Codesmith

I attended Codesmith in November of 2022, graduated in February 2023 and accepted a job offer 2 months later. This program absolutely changed my life, but was also incredibly challenging. Codesmith does a great job of giving you a strong foundation in both technical skills and soft skills. It was incredibly demanding but the work doesn't stop after the program ends; I put a considerable amount of time and effort after the program not only with the job search, but also fine tuning my technical skills in order to compete with the other people currently in the hiring pools. If I had to do it again, I would definitely pick Codesmith as a bootcamp but be prepared to grind. 

As a former professional in hospitality management and marketing, my decision to enroll in Codesmith proved to be a pivotal turning point in my career journey. Codesmith transcends typical coding bootcamps, offering a transformative experience that caters to individuals from diverse backgrounds, including myself.

Transitioning from hospitality to the tech industry seemed like a daunting challenge, but Codesmith provided me with the necessary tools and support to succeed. The comprehensive curriculum, led by knowledgeable instructors, not only reinforced my existing skills but also introduced me to a wide array of cutting-edge technologies. The program's emphasis on collaboration over competition fostered a supportive community where I felt encouraged to grow and learn alongside like-minded individuals.

Despite the fast-paced nature of the program, I found the rigorous coursework and hands-on projects to be immensely rewarding. The 'under-the-hood' focus of the material allowed me to gain a deep understanding of engineering principles while honing my teamwork and problem-solving skills. Thanks to the invaluable guidance and resources provided by the Codesmith team, I was able to secure a fulfilling position shortly after graduation, leveraging the solid foundation and practical knowledge acquired during the program.

For anyone considering a career transition or seeking to enhance their technical skills, I wholeheartedly recommend Codesmith. It's not just a coding school; it's a supportive community that empowers individuals to reach their full potential. My experience at Codesmith has been nothing short of extraordinary, and I am grateful for the doors it has opened in my professional journey.

Codesmith is, without a doubt, one of the best immersives for software engineering. What truly sets it apart are the people who work there to create an environment that allows engineers to grow and learn. You can tell that the staff genuinely cares about their students. The curriculum pushes you to truly understand the fundamentals of engineering and to lean into the unknown. It's a lot of work and dedication, and it's so worth it. Go into it giving your all - and you will get everything out of it. 

The alumni network and job support team are unmatched - they're dedicated to seeing their students succeed in an ever-changing industry. Eric Kirsten offers unparalleled advice when it comes to landing a job as a software engineer. The teachers offer invaluable insights into what it means to be a great engineer, and the entire staff provides you with advice, support, and encouragement throughout your journey. If you're looking for a program that offers a challenging curriculum (that will make you stand out as an engineer), excellent job assistance, and a community of people who will support you throughout - you've found it in Codesmith. 

Codesmith was great for me. Attending was one of the best decisions I’ve made, and I think it’s a really fantastic option for some one looking for such a program.

It’s difficult to review a program like Codesmith because it’s (obviously, explicitly) not right for everyone and will hit students in different ways. For me, it was very good — one of the best uses of my time, money, and work that I’ve ever made.
I had a self-taught background coming into Codesmith, with several pretty specific areas of focus. The curriculum reinforced areas of my experience from different perspectives and introduced me to a wide variety of other technologies I hadn’t used before. 
The material was thoughtfully-chosen, presented with a strong ‘under-the-hood’ focus, and well situated within the wider landscape of competing technologies. The projects went deep into engineering considerations and building well as teams. Overall, it gave me an extremely solid basis and tools for continued growth. I found a good position shortly after graduation and have felt very well prepared in that role.

A few considerations of pause / maybe it’s not for you:
- The program moves very quickly, often spending 1-2 instructional days on technologies that take months to become strong with. The better your pre-course background, the more you will get out of it. Students who struggled early continued to struggle throughout the course. I would recommend really mastering the pre-course work and maybe doing some other project before starting, in order to get the most out of it.
- On the same note, you cover a huge amount of content for the time.  While you are given many tools to go deeper, you should have realistic goals for what’s possible in a few months. It’s a solid basis + survey that trains you to learn and dig in — but it can’t actually replace years of learning and experience.
- There’s not as much direct instructor support and evaluation on projects as I would have liked. You can get input, but no one is reviewing the quality of your code or your major design decisions in detail.
- The job market is pretty challenging right now and finding a job takes a lot of work and patience. Research this bit and make sure you know what you’re in for. It’s a legitimate path to a challenging and rewarding career, but it takes work and time.

