Codify Academy

Matt has built an incredible company with his brothers, and his ability to teach others (in a positive and engaging fashion) is wonderfully infectious- he gets the best out of his students. Towards the end of our coding Bootcamp, Matt was our career counselor mentor and provided us with invaluable game plans to ensure our job hunt success after the program. Codify Academy feels more like a family than anything else and that’s a testament to the owners’ visions. I would highly recommend Matt, Codify Academy and any project that Matt is affiliated with!

I worked hard every single day, constantly pushed my limits on projects, built a portfolio of 10 websites/apps and had interviews by week 14. Life Changing Experience at the Best Bootcamp Price in San Francisco. What are you waiting for? 

First of all, I am not getting paid from Codify to do Sales or Marketing. I do work with them on talking to prospects & grads, answering questions, sharing my story! I went through their program and got hired within a month after, for $80k a year, by a company called Blue Rocket, in SF, with no prior coding experience. My developer journey has ever since been absolutely amazing! Last week i was a speaker at a tech conference, sharing what i had build using node.js and IBM Watson. A SPEAKER! ME! 1.5 years after i had started Codify. Absolutely friggin' awesome!!! 

I would also like to point out that Codify also offers a full refund if you don't get hired within 6 months and you went to the hiring events and followed their advice on resume building, interview questions etc. So it all depends on how much work you put into!! They do strongly advice to not take any unpaid dev jobs or internships. Your first job will be the hardest one to get and a lot of grads just give up. That's why i am here, helping build a community, that inspires and supports prospects & grads! 

Why do i care so much? Because Codify (and the staff!!) has enabled me to live a life that i have always wanted, right when it was literally the worst. I was broke (making that immigrant minimum wage woo!), super unhappy, no jobs in sight with my ops focused job experience, with very little money left in the bank. 

I met Sam (one of the founders, used to be an insurance broker) in my co living place (i used to live with 60 tech people all making $$$ while building cool stuff-- i was very envious lol), when he attended one of our "tech talks" where we would discuss what everyone in the house was working on. He brought along a whole class (!!) of current students that wanted to get involved. I got the chance to talk to them, which has lead me to apply on the website the next day. I went to the in person meeting, and met Matt (his other brother, used to work as dispatcher) only to be told that they have another brother, Chris (used to be a waiter) who also founded the company. I loved it!! I felt like they KNOW how frustrated life can be when you don't love what you do but you feel like you're trapped in your life path bc you can't afford to get out of it. 

So i signed up! I was super duper excited, finally I'm getting out of my hamster wheel!!... until about 2 days after. My bf ran into a guy during a hiring event and he claimed CA would be a scam. My heart broke, of course. I reached back out to Sam, wanting to drop out of the course (remember, i was broke, i literally put my last money into it). He knew exactly who i was talking about and shared the full story. Aha. A computer scientist. He dropped out. Of course he wouldn't like the program! Codify is the opposite of a school. No theory (or very little), just building. It feels more like private teacher + therapist + hiring marathons. I spend so many late nights at the office that they would order me food so i would still be healthy, lol. I mean, who does that?! I wanted to quit so many times. The "getting hired" part seemed just impossible. but the mentors (incl. founders) were there for me, no matter how late at night or how many panic attacks i experienced. 

I will be forever grateful! Codify is a small school, so if i can help get the word out there by sharing my story over and over again, then so be it. 

This review might take 5 minutes of your time but will definitely save you thousands of dollars and a shitty experience.

If you still have doubts and concerns after reading this review, feel free to contact me for a chat.

I started just like you. I was searching for a bootcamp to make a transition in my career and met with lots of different bootcamps, one of them being Codify Academy, so I had an initial meeting with Sam Brody, one of the three co-founders. At your first meeting, you will recognize a pattern at this bootcamp and especially in Sam. He’s a salesman. He will sugar-coat every word that comes out of his mouth, all so that you decide to put your valuable and hard-working money and time at their bootcamp… but don’t fall for this. The value and impact you get from this bootcamp are very minimal if any at all.

