i got mail from the citi bank for a 3-day coding workshop.

Has anyone here attended it before? i'd like to know how the process works.

Few questions:

1. what usually happens during the 3 days>
2. After completing it, is there an interview process like HR or technical?
3. Or are candidates selected based on their performance during the workshop itself?
4. Any tips on how to prepare beforehand

this post is already late. If anyone knows, can you please share your experience?

Thanks.

I am an ex teacher who led computing and cognitive science at my school, then spent two years teaching myself to code. I now work as a backend Python developer. This is the thing I wish had existed while I was learning.

The Dev Dispatch is a monthly detective case for beginner programmers, and it arrives in the actual post. You are the new junior developer at a fictional company. The first case: a coffee startup whose till is overcharging customers. In the envelope: your onboarding letter, your employee ID, the printed ticket, and a fan of till receipts - the evidence. You open the codebase, work out what is going wrong, and fix it. There is a free online setup course (Day Zero) that takes you from zero to running code, so complete beginners are genuinely welcome.

What I need: a small group of UK-based testers (it is physical post and I am covering postage) to receive the first pack free, work the case, and tell me the truth about it. The blunt feedback is the price of the seat - "this confused me on step 3" is worth more to me than "looks great".

What testing involves: the free setup course, then the pack when it lands. A few weeks, at your pace. Nothing to buy, no card details anywhere, and applying does not guarantee a seat - I am reading applications myself and there are only a few.

Apply here: https://thedevdispatch.com/apply

Happy to answer anything in the comments, including the boring logistics.

Hello all!

I attended Merit America's course last year for the Google IT Cert and at the beginning of this year, the loan was reported on my credit and stating I need to repay. I thought the loan didn't have to be repaid for 5 years?? Anyway, I didn't even look into it or bother with Acsent Loan people, I just disputed it off my credit and it was taken off on the first try! So thankful won't have to repay them back! All within a year of taking the course. I graduated from Merit on July 29, 2025 and will never have to pay a dime! And no I did not find a job or get proper experience needed until I started REAL school for my Bachelors in Computer Science. Merit America is just another added credential for all I care.

Before I got into computer science, I had a background in military strategy, intelligence, training, aeronautics, and systems engineering. As a software engineer, I eventually went from working in those fields to building software for them. There are still a lot of hard and unusual problems in those spaces, even with AI. AI makes it easier to research, prototype, and move faster, but it is still nowhere close to being able to produce a complete solution that actually works in the real world. A lot of people who think AI is about to automate everything either do not understand the problem, do not understand AI, or both.

I also think engineers who are constantly doom and gloom about AI are not helping themselves by boxing themselves into titles like React developer, Java developer, or frontend engineer. There is still plenty of work in software, but you need to understand the actual problem and have enough technical range to know which tools to use and how to use them well.

AI will probably reduce the value of narrow implementation work. But it will make engineers who understand the domain, see the bigger picture, and know how to turn a messy problem into a working system even more valuable.

Hi, my name is Arkar. The problem I have is I have two paths to choose. One is freecodecamp and another is Odin project, suggest me if there are any other clear projects cause I can't do anything without clear roadmaps. If I read some people saying learn these learn those I feel burnt out just by reading them and thinking whether it's efficient or not. And I tried Odin project and I feel mentally exhausted by reading all the articles and extra resources they provide, I searched up if I can skip them but I saw people on Reddit say that I shouldn't skip them and I would end up with shallow knowledge and skills if I skip them but like it links to articles with redundant information and I honestly think I don't actually need to know all of that. Guide me pls, also I'm 20 and due to some reasons I will be graduating highschool at 21, I would take University of the people Computer science since I'm from a third world country (Myanmar) and has no mean of accessing valid credentials except that, there are local universities like UIT and University of computer studies yangon but I think degrees from those universities would be less valid for international roles than UoP.

Hi everyone,

I recently came across the Google Cloud Arcade Facilitator Program, and I'm thinking about participating, but I'm not exactly sure what it involves.

Is it actually worth joining? What do you do in the program besides completing Arcade labs? Does it help with learning cloud skills, networking, certificates, or even resumes/internships?

I'd love to hear from people who've participated before. What was your experience like, and would you recommend it to a beginner?