I had an excellent experience with great learning platform. I liked the way the course is structured, the lessons are clear and the material is extensive and complete. Would like to comment about the mentoring learning sessions, optional content and practice projects that certainly makes the difference for me to understand the concepts. Also the support for the program manager (Vineet Mishra) makes great difference always giving the support I needed. Thank you Vineet!

I surely recommend this course for everyone who wants to become a Data Scientists. Is worth of mention that I had zero experience with machine learning, AI and python but with a great effort I could complete satisfactory the program including with 2 projects with maximum scores. I am very happy to have chosen MIT IDSS with Great Learning!!

This program is undeniably challenging—extremely so. It's not a scenario where you can simply coast and expect to land a fantastic job within a few months. However, if you possess a genuine desire for this and are committed to putting in the hard work, the program can be remarkably effective. It stands out as an exceptional program, and it almost feels unfair to categorize it with other bootcamps because, in my experience and observation, it surpasses them by a wide margin. The hiring segment of the program alone justifies the cost. I give it a perfect 10/10 and cannot recommend it highly enough for those truly dedicated to pursuing this path.

I'm just going to start here - attending Codesmith was one of the best and most life-changing decisions I have made so far. I decided on Codesmith amidst a sea of bootcamps because community is so important to me. I can learn anywhere, whether by myself or at another institution, or in any situation. But it isn't as easy to build or find a good community where the people are caring and supportive to each other, striving to better themselves and excited to live and grow. Codesmith's intent is to deliver the best possible experience in modern technology, to push your personal growth, and to create and foster an amazing community. And it delivers on all those aspects.

The content was always well thought out and is updated as our technology continues to change. But the special kicker is that there is so much open ended room for discovery and growth. There is no spoon feeding - you have to work for your knowledge. And by doing that, it is more ingrained and powerful! 

And lets not leave out their hiring portion! There is a whole portion working on the resume, cover letter, speaking, and how to approach technical assessments and system design interviews. But then, after graduating, their career support is always there. 6 months later, a year later, you name it, they are there to assist! With all the assistance I just received a wonderful job offer, and the joy with all the Codesmith team was so authentic. They are in it for us for the long haul. And because of who they are, I am in it for the long haul too and will continue to support the company, students and alumni to the best of my ability.

Process is long and difficult, but dramatic change requires dramatic work. Codesmith supports you through every step of the way including preparing for your technical interview, providing pre-course work, extensive coursework, and support during the job search. The staff really care about you and your success, and the contacts you meet throughout the journey will be lifelong friends. The community is incredible. The curriculum teaches you far more than how to use a technology, it really teaches you how to learn and think like an engineer.Pros- incredible community (from interview prep through post grad alumni network) 
- rigorous and thoughtful curriculum 
- will learn how to think like an engineer and onboard technologies not covered in the curriculum 
- career support is strategic and empowering. The question is when will you get a job post grad not ifCons- hard learning is predominant teaching style and it is not for everyone. Try CS Prep to find out if you like it 
- difficult to map out and make a timeline for getting into the program. Especially since some cohorts have a waitlist over a month ahead of the start date. 
- major projects do not have code reviews of staff

I recently graduated from Codesmith's East Coast Remote Program - the curriculum was extremely grueling and challenging, but the strong sense of community and support made it possible for me to not only get through it but actually enjoy the process of learning so much in such a short time. I chose Codesmith as a bootcamp because of its verified outcomes, and it did not disappoint - I had resigned myself to a longer-than-average job search process because of the downturn in the hiring market, but I got an offer and signed with an amazing company less than two months after my last day at Codesmith. 