Codify Academy, aka CA, advertises its bootcamp as a 16-week part-time program, in which you will become proficient at Web Development (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), therefore, being good enough to get a related job in the industry. NOT TRUE AT ALL. Most CA graduates that finish the bootcamp are nothing close to ready to get a Web Developer job. I say most of the graduates because the drop out rate is outstandingly high –over 70%. That is 7 out of 10 people who start the program don’t finish it because they don’t see value in it. How do I know this? I had first-hand experience because the drop-out rate in my class was well over 70%. Similarly, when talking to students from other classes they mentioned they experienced a similar drop-out rate. So, I hope you’re smart and don’t fall into this trap.

Having said that, this bootcamp has lots of loopholes that they say they are “trying to fix” such as inexperienced instructors, weak course material (their book is a copy/paste from W3Schools, for real…), weak jobs program (they tell you to copy a template resume and make it yours, use a template cover letter and use it as-is, and copy a template website portfolio from the internet while you’re supposed to create an original since you’re already a developer and can do all of this by yourself, especially the website portfolio part). Do yourself a favor and don’t drop thousands of dollars to be their guinea pig. If you plan to do this, I’m down for a chat and teach you what they teach for one-tenths of their tuition. Their classes are much like hangouts, in which the lead mentor (as Codify Academy likes to call main instructors) provides a set of exercises to warm up for 30-45 minutes, then you are on your own for the remaining 2 hours. Ask yourself if that’s what you would like to pay thousand of dollars for. In all honesty, if I were to do it again, I would try to stay far away from Codify. To be objective, less than 20 graduates out of 160+ got a job within 6 months of graduation. That’s less than 15%…

Codify Academy’s misleading advertisements mentions that its bootcamp have “industry experienced lead mentors” teaching their classes. NOT TRUE AT ALL EITHER. Experienced instructors were the main reason I joined Codify, but ended up disappointed when I found out CA recent students were teaching these courses. Most courses are taught by CA recent students, most of them don’t have industry experience. Nothing wrong with this, but if you’re serious about your education and career, and value your time and money, don’t sign up for this bootcamp. What you learn is little, if anything. The reason CA students teach these courses are because they say they can’t afford industry experienced instructors. CA targets vulnerable low-income people looking for a quick way to make big money, so Codify advertises and promises heaven, but when you get there you see the reality of what they offer: dirt. To be honest, Sam Brody knows about this and mentioned it during one of our meetings. The founders are in this for the short-term, for the money and their main goal is to get more students (students = money), but rarely to improve their course materials and projects. This is the reason they don’t invest in hiring experienced instructors (they say it’s too expensive and don’t have the money) because filling up their pockets is more important than your time, education and career.

In conclusion, I would highly suggest you stay as far away as possible from this bootcamp or program if you are looking to break into the web development field since you will be better off buying affordable courses from Udemy; searching, reading and learning from Google resources and articles; learning from W3Schools; going to web development meet-ups; doing FreeCodeCamp; signing up to Treehouse or Udacity's nanodegrees; or simply reading books and watching YouTube web development videos to improve your web dev skills. Seriously, I highly suggest you stay as far away as possible from Codify Academy and a shitty experience.

PS: I was in your position a few months ago. I read every single internet review about Codify Academy, its legitimacy, and still gave them an opportunity to prove me wrong, but ended up disappointed as many of you will feel by the middle or end of the program if you decide to join. If you truly value your time, money, education and career, you should consider investing it more wisely somewhere else.

This is the review I wish I had read while researching and considering joining a bootcamp, especially Codify Academy.

To start, I am a grad and I was just hired for my first web developer job!!!

I'm super pumped to get started and can't thank the codify team enough. Everyone put in so much time with me I felt like part of a family. 

Here's basically how the course works:

1. You prep for class by watching videos and reading (I'd recommend coding a bit too).

2. You attend class and learn to use what you just studied in real world applications. If you don't prep, it's hard to follow along, a mistake I made once. 