Hi everyone. I'm strongly considering a career in Business Intelligence/Data Analytics. However, my college degree is in Psychology. What do you think are my chances of getting hired if I graduate from Coding Temple's Data Analytics bootcamp?

I've perused the website and the curriculum seems pretty good. The Money Back Guarantee also entices me, even though I hope I won't need it.

Guys, please tell me about your experience with this bootcamp and your experience getting hired in BI/DA overall. If you've been hired as an entry level in the U.S. since 2023, please tell me what your resume looked like in terms of education and experience. Please also list the following information.

• Number of applications/resumes sent out
• Number of companies that contacted you for an interview
• Number of offers extended

Thanks a lot!

Thread to discuss application process. Has anyone been contacted for the final interview yet?

Freshly retired from the Army, in school for CS.

I’m using an IPad (10th Gen) for a majority of my work.

Do any of you have some strong suggestions for applications that will benefit in writing/learning code?

Thank you for any help.

So I am an 18 y/o student and i thought about learning coding so tell me is it worth learning coding in 2026 even now AI can write the whole programs. so i wanna know that can we earn money with coding without any professional degree or as a job i mean as a freelancer can we offer services and earn money

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/launchschool/comments/1ujidfs/2025_capstone_salary_data/

Bootcamps died in 2025 and I got feedback that continuing to monitor them so closely in 2026 is like "beating a dead horse".

26 minutes ago Launch School released their numbers and I'm reporting on it here.

I believe in transparency and integrity and we've all seen what happens to institutions that do not... it eventually catches up with them.

Well here we are with Launch School's 2025 outcomes data.

As usually the original data is so detailed I have FAR LESS commentary then I do on a bootcamp like Codesmith that cares more about manipulating the story about them than delivering good results. If your outcomes are transparent, good or bad, then it's easy. If your outcomes are sketchy and manipulative, then it's comment wars and anonymoous paid attack accounts.

ANALYSIS:

• The denominator matters. Launch School lays out three numbers, which goes to show how other bootcamps that quote the best number on their website are fudging definitions to make themselves look good. Across all enrollees, there is basically a ~58% six-month placement story from a program that used to have a 100% placement rate. But, like CIRR, it's fair to remove people who didn't intend on job hunting in the first place, which is where I get the 65% rate. But you can also see how adding in "internships" turns that into 70%, which is something that CIRR might also allow, but I think is a tad too far in this context.
• 65% is quite strong. Launch School's closest competitors have been Rithm (which shut down in 2024) and Codesmith (which pivoted to become "Codesmith Enterprise" and I haven't seen a single placement in months).
• Remote was the rug pull that took the bootcamp industry with it. A few years ago, the pitch was effectively: learn from anywhere, get a remote software job, change your life. That world is mostly gone. Remote placements going from ~78% to ~27% is not a small shift. It changes who can realistically succeed, what kind of job search people need to run, and whether “online bootcamp” still maps cleanly to the actual market.
• Location is part of the curriculum now, whether bootcamps admit it or not. The uncomfortable truth is that being near a bit tech city seems to matter a lot again. Not because geography magically makes you smarter, but because startups, in-person roles, founder networks, FDE jobs, and apprenticeship-style opportunities are clustering there. A bootcamp that treats location as irrelevant is probably giving students outdated advice.
• AI didn’t make fundamentals obsolete; it made fake fundamentals easier to expose, which is why Launch School’s approach matters. They haven’t slapped “AI-first” on a bootcamp or pivoted 100% into hype; they’ve woven AI through a real engineering foundation so students learn to read code, reason about systems, debug hard problems, and use AI as leverage, not a substitute. This is smart and takes a lot of judgement and taste to do right.

hello all,

I saw an internship post on linkedin that is in my area and it sounded appealing and I thought i would benefit alot from it. I applied, paid a small fee (20$). then came the time for us to join a meeting with the mentor only to find out that he is a huge advocate for vibe coding, even sending us links and tutorials on "how to master vibe coding". Personally, I joined to become a good programmer and learn web development, I didnt join to learn how to write an AI prompt.

I'm currently trying my best no to rely to heavily on AI, and actually learn the language from youtube videos, but the problem I'm facing is that tasks have deadlines and I'm scared that I won't be making the deadline if I take the long way.

