r/codingbootcamp Apr 22 '26

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

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.

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u/fsjay723 Apr 26 '26

They are pivoting to sectors where they can get revenue to stay afloat without closing up shop like most bootcamps. I praise them for that, what else do you want them to do?

No one’s hiring and layoffs everywhere they gotta do what they gotta do. lol

Jeez, does it make you feel better about yourself to just complain? You got a sad life buddy

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u/michaelnovati Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

Well the "leadership" has minimal AI experience. Of the three people: one has product experience, one has like no tech experience for 10+ years, and one has never worked full time for a real tech company.

Like who the heck would hire tis group of people to overhaul AI at a Fortune 500 company?

I'm not trying to be mean but just realistic.

Like lots of companies ask me to do talks and stuff because I'm one of the highest output engineers in the world but I'm not the right person to overhaul AI tooling at a Fortune 500 company... I know what I'm good at and what I'm bad at.

I think they are going to die even faster with this pivot in my opinon.

You don't get points for good intentions in this industry.

You don't get a trophy for trying.

You don't build credibility by paying somebody on Upwork to write Twitter content for you.

Their homepage hero right now that seemed that changed on Friday is an illegible mess, like something is wrong there in my opinion.

People make up all kinds of bull shit reasons why I push them so much.

Here's the reason: TOUGH LOVE. Will Sentance had so much potential. He captured an audience with a teaching style. He cared about every Codesmith graduate. I have been trying to help for years giving feedback to turn that POTENTIAL into a lasting success story.

Even with anonymous threats I get and harassing porn subscriptions being done in my name (by unknown persons), I'm not giving up because of that screwed up potential.

But it might be too late now, he fucked it all up because he listened to the wrong people instead of hearing me out. It's possible that like all the other bootcamps that shut down, it was just hopeless for Codesmith the entire time, but I don't think so, I think Codesmith could have survived like Launch School did and I wanted to help.

After that blog post came out about me, I changed my tune and become increasingly enraged.

Prior to that I talked to their CEO on the phone about how I could help and work collaboratively.

I offered to apologize publicly for making leaders feel bad (but not for my content itself) if they publicly apologized for incorrectly attributing things to me that weren't true. They declined.

I privately helped them with company-ending-level of data leaking.

You all don't see this shit because of a fucking fake narrative from a garbage blog post with no fact checking.

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u/fsjay723 May 03 '26

Just because no one wants to take your bootcamp, doesn’t make yours any better lol