3. You start applying for jobs when you feel ready, this could be week 1 or week 16, it's up to you. But the mentors will push you to apply earlier which I would recommend now that I've gone through the hiring process. They're not kidding when they say the sooner you apply the sooner you'll get hired.

4. They help you put together your portfolio, resume, cover letter, and all your online stuff (linkedin, github, codepen, etc.). 

5. Then you start applying. If you don't get interviews they help figure out why. Once you start getting interviews, they help with interview prep. For me, they helped me with phone interviewing and in person interviewing both technical and not technical. If you're really worried about the interview process I know other students who paid for other professional help which worked well for them too. They basically doubled down on the professional interview help. If you have the money, why not right?

6. You get hired and celebrate like me!!!

That list looks easy but like anything worthwhile, it's definitely hard. Don't expect to just pick up JavaScript like learning a different skill. You need to put in at least 10 hours a week. If you don't you'll fall behind. I know students who didn't put in the time for whatever reason, and they're still attending office hours to try and catch up after graduation. It's great that codify offers that and I applaud them for that. But we all have 10 hours a week to do this, you just need to do it.

If you read this and end up going to codify you've made the right choice :)

I have a lot of friends who are web developers. Some of them graduated from other boot camps and others taught themselves. One of them went to codify and told me all about their program.

I have a family and couldn't afford any other boot camp. I needed to work to pay rent, which is why i went with codify. I'm so happy i did. I work as a developer now making almost 3 times what I made at my last job.

From what I gather, most boot camps can help you get hired if you put the work in, you just have to find the right one for you. If you work full time, then codify is your best option. They're serious when they say their course never ends. Matt's helping me get my second developer job right now, and I'm aiming for 6 figures!

The codify team is great and if you put in the work you're going to get hired!

Finally got around to doing one of these, sorry it took so long Brody brothers

To start, I just want to say thank you for creating this amazing experience. I tried learning on my own and know that I could never have done it without the support of you guys and all the mentors!

I took this course after I lost my high paying job and had to settle for a sales job that I did not like in the least. 

I was really hesitant like most of my classmates because it seems like it's too good to be true. But it actually is. I was hired and so were the classmates that I stayed in contact with. 

That's not to say that by signing up for this course everyone will get hired. On the contrary, signing up is just the first step in a long race or marathon as the mentors like to remind us.

It all comes down to how much time you are willing to put in and how much fun your willing to sacrifice for the sake of getting a high paying job/career.

I've gone through and read some of the bad reviews, and know that it has to do with a lack of effort on their part. If you're going to sign up, take it seriously. You are paying thousands of dollars, so why skip class or not do the projects?

If you are serious about changing your life like I did, ignore the slackers and schedule a call with them or check out their open house events.

Overall Experience

    Codify Academy, also known as CA, claims to be a “Part Time Program that Teaches You How to Become a Front End Developer in 16 Weeks”. But half-way through my time at the program, 6 out 12 of my classmates had dropped out due to the bad experience they were having. By the end of the course, only 4 of the 12 students remained. 

    With two weeks left to finish the course I decided to withdraw after they offered me and my classmate a “job” as UNPAID TA’s for their incoming classes. I had 2 issues with this. 

    1. This seems to imply that they do not value their own graduates worth if they do not feel the need to pay them.

    2. The quality of of their mentors and TA’s. If I accepted the position, I could have been your TA with no computer science degree and zero teaching experience. My coding skills may be enough for a internship or junior web development job, but there’s no way I have any business teaching in a class room. 

    CA deleted me from their program's Slack (community messaging board) and threatened to sue me for punitive damages if I shared this review with my fellow classmates.  In 7 days I went from being a star student being asked to work for them, to CA threatening to sue me. Many other students have had tried voicing their concerns on Slack about the legitimacy of the program. In response they made us all sign contracts in hopes to silence us.

    Be wary when reading other posted reviews. Many of them are from CA staff members. One of the most widely used review and testimonial works for CA’s sales and marketing.

