Codesmith

The results speak for themselves, and luckily it did for me too.
I was not hired by Codesmith at any point so I hope my perspective can offer meaningful insight. I’ll be as honest as possible, including the parts I thought were challenging. Nothing is ever perfect, but rest assured - I highly recommend Codesmith, and I’m glad I chose Codesmith over other programs.
Like with any learning institution, simply completing it will not itself guarantee a job. Instead, Codesmith gives you every tool, resource and support you need to push yourself to the place you want - which is no small feat. I’d also give a fair warning that you have to be in a physically and mentally prepared place to complete the program. I couldn't have done this without my partner and family's support. 
A little background: I started the career transition process a little over a year ago. My path is completely non-traditional (although I was on a STEM/engineering track for a while until I decided against it mid-undergrad... but now, I am at a different point in life). Last June, I started taking some informal computer science classes and tutorials, attending Codesmith's free workshops and their JavaScript for Beginners course. I really liked the teaching style and was impressed by their strong outcomes, so I began preparing to get into Codesmith. I took CS Prep, and completed their online resource CSX which dived deeper into JavaScript. Passed the interview, and was excited to finally begin. 
A lot of prep work - but necessary! This review will be long, so bear with me. 
CURRICULUM Codesmith's curriculum uses a modern technology stack and teaches you basically everything you need to get the foot in the door for many mid-senior level places. 

• There is zero handholding not only in the curriculum, but throughout the duration of the program. This is both a good and bad thing, but mostly good. Bad because it’s hard, and good because it prepares you to navigate ambiguity in the real world. In other words, Codesmith's teaching style encourages you to learn by doing, which in my opinion allows for the course material to actually stay with you.
• Each lesson, you are provided with a short, higher-level overview and demo of a specific topic before being thrown right in. The demo only gives you a taste of what’s to come - the assignments (which you pair program on) is where you struggle the most, but also learn the most. 
• After you work through as much as you can with your partner, the instructors hold a session where they walk everyone through the solution, and suddenly things start making a lot more sense. I really liked this approach and I thought it was extremely effective. 

PROJECT PHASE (OPEN SOURCE PRODUCT)The second part of the program (project phase) may require you to put in even more hours, but at the same time is way more fun. You finally get to build things you can be proud of and put on your resume. 

• Most projects are team-based (4-5 people per team), and only one (the first one) is solo. The final one - the Open Source Product (OSP) - is an excellent, unique chance to gain some real experience on how to develop and release something that everyday developers will use in a practical sense. 
• For the OSP, you can really prioritize software design, infrastructure and best engineering practices here (pipelines, version control, testing, code architecture and system design, Agile methodology, etc.) and learn some additional highly marketable technologies quite deeply to bolster your resume and talk about during your interview. 
• I personally poured my heart and soul into the OSP. The results were fruitful and helped plenty down the line during my job search. 

COMMUNITYBesides the curriculum and projects, Codesmith really centers itself around ego-less and empathetic engineering. 

• The instructors and staff are extremely kind and truly care about your learning experience and growth as an engineer. 
• There were optional fun activities, socials and even a women/non-binary space throughout the program! Codesmith genuinely tries to foster a safe and supportive environment, and I've made wonderful friends through this experience. 
• You also get access to the alumni space after you graduate. 

HIRING SUPPORTThe hiring portion is good, but I struggled with this the most. 

• What I really loved was the actual resume reviews/edits, hiring support engineers who help you 1-1, negotiation strategies, designing your narrative and practicing it, and the larger alumni network. All incredibly valuable and sealed the deal for me. 
• While Codesmith offers you the knowledge you need to build practical engineering skills and have relevant items to list in your resume and talk about in your interviews (which is impressive), it does not provide you the loads of practice you might need to actually get through interviews. I'm emphasizing this because I personally wanted structured practice during the program. In my ideal world, I think Codesmith's hiring portion could have been less “trust the process,” at least a month total with continued structure. But I will say everyone’s experiences vary, so what’s true for me may not be true for someone else.

POST-GRADUATIONAfter the hiring program, you graduate. Now, you have your cohort support group and access to the entire alumni network. You can ask for resources, advice, networking and emotional support. 

