Codesmith

First off, the immersive program at Codesmith is not for beginners - you should already have a strong understanding of JavaScript fundamentals before starting. Codesmith then builds on that foundation with an  intense and extremely rigorous curriculum - you will learn a ton of industry-relevant technologies and skills (Codesmith continually updates its education based on what's most relevant in the field). In particular, Codesmith is selective with its students, so you end up surrounded by smart, driven residents who strive to do well, which helps motivate you to do your best, too.

In particular, I want to highlight the hiring support program at Codesmith. People often say that the hiring support is worth the cost of tuition alone. Codesmith has a dedicated team of individuals to help coach you through your job search process (that you also have lifetime access to). The negotiation lessons and coaching also helped me get an extra $10k on my starting salary. The program is definitely worth the tuition.

Before you decide whether or not to do the Codesmith program, you should ask yourself if you're willing to put in 60+ hours every week in a grueling program - how bad do you want to become a software engineer? If your answer is yes, then Codesmith will definitely deliver on its quality of education and value. 

Going to Codesmith has been the best decision of my entire life. I have only graduated 1 month ago and have already landed a dream job that normally requires 5 years of experience. It gives you all the necessary skills and confidence to completely change your field to software engineering regardless of what your were originally doing in life. The knowledge and overall approaches gained by attending Codesmiths 3 month immersive is, in my opinion, as good as 3 years of of experience in the field. 

Hi.

The simplest way to convey the distance I’ve had to travel to get to where I am now would be to describe my onboarding process. After filling out the highest level of education I’ve completed with “middle school”, I finished it with my new title: Software Engineer III. Now, half a year in, I’m drowning at work under the endless influx of topics to learn and explore, I go to sleep with the last vestiges of code still lingering in my head, and I love every moment of it.

But you’re reading this review to decide if Codesmith is the right choice for you, not to pat me on the back. While that’s impossible for me to ascertain, I can share why it was the best choice for me, and hopefully that will aid your decision one way or another.

Prior to attending Codesmith, I spent two years as a technical recruiter, looking for strong technical talent. As a layman, it was hubris to think I could adequately gauge technical aptitude. So I relied on other companies to do it for me. I started to collate a list of reputable engineering teams in the area, reasoning that if a candidate had survived a year or more on one of those teams, I could expect that they were more than capable of fulfilling the needs of my clients. What I noticed during my search is that there were a fair amount of Codesmith graduates employed at the companies on my list. That told me that Codesmith produced strong results, and those alumni would be people in my network that I could reach out to when I eventually found myself on the job market. Being accepted into the program itself proved to be no small endeavor either, which meant that I would be struggling alongside individuals with a certain caliber of competency and conviction. I also appreciated Codesmith’s emphasis on technical communication, something I frequently witnessed cropping up as an obstacle in my role as a recruiter. Finding a solution shows you know an answer, but articulating the leaps of intuition you make while under pressure in a technical interview, shows that you understand it. I needed every advantage I could get as a high school dropout with no technical experience, so for the reasons listed above, I went with Codesmith.

My time in the program is a distinct chapter that altered the trajectory of my life in more ways than just my career. The staff who run it behind the scenes are amazing people who are constantly looking for ways to iterate and improve the student experience while welcoming any feedback that will inform their efforts. The instructors are so passionate about the topics they teach that it's contagious (perhaps a poor choice of words in the current clime, but maybe it'll age well). As for my peers, following the adage, I usually strive to be the dumbest one in the room, but my cohort made that too easy. Suffice it to say, I had a lot of people to learn from and with, and I couldn’t imagine my time at Codesmith sans a single one of them.

The caveat here is that Codesmith is not a panacea; it can only amplify what you bring to the table. If you lack the drive, disposition, and discipline, well, you're not going to find it there. But if you have those prerequisites, Codesmith is the crucible you're looking for.