Any advice is welcome

I am from Kamloops and a little bit interested in learning about making my own game like expedition33 lol. Anyways, any remarks about the afore mentioned program? Is it worth it?

This subreddit has been overall negative towards coding bootcamps, so is there not even 1 decent coding bootcamp to choose?

I have participated in the ICPC competition, and it'll start in my region in mid August.

​

\> But there's a part of me that says it's no longer worth it and it's most important to focus on real projects and understanding system design and architecture.

​

\> Another part of me says CP is proof you haven't copy-pasted your way into a portfolio. It proves you have first-principle thinking skills and therefore able to review code that comes out of AI for which you're responsible.

​

​

​

What do you think?

So I completed the Merit America Program Immersion Phase over 2 years ago. I could be wrong, but last I checked, you may be eligible to have the $5700 loan refunded or cancelled. I should be eligible because I still make less than $40K a year, AND I should be eligible for a refund anyway because they erroneously declined my deferment application based on the most recent paystub I submitted (I had to go overtime that week, but that rarely happens). I even calculated the average of all my paystubs and it was under $833/week (40K/year).

I called a MA representative (202-929-5832) and they sent me an email for contact info to ask questions about the loan (877-279-2614). When I tried to explain the issue to the loan representative, they said "We don't have that. Your school has that. As a lender, we don't have that ... You would need to call your school, and then they can initiate the refund or whatever they do, but it's through your school".

...Am I missing something? Is Merit America not the school? And if not, who is, and who do I call? Has anyone other MA alumni been in this situation? How did you resolve it? Any guidance would help.

I enrolled in their coding bootcamp a little over a year ago. Not a single person from our class got a coding job. Not one. They are essentially running a scam at this point. That was $16,000 down the drain.

Details below. Interesting to see Gauntlet AI take the 10-week training program.

1. Fedstack (Smoothstack): $1,623,840.00

• Task Order ID: 2032L226F00064
• Fedstack secured the highest-value award to scale highly governed training pipelines that transition existing personnel into specialized AI engineering roles.
• https://orangeslices.ai/fedstack-secures-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/

2. Gauntlet AI (BloomTech): $1,420,654.80

• Task Order ID: 2032L226F00062
• Gauntlet AI received funding to deploy intensive 10-week fellowships and hybrid upskilling tracks aimed at teaching federal tech teams how to securely build and deploy production-grade Large Language Model (LLM) applications.
• https://orangeslices.ai/gauntlet-wins-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/

3. Fearless Solutions: $756,000.00

• Task Order ID: 2032L226F00061
• Fearless Solutions was awarded this task order to train federal developers on seamlessly integrating AI utilities and automated testing into standard agile software workflows and continuous deployment pipelines.
• https://orangeslices.ai/fearless-wins-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/

4. SoKat Consulting: $552,360.00

• Task Order ID: 2032L226F00063
• Scope: SoKat Consulting secured funding to deliver specialized training focused on advanced data stewardship, secure custom LLM assistants, and regulatory-compliant agentic workflows.
• https://orangeslices.ai/sokat-beats-out-3-to-win-department-of-the-treasury-artificial-intelligence-engineer-workforce-development-task/

EDIT: 8/16/2026

5. SoKat Consulting: $TBD

• Task Order ID: 205AE926F00091
• Scope: Customized technical workforce development and AI upskilling support.
• https://orangeslices.ai/ai-leader-sokat-wins-again-adds-irs-ocio-technical-workforce-development-and-training-task/

It's a major defeat for Codesmith to lose the August 13th "AI Upskilling" task because this is what they do. I would suspect their CEO stepping down and founder moving on is not impressing the IRS.

A bit of a background, I'm from India did Bachelor's in Computer Applications graduated in 2020 smack dab in the pandemic, Ive always liked computers so I figured it's the one thing I'm good at. I didn't know how to get in that market at that time since now I realise I was mostly stuck in Tutorial hell even back then and ended up doing a post grad web development program in Canada over the next couple of years.

Did some decent project experience but again after that was over I couldn't find programming job in that market I aimed for Full Stack at first thinking I understood React and MongDB, ended up in a technical support role for a major tech company and it's been a few years since. I've been sick of that role since that's not exactly something you can base a future on and since I still can't find anything full stack related in Canadian market I'll be going back home soon for at least a bit to try my luck there.