• I thought I’d put in effort during the program, but it was nowhere as difficult as the job search. This isn't to scare anyone - but it's the reality, especially for those with non-traditional backgrounds. 
• I was ready for it, though. At the end of the day, this was a 180 degree career transition for me and I know it could have been so much more difficult otherwise. I was willing to put up with anything. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard and mentally draining!
• For me, the "practice" I mentioned earlier spanned across months, unstructured because it was 100% dependent on how many mock interviews I could schedule + how many real phone screens and technicals I could get. The no-handholding part was brutal for me until hire.
• You have to seek it all out and learn on your own, especially in areas you're not too confident about (thankfully, your peers and other grads will be on a similar timeline, so you’ll be able to support each other). For instance, for me the data structures and algorithms curriculum was nowhere near enough to be prepared for Leetcode-style interview questions. 

Things you’ll have to do on your own time until you land a job, with resources but without any of Codesmith's programmatic structure:

• Grinding Leetcode, diving deeper into system design, or doing code reviews / pair programming / mock interviews with other grads. (My advice: Locate where you're hitting a wall, isolate the issue and learn/practice what to do next time. Debugging in real life.)
• Outside of technical prep, I had to edit my narrative many times, which I only knew how by putting myself out there. This meant diving head-first into the phone screenings, failing them and/or realizing "oh I should have said this, not that," debriefing and getting feedback from other grads about my answers, and so on. 
• The interviews you do become new sources of learning, iteration and continuous improvement. This is especially relevant for those like me, who may not be the most natural at interviewing. The more you do, the more at ease you become and the better it gets. 

OVERALL -  YES, GO FOR ITAll in all, Codesmith’s approach works. What stood out to me was: 

1. Learning, but also learning how to learn new technologies
2. Pair programming, ego-less and empathetic engineering
3. Sincerely supportive staff who care about your growth during the program, and after you graduate
4. Adapting, wearing multiple hats, making tough decisions in the face of ambiguity and using best engineering practices while working in teams on a product - reflecting a real engineering work environment
5. Thorough resume/LinkedIn reviews and job search resources
6. Designing your narrative for interviews and tips on how to talk about your past projects (especially something as impressive as the OSP)
7. Alumni network and the option to have 1-1 support from engineers who have hiring experience

Eventually, about five months after graduating the program - after hundreds of applications, countless rejections, and a lot of learning - I was able to land a pretty sweet role that I'm excited about. 
Looking back, I’m glad to have chosen Codesmith based on the positive experience I had - plus personally experiencing the result it boasts of. It will be HARD but certainly worth it if you're ready to take the leap. Without hesitation, I'd recommend Codesmith to anyone serious about a career change. Read less

I went through Codesmith from a non-technical background and it was a great experience and definitely set me up for success in getting a job as a software engineer. I would not have learned even a fraction of the skills if I had tried to do it on my own. The Codesmith community is no joke either -- everyone is helpful and encouraging, and it makes the experience that much better. Definitely worth the time and money spent to change careers and enter an industry I would have had no chance of being a part of.


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After going through the full-time immersive program, I can confidently say that Codesmith was the best choice of bootcamps and it absolutely changed my life. 

I come from an engineering background and like many others, I shopped around quite a bit before deciding on the right program. Codesmith caught my eye because of its high bar for entry, its curriculum and tech stack, its resources including CSX and hard-parts lectures, and its amazing outcomes from testimonials and CIRR reports. However, what really sold me on Codesmith above all other reasons was its community. I became part of such a welcoming, friendly, and smart community that all had an interest in bettering themselves and everyone around them from my first day of joining the CSX Slack channel. And that community was present throughout my first hard-parts lectures, my CSPrep class, my immersive program graduation, my hiring support, and into today. The community remains a huge part of my life and I have made wonderful connections and friends throughout my time.

So much could be said of why Codesmith is so successful, but I truly believe that they have captured lightning in a bottle. The community that I mentioned is the first part of that. The curriculum is intense and focused on modern tech stacks, in-depth topics of learning, and hands-off approaches that force the students to learn to learn.  The program also focuses on building passion projects and involving the students in open source work that is both challenging and teaching moments for the students, but also marketable in the job search as proof of problem-solving at the forefront of the current developer environment. The last piece that brings it all together is the amazing hiring support that Codesmith provides for its alumni. It is for life, on-demand, informed, and invested in the graduates' success. I personally had connections I made through the program willing to help me make connections to secure referrals and get me noticed.