Instructors 

    The instructors (or mentors, as CA calls them) are former students and not the “experienced industry mentors” as advertised. Most don’t have Computer Science degrees and have never held jobs at tech companies. The mentors in my class were just former CA students from less than a year ago who, apparently, couldn’t get hired anywhere else after their graduation from the academy. Though they were unfit to be a lead mentor they were fantastic group of friendly guys. 

    Each class was supposed to have 3 mentors, but my class had only 2, if both showed up. Classsates brought their concerns to the founders and were told another mentor would be added, but that promise went unfulfilled.

    During a meeting with one of the founders, he said CA couldn’t afford quality instructors because they target low-income students and paying a qualified instructor would raise costs.

Curriculum

    They know their own book is a bad resource. In fact, page one of CA’s book states that W3Schools (a free online resource) is a better resource of knowledge. There is one chapter in CA’s book for each week of the academy, so 16 chapters for 16 weeks. But some pages consist of just a few sentences of text and a generic stock photo to fill up space.

    Many times the book just states the method without any explanation of its use or how it works. It doesn’t even show the result of the method. For that, you are referred to page numbers in John Duckett’s book (another outside resource). A mentor disclosed to me that the book was worthless and that they are going to discontinue the use of it and keep everything online.

    The YouTube videos intended to go with each chapter are just as incomplete. Some videos are as short as 7 minutes for a whole week’s worth of material. 

    I quickly realized that I had to supplement all of the academy’s teaching materials with outside resources if I wanted to learn anything. 

Job Assistance

    CA makes a lot of too-good-to-be-true statements about the job assistance they provide graduates and the jobs graduates will get. They weren’t able to answer me when I asked if just ONE graduate had gotten a job in the last two months. There’s about a couple dozen that appear to have gotten jobs. That however is out of the hundreds who had joined is CA and the 150 who completed it. Ask CA to prove that 100+ of their graduates have relevant jobs in the field. You won’t get any because their job placement rates are exaggerated and manipulated.

Cost

    It’s hard to compare CA’s cost with other bootcamps like Hack Reactor, General Assembly, Dev Bootcamp, etc., because those bootcamps are approved institutions with the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. Codify Academy is NOT an approved institution. 

    I awarded one extra star because CA does offer 24-month payment plans and only $300 down to start. Plus, many of my classmates were able to negotiate their tuition down.

Location

    The best part of the program is their convenient location downtown. It’s a short walk from the Montgomery St. Station. Getting into CA is a bit of a hassle. You have to check in with security in the lobby and then you have to contact someone from CA to come down to get you to let you in the elevator. Usually this takes less than 5 minutes but on occasion it can take longer. 

    CA has two tiny sales and marketing offices on the 15th floor. There’s no dedicated spot for CA students to study. A common area with tables and chairs is shared with the other dozen businesses on the floor. Classes take place on various floors throughout the building, which CA rents out by the hour.

My friend recommended this course to me. He told me all about it and it seemed like something I could do too. 

He was hired just 2 months after completing the course, so I had high hopes.

It was definitely difficult, I must have studied at least 20 hours every week. But it paid off in the end, I got hired before the class even ended.

There are some things you need to know before signing up though. It's perfect for someone who's working full-time if you're willing to put the time in. When they tell you 10-15 hours of practice a week, they're not kidding. So expect to work really hard. If you don't have that much time, you should stick to online learning.

The mentors are great. They pushed us to be so much better than we thought we could. Big shout out to Chris for all the help he gave me personally!

They offer open office hours where you can go in and work 6 days a week. Take advantage of this as much as you can. 

The course was completely hands on, which was great because that's the best way I learn.

There are a lot of other boot camps out there and you should definitely shop around. But something about these guys was different than the rest, so be sure to put them on your list of boot camps to check out.

Codify Academy is an excellent part-time front-end web development course. I learned many of the most important concepts of web dev including HTML, CSS, Javascript, Git, and Angular. The mentors are excellent and experienced and the projects you work on are challenging but applicable to what you have learned. You can go in to have your questions answered during the weekdays or by reaching out to the mentors. I would recommend this course, especially if you are a hard worker and determined to learn about front-end web development.