As a person who already had a technical background, I was hesitant to join the program in the beginning. However, after finishing everything and going through the curriculum, I never regret my decision! The skills that you learn at Codesmith are what market is actually looking for, which will place you at a position where you are actually getting a lot of interview requests. They also update the curriculum every cohort to follow the fast-changing tech industry standard. What makes the Codesmith stands out from other boot camps, however,  is people. You will have a wonderful time working with excellent instructors, staff, and cohort mates who are energetic, passionate and willing to help each other. I have met so many new people who have the same passion as I do and doing projects with those people is absolutely amazing experience. Having that network and being part of Codesmith Alumni is very valuable. If you are hesitating like I was last year, I highly recommend that you don't and go for it! 

Codesmith is the best coding immersive program available. Third party (CIRR) reports show that Codesmith graduates have the highest median annual base salary compared to all other coding immersive programs. The instructors, staff, and curriculum are all amazing. However, the rich career development program and hiring support are what allows Codesmith to stand out.  Prior to Codesmith, I was in the United States Marine Corps with zero experience in programming. As I was getting ready to transition out of the Marines, I started to learn JavaScript on my own in order to pass a technical interview at a “top tiered bootcamp”. I chose Codesmith because of the outcomes report and the Codesmith teaching style I experienced at the free “Hard Parts” classes they offered.  The first half of the immersive program was difficult. I remember telling my family and friends that asked me how the program was going that I felt like “I was trying to drink water from a fire hose”. Even though it felt like I was drowning and not absorbing a lot of information, the second half (the project phase) of the program is where “the magic happens”. When I started applying the knowledge I learned by building applications and projects, I was shocked at how much knowledge I obtained but also realized all that time “drowning” was actually developing my skills in tacking challenging problems, diving deep in technologies, and learning to become comfortable with the unknown.  I like to joke that there is a third part to Codesmith that isn’t officially part of their program: the “application stage”. Learning never stops and it should definitely not stop after Codesmith. Codesmith taught me many things and I loved my time there but three months is a short time. Even after I finished the program, I spent many hours/days/weeks/months learning on my own and honing my interviewing skills: white boarding and algorithms, take home projects, and fundamental computer science knowledge.  I am thankful to Codesmith not for allowing me to work full time as an engineer getting paid over six figures but because Codesmith is where I found my love for coding, learning, and struggling. 

Currently enrolled in their Part Time Remote Immersive (PTRI) course, so I can give my impressions so far for those interested in this new course.

Overall Experience:
Challenging, rewarding, and fun!  The coursework can be difficult and you will run into blocks (many times), but you get a ton of support when needed, even outside of class hours.  You will be trying to learn a ton of material in a short amount of time, and at times you may feel overwhelmed.  That said, even with personally setting aside an additional 1-2 hours each day for review or doing bonus exercises, it largely hasn't affected my other activities and schedule outside of class hours.  And the class has become its own little online community, where we learn from and support each other.  It's been both a highly rewarding and fun experience so far.

Curriculum:
Exactly what I was looking for to get into full stack development, not just in terms of course material but emphasis on engineering, problem solving, technical communication and pair programming.  You learn a new topic each week and dive deep under the hood with lectures and weekly exercises that can be really challenging.  There are some bonus exercises, hack hours, and hackathons that you will work on outside of class hours, but that has not impacted my other activities so far.  As I'm still only part way through the curriculum, I can't speak to the later sections of the course, including the solo and group projects.  But it seems the weekly learning and exercises is building us up to that point and will likely really test what we've learned and can apply in actual big projects.

The weekly skill builders and unit exercises can be tough to get through, but you also pair up with another student (different each week) to work through them together and this has been a great experience, as you learn from each other and also work on fine-tuning your technical communication.  I find that learning from other students through this process has been just as invaluable as learning the actual course material from the instructors.

Instructors:
Enthusiastic, supportive and friendly!  The PTRI course is setup with a Lead Instructor, a Lead Technical Mentor, and two Fellows.  They have been great to interact with and learn from and are always available to help.  The amount of support you get is great.