Codesmith made me a software engineer. I would not change anything about my experience and would recommend Codesmith to anyone looking to follow the same path. Read less

This course did not prep me for the technical interview. I dislike that it was advertised by codesmith that it will aid you in the technical interview. The instructor was good but the material wasn't that helpful. You do have pair programming but the first week was about 15mins and the final week was ~45mins. Its not helpful if a lot of your other classates are beginners.

1. Skip this class if you are unsure if you want to join codesmith
2. Do csx, freecodecamp and leetcode if you want to do well on technical interview Read less

Overall a fantastic experience. Curriculum was very thoughtfully constructed.
Algorithm approaches could have had a bit more structure in terms of introducing specific techniques with which to solve certain types of problems. Deployment / testing was not a focus, which I think occasionaly makes it quite easy for recruiters to filter graduates as coming from a bootcamp paradigm. 
But, coming from a non-technical background, I now earn $180k TC, having graduated a couple of months ago. I was pretty cynical going in, but if you’re not scared of hard work, the process delivers solid results. Read less

I graduated from Codesmith last May.  Having now worked as an engineer for a full year, I can unequivocally say that Codesmith is not just a program that will get you your first job, but a solid platform for the rest of your career.  

- Even though I've already graduated from the program, every Codesmith instructor / advisor / coordinator have all been extremely open to providing great guidance and resources whenever I reached out, even though they really didn't have to (special thanks to Eric & Annie!).  They really view the program as a community, and it shows.
- The alumni network is phenomenal.   Whenever I need any career-related advice, contacts at certain companies or how to navigate a work situation, I know I can reach out to the alumni slack/discord and there will always be multiple alums eager to help me out or share insights.  Codesmith has a way of getting together people who are genuine, collaborative & kind.  As a career switcher w/o a lot of school friends in the industry, the alumni network has been invaluable. 
- Codesmith's emphasis on communication & collaboration truly sets you up for long-term success as an engineer.  I know many cohortmates & alums who are extremely successful in their engineering careers, be it getting promoted in their respective companies and/or getting great offers for their second/third roles.  I attribute a lot of it to how Codesmith provides the correct perspective on what being an effective engineer actually means.  This also goes back to the value of the alumni network -- though the program is not very old, many alums are already very senior engineers, and are fantastic contacts & resource for everyone.

I would absolutely recommend Codesmith to anyone who wants a solid platform for the rest of the engineering career.  Yes it will get you your first engineering job, but it will continue to pay dividends long after you graduate. Read less

I'm usually wary of reviews that have only positive things to say, but it's difficult for me to denote anything intrinsically wrong with Codesmith.

In essence, you don't need a bootcamp to get a job, all the information necessary to get a job exist if you're driven to find it. But what Codesmith offers, which I don't believe you can find anywhere else (except, perhaps, another exceptional bootcamp. This is my only experience so it's all I can speak to) is the community. I was wary of joining an online immersive, but I developed strong bonds with the other residents, we all struggled and succeeded together. From the core curriculum to the hiring process, we stuck together and looked out for each other. That community is largely responsible for my success, and Codesmith is intentional about building that community, my experience wasn't an anomoly.

In terms of the hiring process, the hiring-support team were worth the 20K price tag alone. Eric Kirsten heads the salary negotiation and job search strategy lectures, and that lecture alone got me a 10K signing bonus. In every stage of the process, they were present and helpful, at no point did I feel abandoned or alone in the search. Read less

I came to Codesmith from a career in law, without any real experience building web applications. Within six weeks of completing the immersive, I accepted a job as a software engineer at a company I'm excited for work for. Codesmith's curriculum provided more than sufficient preparation not only for the hiring process but for the actual work of a software engineer - and, most critically, Codesmith's approach taught me how to learn new languages and utilities rapidly. I would recommend Codesmith for anyone looking to switch tracks into software engineering. Read less

As someone who has only been coding for a little over a month, this course was very challenging. I was overwhelmed at times, but the support I got from the instructor and classmates were extraordinary. My instructor Sophie was incredibly responsive and supportive. She made sure I understood everything I had questions on. I have learned so much in these short two weeks that i never thought I could achieve. After this course I am 100% positive that Codesmith is the way to go. I've applied for the immersive program and I will continue my education here in Codesmith. I highly recommend this course! Read less

Codesmith accelerated my career by several years. 

