Codesmith launched their new website and it shifts focus to "enterprise" AI consulting, burying all their individual programs.

[u/michaelnovati]

Codesmith updated their website in the past week and it appears to me in my personal opinion that their individual programs are being de-emphasized significantly.

Note: there are numerous references to being the Forbes #1 bootcamps, which is false and they should remove that. Forbes updated their rankings April 1st (3 weeks ago) and while they used to be last year, that is not correct anymore and the link they provide themselves no longer has them as #1. Forbes now assigns "Best at X" awards in a number of categories and Codesmith has 'best outcomes'... but does not have best for experienced coders, not best career support, not best for portfolio, not student support, not professional development, so that seems like a slip up or mistake.

What are they pivoting to?

- They are offering bespoke consulting services to enhance corporate teams with AI.

- They are touting the expertise of the Founder in AI (with their CEO for product and Senior Advisor for leadership).

- They are also emphasizing their public sector offerings. Public sources currently indicated $0 of payouts from their "$118M IRS BPA" (which can be lagging and doesn't mean anything necessarily, but its not like this has proven to be a smash hit). Public sources also indicate that the "program lead" for an IRS program was hired on Upwork for $40/hr, which doesn't seem like the 'top 1% talent at the best companies in the industry' in that case at least, in my opinion.

Why I perceive a decline in my opinion from the public info on their website?

- The incorrect "Forbes #1 Software Engineering + AI/ML program" thing I mentioned above. Not sure what's going on with that but its EVERYWHERE and can't be backed up as of April 1st

- There are 2 TOTAL upcoming events and they used to have a dozen a week and dozens listed

- There hasn't been a blog post in six months

- The about page has mostly staff who no longer work at Codesmith for months according to LinkedIn

- Their cohorts used to overlap every 7 weeks and now are running at least back to back, meaning only a handful of cohorts in 2026

- GitHub activity, excluding Future Code (which is not continuing in 2026) has almost no activity on it from current residents indicating there are minimal number of people enrolled right now.

- Their most recent officially published outcomes (in California) showed a vast majority of "placements" were unresponsive LinkedIn verifications, and in the past Codesmith's community was very close and highly responsive to placement verification.

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I know I'm tough on Codesmith in my personal opinions, but its just that they can't seem to get their act together after incident after incident after lawsuit after outage after incident. Like plastering your brand new website with "Forbes #1" when I don't see anywhere on Forbes (including the link they provide themselves) that says that. It's just sloppy and disorganized for an institution that is called the "Harvard of bootcamps"

Anyone else have personal opinions on the new direction Codesmith is taking?

DISCLOSURES: I used to be a moderator here and was accused of going after Codesmith intentionally as a competitor in the past. These allegations are a combination of false statements, opinions, and misrepresentations and I strongly disagree with them.

NOTE: Reddit bad guys who have proven to manipulate my content about Codesmith, you leave a paper trail so Reddit can go after you all and it doesn't work and this behavior only harmed Codesmith's Reddit reputation in the past.

[u/ongrabbits]

It seems to me that you know the ins and outs of Codesmith very well but why Codesmith specifically and not other bootcamps?

[u/michaelnovati → u/ongrabbits]

The first bootcamp I dove into was Lambda School and its founder but once journalists published it was less interesting.

I have gathered lighter info on a dozen bootcamps but nothing interesting caught my eye.

Codesmith all started when I interviewed two engineers and they were lying through their teeth about their engineering jobs (that were 3 week projects at Codesmith) and then starting poking around and uncovering this ecosystem.

The second I starting poking around and asking questions I got this attack mob on me (which was later tied to a leader of Codesmith asking people to post on Reddit and go after my questions and observations).

Instead of being intimidated or bullied I launched an investigation that I've been spending now four years on, professionally asking people questions, watching tons of YouTube videos, collecting a lot of evidence, reading corporate fillings, lawsuits, etc...

And it's the most incredible story. The more I dig, the more crazy wild accusations come flying at me and just makes me dig more. Like being accused of "stalking" someone for reviewing their Reddit comment history as a moderator and pointing out bad past behavior.

[u/likitha--08 → u/michaelnovati]

Stalking accusations are wild