Job Assistance: n/a (haven't gotten to this portion of the class yet)

     I’m currently enrolled in the new Part Time Remote Immersive and even though it’s a new program, it delivers. It’s tough to give a full 360 degree picture because I’m still in the first leg of the journey, but so far, it’s exactly what I expected. I chose Codesmith because I didn’t want to be spoon-fed information and spit out the other side of an assembly line as a cookie cutter coder. I wanted to learn about being an engineer. That means working through blocks, learning how to learn, and applying concepts to new and unfamiliar problems. That’s what I do here.

     I almost always feel behind, but I should. Who wouldn’t when you’re on boarding this much information this quickly. I think what constantly surprises me is how much more efficient, knowledgeable, and capable I’m becoming without even realizing it. I constantly have to remind myself that I’m doing things seemingly impossible to me a month ago. And I don’t feel like I’m missing anything doing it all remotely. They make sure you have iPads for virtual whiteboarding, GitHub and Slack are seamlessly integrated for sharing code and resources, and the team is smooth in its virtual classroom execution. I’ve even applied some of Codesmith’s virtual etiquette and teaching techniques to the meetings and trainings I conduct for work while we’re all stuck in quarantine. 

A typical week so far looks something like this:

     Mon - Thurs -  3 hours of remote class which include introductory lectures on the week’s unit mixed with programming challenges that you’ll tackle both alone and with a partner via video conferencing, reinforcing and expanding on the topics presented. You’ll develop real problem solving knowledge in the subject matter with which you’re wrestling. 

     Saturdays - 6 hours of class reviewing the week’s material looking at an expert’s approach and the approaches of your classmates to learn from each other and implement other approaches to the challenges you faced. 

     That’s phase one. There’s a project phase and a hiring phase which I can’t speak to yet, but the order of operations here makes sense. Learn core material -> Exercise core material in real world settings -> Package all that knowledge and experience to get high paying jobs. The outcomes speak for themselves.

     Everyone in my cohort is smart, knowledgeable, hardworking, and friendly, and while it’s easy to look at that and count myself so lucky to be working with such a great group of people, my hunch is that something about Codesmith’s interview process ensures that most cohorts have a similar makeup. And the instructors are the same. As much as they emphasize “work through the blocks” learning, I’ve never felt on my own. If I hit an unscalable wall trying to conquer a problem, the instructors are always right around the virtual corner to ask just the right questions to get me to start climbing on my own. That’s really all I have in terms of a review, this next bit is more personally important to me.

     Because I remember how I felt when I was scraping the internet for reviews and wondering what to believe before hopping on this wild train, here’s my full disclosure statement. I was asked to throw a few words into a review because Codesmith doesn’t do a lot of advertising other than virtual word of mouth. In no way was the content of my review discussed or influenced by anything other than my experience. I wouldn’t have agreed to write it if it had been. So these words are mine and I’m not really someone who can say a thing I don’t believe. With that said, what I’m about to write next should be the biggest takeaway for anybody looking.

     If was having a negative experience (which I’m not), and I did load this review with criticisms, I don’t think there’d be backlash from Codesmith. Even though I’m still in the program, I don’t think they’d reach out in anger or retaliation. I think they’d want to know how they could do better. The team at Codesmith is always looking for ways to better serve their residents even though it seems they already have it pretty much down to a science. That’s true on the curriculum level, the execution level, and the human level. I think that’s why they have the outcomes that they do. It’s a healthy, hardworking environment and, coming out of the program, it’s my bet that people carry that with them into their careers.

I stumbled upon the PTRI program while looking for a bootcamp and almost immediately fell in love with their block-driven approach and supportive community. I considered going to the on-site program in NYC, but like many people was not able to quit my job for months to do that. 

The PTRI program is not easy, but the 3 hours a night are doable even if you work full-time. The instructors and other staff are top-notch - super supportive, responsive, and they make you feel like you belong. 

The community is awesome, and Codesmith has been very successful at creating a tight-knit group, even though we're geographically far away from one another. So kudos to them! 