Before getting into Codesmith, I had been accepted by two other bootcamps (that I won't mention here). I ultimately decided to go with Codesmith because an alumni from both my university and Codesmith could not recommend it more to me. It was the best decision I could have made for my career.

I noticed that other bootcamps were using dated materials from over a few years ago. In the tech industry this is a very long time and it's especially important to know if you're going to be learning in an industry where every edge counts. 

Codesmith by far exceeded my expectations in terms of how well it prepared me for the future and for the job market.

The instructors, fellows, and residents were by far some of the most supportive, creative, and ambitious people I've ever met. 

Eric was especially helpful as a mentor. His advice helped me avoid mistakes that would cost thousands of dollars and years of headache down the line. His perspective could really help anybody still uncertain about their coding career going forward or even people who have many options and are trying to decide the best one. 

My recommendation is that if you are undecided about what bootcamp you want to attend, I would go to some of Codesmith's free javascript lectures or to speak to an alumni or advisor. Overall, I feel Codesmith prepared me for the job market more than I could have done on my own. Best of luck!  Read less

My experience at Codesmith was invaluable, and I was able to land a senior role less than two months after finishing the program. The codesmith community is one of a kind. The outcomes are a result of dedicated engineers and community which develops thinkers instead of technicians. With special credit to Eric who taught me how to negotiate for a salary I could write home about. Codesmith is one of a kind.

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I attended Codesmith a couple years ago, graduated in Jan 2019. Prior software experience before attending Codesmith - part-time JS / CSS / HTML / bash self-study for about 6 months => some JS The Hard Parts sessions => CS Prep. Upon graduating, I landed a role as a Senior Full Stack Engineer at a large company that has been a great experience for me over the past couple years. 
I felt compelled to write this review because I wanted to bring some attention to the excellent continued career services support that Codesmith provides (s/o Eric 🤙). Even a couple years after graduating, when it came time to negotiate a salary increase/promotion to tech lead in my current company, Eric was there to provide top notch feedback on how to negotiate effectively. (He also helped me negotiate a $130k base offer with $10k signing bonus back when I first started in the role).
The program is challenging (in a good way), and well-worth the time and effort. After working as a sr. dev for the past couple years, I can say that Codesmith does a great job of getting you in the mindset of what it's like working as an engineer, being faced with new challenges every day, and figuring out how to solve them, step-by-step.
Big shouts to the Codesmith community, would highly recommend 🚀 Read less

Codesmith is an incredible program that delivers on its promises.  The below points are in no particular order but all incredibly valid.
1) The hours are long.  You are truly immersed in code.
2) They want you to fail (but they will help you overcome those failures).  The point is to learn by doing and understanding the process and then overcoming the frustrations.
3) They emphasize an empathetic engineer.  The goal is to be not only a knowledgeable engineer but also one that knows how to communicate about the code.  That helps in life - but also in interviews after the program.
4) As others have said, I did not believe the CIRR reports when I joined.  But after hearing the results of some of my peers, I am surprised that the results are not higher even.
5) They don't create a cookie cutter bootcamp graduate.  They teach you to be a 'T' shaped developer that excels in a category that you focus on for your production project.  The beauty of that is each person has a different strength from everyone else by the program's end.
6) The hiring portion is top-notch.  They teach you how to sell yourself - and that is worth the price of admission alone. 
7) The post-codesmith job search is tough - particularly mentally.  They do prepare you for that, but just going to codesmith alone doesnt get you the jobs.  You really have to put in the work.
8) I graduated in December 2020 and it took me 2.5 months to find a job. Read less

Codesmith is a great program for those who are ready to put in the work to become a software engineer. Codesmith's way of instruction can feel rough at times, but because they push their students out of their comfort zone, that's why Codesmith is so successful. Their approach to the job hunt is amazing and I encourage you to go through the program and see it for yourself.