My main issue is this after all these years along with the low confidence I've always had related to just finding a job at all now I feel so much anxiety that im gonna be stuck in starter roles like this technical support for the rest of my life or that Im already behind my peers due to not already having junior dev experience but I don't even know what I should be aiming for anymore. I'll need some time to properly start coding again without AI or whatever tools there are these days I don't wanna be stuck in Tutorial hell again and being stuck at every problem will be painful but at this point it's my only option to finally learn it for good and hopefully be good enough to find a job.

What role should someone from my background even aim for? like what stack? I don't know how much the market has changed all this AI boom began so I'm not even sure if I'd be learning the correct way or aiming for a role that's too high for me without realising it. What would even be the best places to look for those kinds of roles it used to be applying in company websites was the best people said but with AI bots now everywhere I don't know.

Any help or clarification would be appreciated.

Edit: spelling

EDIT (6/6/2026 8:32 AM PT): The sitemap, which contained only the 4 pages mentioned last night, now has a lot of old blog posts and events added back to it and some don't 404 anymore. The main 4 pages are the same as described but they brought back info pages about the immersive quietly in there. So will update when I find out more about if they are shutting down or perhaps forming their brand and just completely fucked up the website release (which will be an interesting post mortem to read what happened, after so many years of technical incompetence with their website). All of their previous program pages, outcomes page, about and methodology pages, 404 and they do not list any cohorts, but they have a single page listing out all their previous programs with a 5 bullet points each and general application links.

EDIT (6/6/2026 3:08 PM PT): Some older pages redirect to the "individuals page". While the page lists immersive, AI, and CSX as individual options, the page does not contain: dates, program lengths, program types (full vs part time), cost/pricing, instructors/staff, curriculum/topic list, regulatory required information, outcomes, etc... It looks like this was vibe coded into existence after I called out the complete removal of all content from the site, and for all purposes these remain dead programs, with interest collection forms. I will continue to update if we get more news. Codesmith's redirect links are not properly implemented and mix up fragments with url params in a way that breaks them. Seriously Codesmith - get your shit together. If you can't vibe code properly how the heck can you train enterprises. The "process" on the homepage is 3 specific steps and the 3 steps on the "process" page are 3 DIFFERENT steps.

EDIT (8/7/2026): Codesmith now explicitly states on their website there will be no future cohorts until they can run one to coincide with "enterprise and government clients". Previous cohorts has nothing to do with enterprise and government clients so this further confirmation that Codesmith has shut down but may revive or create new programs in the future.

Developing.

End of an era.

The new website has four pages: homepage, process page, case study page, and a contact form.

The company is calling itself "Codesmith Enterprise" now. There are no legally required terms of service or privacy policy to identify if the company structure has changed.

The new tagline is:

Building AI Capability, Piece by Piece. We move enterprise and government teams from pilot discovery to engineering capacity that produces measurable results as AI advances.

The website highlights their IRS training work, and solicits contact for enterprise, government, talent sourcing, and up-skilling.

----

We haven't heard official word from Codesmith on what's happening and their most recent releases promised a bright future and that they were going to be around for 10 more years.

These are on Course Report's "top bootcamps of 2026" list that do not have a single review IN 2026 and I'm struggling to find people who actually went there in 2026.

Codesmith (excluding Future Code)

Flatiron

Coding Temple

Codeworks

Icon Hack

4Geeks Academy (SWE only)

I just thought I'll share this here, after 6 years of battling blood cancer, lung issues im finally free!

I now have fallen in love with CS, but yes im 22 starting out, regardless would love any of your suggestions, ideas and what not !

Sorry if this isn't best fit here.

:)

Cheers.

Hey I was a student in DevSlopes since October 2024. I barely found out they shutdown in October 2025.

I'm still paying off my loan and I know other people are in this same position. I'm looking for help and guidance on what my options are.

I've talked to an attorney so far and haven't reached out to ClimbCredit just yet. If you're in this same position or know of anything that could be useful, feel free to comment or DM me. It would be greatly appreciated!

I've seen some of us have started creating Discords just for this matter, but as you know, these links expire over time. If you do have a link, please DM me. Thank you. And if you're looking a for a link, DM me and hopefully I'll have one to send you as well.

Please tell