I want to especially shout out Codesmith's Eric Kirsten for his support in the hiring/negotiating process - he is one of those incredible mentors who you feel has your back at every step of the process. Working with him makes you feel like you can do anything! He gave me individual support outside of regular office hours when I was in the thick of the offer/negotiating process, and because of that I was able to negotiate my offer up considerably. I'm incredibly grateful to Eric and the whole Codesmith team!

This is purely my opinion but I don't think there's a better program then Codesmith. Now maybe I'm biased because I just signed my job offer a month after graduating... However I also did heavy research into all my options including self studying and I chose wisely.

Overall my experience was that the staff are empathetic and encouraging, the residents are smart and motivated. I think Codesmiths secret sauce is the strong strong strong community they develop. I am very invested in my cohortmates success and continue to stay involved after graduating. But of course as with anything do your research, find someone who graduated the program to talk to.

Attending Codesmith was one of the best things I've ever done in my life. The bottom line I'm sure everyone is looking for (because it's what I was looking for a few months ago when I was scouring these reviews deciding what route to take): I got a fantastic job that surpassed my hopes going into the program.

I'm going to start by saying that I believe Software Immersives (including Codesmith) are not for every one. The hours and workload are rigorous and the velocity is FAST. Between the pace of the curriculum and the sheer amount of your daily life it takes up, this is a very demanding program. Like most things in life, you get out of it what you put into it and I put a lot into it. If you're not ready for that commitment, I don't know that the outcome would be beneficial.

If you are ready for that commitment, Codesmith is an AMAZING option. Admittedly, I've never attended any of the other Immersives, but my experience at Codesmith was fantastic and I enjoyed just about every bit of it. The staff is incredibly welcoming and supportive (to the point that I joked with a friend that it had a happy cult-like feel in the beginning). But as you start to get into the immersive, you realize you end up needing that support and atmosphere to get through a program like this and Codesmith's faculty are fantastic at that.

Codesmith always talks about their curriculum being curated specifically from what is "in demand" these days, and having just completed the job search, I would wholeheartedly agree with this. The reason for the intense pace of the program is to get as many technologies as possible under your belt and although it often (possibly always) felt like I wish I spent more with one or another, I'm glad now to have been exposed to more so I could utilize that in the job search.

While virtually every instructor was great, I would like to keep this review as fair as possible, so I will mention that Codesmith does use a Fellow program wherein recent graduates do a lot of the review lectures or one-on-one reviews. I would say sometimes this wasn't ideal, as they were clearly less knowledgable than the instructors, but I will say Codesmith did a good job of always having important or new concepts taught by the instructors first. It does compare in many ways to a Professor/Teaching Fellow relationship in college.

When it comes to curriculum, I'm sure many of the people reading this review are considering the self-taught alternative like I was a few months ago. I feel that I'm a fast learner and pretty intelligent, so the self-taught route was one I seriously considered, and when it comes to curriculum, I do think a motivated, intelligent, self-starter could probably teach themselves most of the curriculum with free or cheap resources available online. 3 things ended up making Codesmith more than worth the cost for me in this regard: 1) the speed of the learning. I self-taught for about 3 months in the lead up to Codesmith and by week 2 or 3 in the Codesmith program, I had already surpassed what the amount I managed to self-teach in 3 months. 2) the curation of topics/technologies. There were so many things that I would have never thought to go teach myself, but Codesmith curates all their curriculum from grads see is in demand in the job search, so I learned it at Codesmith and sure enough, it came up in interviews or job postings time and time again.

And the third is my final point - the hiring program. I saw someone say that the hiring program itself is worth the full tuition (and let's be honest, with Codesmith's tuition, that's a heck of a statement to make). The hiring program is PHENOMENAL and the one part of Codesmith that I can point to and confidently say it taught me so many things that I would NEVER have come up with on my own. Everything from online profiles to resumes to how you communicate in interviews. They even got me asking for more money than I ever would have dreamed of asking for (and I ended up getting it). I'll shout out two people in the hiring program in particular - Eric and Samantha who were both incredible resources in my job search and the lead up to it.

All in all - if you're ready to work hard and devote yourself to this process - I don't think there's a better option than Codesmith.