A lot of what you're paying for at codesmith is invaluable. Personally, I loved that they put me in a mindset to succeed and to go after what I deserve and nothing less. Read less

Codesmith teaches its residents how to take on any new software technologies quickly and efficiently - not through memorizing syntax, but understanding the logic and how the code works under the hood. Its curriculum facilitates deep dives into central techs, eloquent communication, empathy, and engineering mature products. Its emphasis on collaborative workflows allows residents to work effectively as teammates, ideate exciting, marketable applications, iterate on features, bridge different engineering approaches, and troubleshoot through code reviews. The staff and support community is superb from teaching to hiring. A life-altering growth experience.  Read less

At the beginning of 2020, I had never written a line of code in my life and could not tell you the difference between Java and Javascript. A little under a year later, I'm at $170k annual base comp for my first software engineering job.

Long story short, I was let go from my non-programming job at the beginning of COVID and started looking into a career pivot into software engineering. From dipping my toes into the space and attempting to self-teach, I quickly realized what a great resource CSX (which introduces you to the "hard learning" philosophy that others have spoken so much about in other reviews; e.g. for most of the problems, they do not spoon-feed you the answers a la FreeCodeCamp) was and was quickly introduced to the broader Codesmith community.

Anyway, I went through CSX and enjoyed it enough to sign up for CSPrep. If I were to be brutally honest, I did not find CSPrep worth it. You'll get just as much value from going through CSX, deeply understanding all the exercises there at a fundamental level, and attending the free Hard Parts lectures. I found nothing new in the CSPrep curriculum. However, it was helpful that the tuition rolled over to the immersive program though, so I can't complain too much.

The immersive itself was a blast to go through. While I would say that the curriculum is again nothing special - you spend a lot of time being taught by fellows (aka former students who literally just graduated from the program) and they can be hit or miss. Unfortunately, there's no way for prospective students to really screen who the fellows will be in their cohort (as half of your fellows will literally be hired a week or two before your cohort's start date); you can at least vet the lead instructors through their Hard Parts lectures (they are overall very solid). It's just that you won't necessarily be any better off at Codesmith vs. if you just rely on the abundance of free or cheaper resources online to learn the core technologies that are taught.

That being said, the real value of the program comes from the project portion and the focused multi-week job hunt strategy curriculum. The smaller projects are mostly your standard CRUD apps that any bootcamp will have you make; you are encouraged and should explore new technologies / libraries with these projects - e.g. GraphQL, OAuth, D3, Typescript etc. The highest profile project you'll create is the production project (which Codesmith itself markets quite heavily). You'll be granted the choice of either iterating on an existing project from a previous cohort or creating a new project from scratch - from my experience, most choose the former. Granted, most projects, especially if you are starting from scratch are of dubious usability / quality but the real value comes from diving deep into a particular technology and tackling tough challenges that comes with building a developer tool to help fellow devs overcome their tough challenges. When on the job hunt, I was able to consistently pass non-coding screens with recruiters or hiring managers by being able to talk shop about my chosen technology's pros, cons / tradeoffs as well as having pointed examples about interesting technical challenges I had faced (I got this question on almost all my interviews), all gained from working on the production project. 

The point is that it'll always be a tougher job market for bootcamp grads, but Codesmith solves for this by providing you the tools to job hunt effectively and craft a cohesive and credible (sounding) narrative around the skills that you have hopefully picked up from attending the program. And that's where most if not all of the value from the almost $20k tuition comes in. Again - the curriculum is nothing special, but you can't really enter the job market at the salaries that Codesmith grads do without a robust portfolio of projects that you have been forced to create, a well-written resume (Codesmith is very strict about how they want grads to craft their resumes and will force a few rounds of edits until students get it right), and the technical communication skills to back all that up. 

Special shoutout to Eric, who is the resident salary negotiation expert. He's a great hypeman but more importantly, provides a solid framework and strategy for students to lean on during negotiations, which are often really damn awkward. He's available on-call post-grad as a resource once you're able to secure an offer. Using his script, I was able to confidently and successfully negotiate a material bump to my total package.  Read less

A little about my background:
- Unfinished BS degree
- I moved to the US and worked in an unrelated field for 5 years
- 0 prior coding experience, I simply watched a YouTube video about bootcamps and decided to give it a shot.

Fast forward to one month after the graduation: Mid-level role at an amazing company, with the salary higher than Codesmith' advertised average. It took exactly one year from my first line of code(to see if I even like it) following some silly tutorial to accepting the offer. (I spent 6 months at Codesmith, stayed as an engineering fellow for 3 months after the program).

