18k for Codesmith and I do not regret it at all.    The process to get into Codesmith is very unique, but it is not extremely difficult if you work hard, attend the meetups, and come with the right attitude. The reason I say it's unique is because for some crazy reason, Codesmith never fails to bring in the right candidates that are smart, hard working, supportive, and fun.    During the core curriculum, we are always pair programming. This meant that we quickly learned to digest difficult technical concepts together and communicate these concepts to our peers. Being able to pair program everyday has allowed me to honed my technical communication, which is important for interviews and on-the-job. The Codesmith team is always making the curriculum better or adding new units to the curriculum because they want to do whatever they can to prepare the residents for the current market.   During our project phase, we were always working in teams (other than the solo project). We would have meetings and daily standup and the projects are always collaborative, which is great because it is very unlikely that you would be working alone in the professional setting. We also have a project where we have to iterate over another group’s codebase, which is something that you would be doing when you join an engineering team. So it is just great that Codesmith prepares us for that.    Our final project is like no other - we have to build an open source developer tool. Currently, Codesmith residents have created tools that has 10k+ stars on Github. If you’re like me a few months ago, you might actually be intimidated by this final project. The truth is Codesmith does an excellent job preparing us during the junior portion that we are all able to build a tool that we are proud of. It is definitely challenging, but it is totally rewarding at the end.    Another thing that brings Codesmith to the next level is the hiring portion. We learned to build a robust resume that really makes us stand out and we were taught interviewing techniques that would not be taught at any other programs. I can honestly say that it has made me a more confident interviewer and the things we were taught has made me grow as a person. My fear before graduating Codesmith is that I will take an offer because I want a job and not because I like the company and the role, but the things that I learned through Codesmith has given me the confident and skill that I can pick and choose.   If you’re like me, I wanted to join a program with great people that I can form lifelong bonds with and that is what drew me to Codesmith. Codesmith has a great sense of community and the culture is great - come to any of the meetups and you can see for yourself. The team and residents are super supportive and it is always a great time. Codesmith is like family and if you are ready to work hard, play hard and take yourself to the next level, this place is for you.      

Super cool place. 10/10

I only had minor experience with Python (and no JS experience) before starting CS prep Dec 2018. Spent ~2 months after that studying alone (with the occasional JS – The Hard Parts lecture visits) and then started at Codesmith NY in Feb 2019. ~5 months later had software engineer job offers from Microsoft and Google.

CS prep is good, but I'll write about the Immersive program here. Ultimately, I think Codesmith works well because it's very careful during its admissions process to find people that are a fun combination of prepared, curious, and comfortable with not knowing things.

Some thoughts for prospective students:

-Not a program where you "learn to code" from zero. You definitely DON'T need to be an expert, but to pass the entrance interview you'll need to be pretty familiar with JavaScript (closure and how to use it, recursion, array methods, call stack. Do CSX exercises for a good idea of what to expect).

-More important than knowing a bit of JS is being a reasonable person that is okay with the discomfort of "not knowing" or being wrong. I was asked to come back for a second interview to see how I would react when given a problem I didn't know how to even begin solving (was asked to write a function that, given a string, outputs an array of all unique permutations of the characters in that string. Way beyond what I was comfortable with at that time, did not get a working solution but had a fun conversation with the interviewer about different parts of the problem). What’s great about this is that you can be confident your fellow students are going to be the type of people that are happy to work through lots of difficult problems together.

-The curriculum includes the fairly standard array of webdev technologies(JS/HTML → React/Node → Mongo/Redis/SQL), but it covers them in only ~4 weeks while also including sections on testing, and deployment (with AWS and Docker). I had never used anything past JS/HTML before starting, keep in mind.

-That said, the program is about projects, not lectures. If you want to build things and are looking for people to work with or ideas to get started, this is a great place. You’ll spend many weeks building things (mostly developer tools) that you’ll be initially convinced you’re not capable of building.

-Besides the crazy ambitious projects and the cool people, the hiring portion (including interview prep) is the other great thing about CS. Non-obvious (and apparently super effective) strategies on how to prepare for all aspects of the job hunt from resumes to phone screens to onsites and salary negotiations.

Summary:

If you’re looking to become a solid software engineer as quickly as possible, Codesmith is probably the best way to do it. If you're not sure, go to a JS - Hard Parts meetup and talk to the people there. Good luck!