I haven't gotten to the hiring portion yet, so I can't speak to the efficacy of it personally, but they have great outcomes, so I'm not too worried about my prospects. 

Overall, if you are dedicated and hard working and want a challenge, I definitely recommend this program! 

I graduated with a degree in Graphic Design but I felt unprepared for actually finding work/ furthering a career in Design in a meaningful and stable way. For that and several other reasons I decided give programming a go. I enrolled into two other programming schools before attending Codesmith (Call me nuts). Here are somethings I have to say...
1- Codesmith is one of a kind. I don't think there are any other programs out there that can help an individual improve themselves and their careers at such a high caliber. In terms of Codesmith as an educational entity, I learned more valuable and practical things here than I did in most of my undergrad. In comparison to the programming schools I attended prior, Codesmith felt more like a Graduate/Masters Program. Which leads to the next point....
2- It's not easy (Seriously... its not).When I initially saw the active hours of Mon-Sat 9am-8pm I thought about the commitment I was getting into. In total you may spend +1300 hours at Codesmith. You have to be serious about this. You will be introduced to CS/ Full-Stack concepts at an unnatural rate that will be juuust uncomfortable enough that you will feel challenged throughout the program. But you aren't expected to know everything. The thing to understand is your peers are there to learn too. No one is perfect. You just need to make sure that if you do decide to enroll into Codesmith, you go in with an open mind and are serious about learning. The Codesmith community will only cultivate you and let you grow as an engineer. This is something that Codesmith does quite well. 
3- The Codesmith Bag of GoodiesCodesmith equips its students with things that I noticed others schools didn't. Some examples: 

• a) Being a student at the New York Campus has a likeness to working at a start up company. Both classes (Juniors and Seniors) share the same space. There is no "Classroom code along" and only a small portion of your day is devoted to lecture. Most of your time will be spent pair programming/ working at engineering problems. On top of that, your senior portion will have you working in close proximity with other engineers where you can practice things such as working in an AGILE environment, GitHub workflow, Brainstorming/Building an application from the ground up as a team. These start up elements can help grads both form opinions about these concepts AND adjust to environments of the start up companies that want to hire them.  

• b) Codesmith's hiring portion is on point. Your credibility as an engineer will be boosted by Codesmith's teaching style regarding your resume writing, self advocacy, proper salary negotiation and job searching techniques. I learned a great deal in this phase of the program. 

• c) The curriculum is well thought out. You are given things that will help you build a strong resume. Aside from the great amount of technologies you touch and your smaller projects, the production project you build over the course of several weeks is great experience. This larger scale project will get you though enough engineering challenges to allow you to formulate a mature engineering narrative that will help you when on the job search. And don't even get me started on the tech talk.

4- I am thankfulI'm someone who has struggled quite a bit with programming. But after devoting less than a year to focus on studies I am now working as an engineer with a salary that is 4x greater than I've ever earned before. So for that I am thankful.

Five years ago, I quit my job to go to a (different) web dev bootcamp. It got me my first developer job, but that experience doesn't compare to what I got out of Codesmith. Several years and two jobs later I found myself unable to find my next opportunity. I was over-qualified for Jr roles and under-qualified for Sr ones because even after my on the job experience, my actual  core programming knowledge base was sorely lacking.
Codesmith changed that and I couldn't be more grateful. After three VERY difficult months I found myself in a VERY different place - I was more confident, had recent cutting edge projects under my belt, and finally felt deserving of a Senior title. Newly empowered I ventured back into the job market that just months earlier had been rejecting me repeatedly.
Codesmith kept supporting me with constant advice, and encouragement and now I have the job I've always wanted. To top it off, my salary is 81% higher than it was at my last job. I can't recommend this program highly enough.

If you are looking at Codesmith's Software Engineering Immersive Program, but feel that you are not quite ready yet, CS Prep might be exactly what you are looking for. I was in that position a few weeks ago, in which I was familiar with some Javascript fundamentals but did not feel that I could pass the entrance interviews due to a complete lack of technical communication. I had done coding challenges by myself, but never really had the chance to communicate this to anyone else. 