Curriculum:
It covers all the topics you need to know to get hired, provides you with a very solid foundation, but also relies on you diving deeper and learning a lot of things by yourself. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Codesmith doesn't teach you everything. It encourages you to dive into the weeds and figure out things an average "newbie" would never worry about and those cannot be taught.

The "vibe":
I was the first fully remote cohort and oh boy did I consider not going. To those worried about the "spirit" and "fun" and "emotional attachment" to people - its all there! Happy hours, talent shows, casual drinks, late-night study sessions, random chats. You are literally never alone, you're either working in pair or in a group. You become good friends with your teammates and make a lot of great memories!

Hiring portion:
One of the lead instructors at CS said "our hiring program is already worth the price", and I think he is damn right. You will have a group of people whose job is to get you a job, you will have a network of hundreds of grads sharing their experience and practicing algos/interviews. It's still on your shoulders to practice and apply daily, looking for a job is a job after all, but at least you are well supported during this process! (Though I have to admit it was still stressful af)


VERY IMPORTANT thing to remember:
There is no magic. You wont go in and suddenly become an engineer. You wont "do your time" and then end up knowing React/JS/Node. You want 100k+? You will have to work your a** off for it. You will probably have to stay after hours to finish up something and read/research more. Its 1000 hours in 90 days.
A lot of instructors say "Trust the process" when you are feeling like you are falling behind. Dont let that fool you into "I should blindly trust it". Slight modification: "Trust the process, but remember that process involves hard work and dedication".

10/10 would recommend:)

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Summary: its most likely going to be the hardest thing you've done in your life. None of it is easy. Getting in to Codesmith is hard, graduating Codesmith is hard (the 75+ hour weeks are no joke). Getting HIRED after Codesmith is going to be even HARDER. Seriously, getting a mid-level engineering role is hard. Don't expect to graduate and easily get hired. That said, I did get hired 10 weeks after graduation with a mid-level engineering role (but that was 10 weeks of 100% effort). If you're serious about moving into engineering, Codesmith should be your top choice. It will be much harder than you're imagining, but it can be done (even in a pandemic..!).   Outcome:  10 weeks after graduation, a base salary very close to Codesmith median + equity.  My Background: Non-technical major from top 50 public college. 'Prestigious', but non-technical work experience before Codesmith, so I just left it off resume. If youre making a switch to engineering, pretty much nothing you did previously really matters. Don't expect it to help you, it may actually hurt you if its on resume. I had written a little code before prepping to interview at Codesmith, but not much. Took 3 months of prep and 2 interviews to get in. Then had 1 month to prep before immersive. So 4 months pre-Codesmith, 3 months at Codesmith, 2 month job hunt, turns me from zero (pretty much) to mid-level engineer in 9 months. Granted thats prop an average of 45-55hr weeks working towards it.

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Quick summary: I have no technical background, I studied about 500 hours before being accepted into Codesmith, and 4 months after graduating I landed a full time role with a great company, with a 150% higher salary than my previous job, and high career satisfaction.

Fiscally speaking, investing in Codesmith's immersive engineering program is worthwhile just for the guidance on salary negotiation, but it's a lot more than that.

The immersive program environment reflects the actual workplace for engineers, establishing professional expectations and building teamwork skills and confidence in technical communication. I knew that I wanted to apply to Codesmith after attending a Hard Parts workshop in NYC, where attendees are expected to technically communicate in a group. It gave me instant confidence in what I had been previously studying entirely on my own with minor interest in participating in any kind of bootcamp situation.

I spent at least 90% of my time at Codesmith working collaboratively with others. These team activities included: reporting regularly to stand-ups, preforming code reviews, mentoring newer engineers as well as receiving mentorship, using git collaboratively, preparing tech talks, and pairing - so I felt completely prepared to step into the professional engineering work environment.

Codesmith's curriculum is progressive and up-to-date. If you're like me and have no technical background, you may have to put in a lot of extra effort before, during, and after the program. I don't think I would have landed a job by doing the bare minimum. However, if you're ready to work hard and keep pushing to learn more and more, this is the best program to support you in your journey to professional Software Engineer.

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