I recently finished my CS Prep cohort at Codesmith after having dabbled in Javascript for a couple of months before starting. I worked through all of CSX - CodeSmith's own online free learning environment - to prepare myself for the concepts that would be covered in CS Prep. The focus within CS Prep lies heavily on technical communication. Examples of this are found in the daily opportunities to pair program, to pseudocode well during the problems, to share a video where you walk the viewer through a problem and when you work with your group on your final project. Those could sound like daunting tasks, but you get used to it quicker than you would think. 

The lectures themselves followed a similar format each day. Typically we started with a problem of the day, then the instructor would walk through the problem of the previous day. After that, a new topic would be introduced and explained in-depth. Lastly, we would be assigned a pair programming partner, which allowed us to work through the problem sets related to that day's topic together. The use of technology (mostly done with Zoom and their own CSBin to write code) made for a seamless experience. The lectures require a lot of diagramming so that you get a deeper understanding of why the code is doing what it's doing. Students are called upon (students join with microphone and camera) to analyze the lines of code and to technically communicate what is happening. The instructors are extremely engaging and approachable. 

My cohort consisted of about 30-35 students and we had an active slack channel going with the instructors actively participating as well. This way, there was always someone to answer your questions as you were working through your problems. A sidenote here is that I was unemployed, so I was able to spend a lot of hours daily to practice and to get the most out of the experience. However, there were many people that were doing this next to their studies/full-time work, and they still performed very well. 

I am also happy to say that I got into the Software Engineering Immersive Program and will be starting in the NY March Cohort. I practised by myself before CS Prep and I probably would have gotten there in the end, but CS Prep helped accelerate the process and made everything much more enjoyable as well. If you are near either of the two Codesmith locations, you are also likely to run into other people from your CS Prep program if you visit the JavaScript the Hard Parts workshops, which is an additional benefit.

Overall - Nothing but good words for CS Prep and the instructors: David, Chris and JinSung. I came out with a much better understanding of JavaScript, am now able to communicate my thought process much more clearly, made some friends, and I enjoyed every minute of it. 

 

I have to admit, I’m usually skeptical about online bootcamps. When I decided I wanted to learn Javascript, I did everything I could to learn for free and in a self-paced manner. I took online courses, some live classes, meetups, study guides, and bootcamp prep exercises from Full Stack Academy, Hack Reactor, the whole 9 yards. I did this for about 3 months part time.  I will admit that these resources were a great introduction into learning Javascript, but up to a certain point I hit a plateau. The new surface level knowledge I gained from these courses were not contributing to my overall fundamental understanding of Javascript. In other words, I was spinning my wheels with these courses. 

I didn't realize this until I was sick and didn't code for two weeks and then tried to jump back into coding and realized I forgot half the things I “learned”. It was clear I had deep holes in my fundamentals that I needed to address before advancing.

I enrolled in CSPrep after I took a FrontEnd Master’s course called “Javascript the Hard Parts”. The first thing I noticed about both instructors were that they had a very distinct way of teaching.

They always diagrammed everything, especially how the Javascript engine processes the code ‘under the hood’. They would speak in a very precise manner and have students weave this vocabulary into their understanding of the subject. This specific emphasis on technical communication and deep understanding is what I think makes CS Prep a worthwhile investment. 

My CSPrep instructor, David, flowed seamlessly through the course making sure everyone was on the same page and that we continuously hit a deeper understanding of the topic at hand. I believe this “training style” is what led to me to pass the interview for the full time Software Immersive Program at Codesmith. After all, the interview topics (Closures, Higher-Order Functions) were not necessarily the easiest resources to find online. 

 

I would highly recommend checking out CSPrep and Javascript the Hard Parts. If I had to do it over again, I’d go to their free in-person Javascript the Hard Parts workshops held every week before jumping into CSPrep, that way the new knowledge is built on strong fundamentals.