A lesson when SEO folks manufacture viral content for clicks but masquerade it as the truth. Full of mistakes, misattributions, incorrect timelines, and leaving out lawsuits and nefarious activity that disputes the story.
I have a lot of DMs that are there to protect me in making arguments. I don't think it's cool to share them - even anonymized, because people close to Codesmith leadership would be outed and it would impact a lot of people. I have to think about the right way to do that if I did and I might need to have a journalist with credibility go through and write it up.
I comment a lot about them and I have gotten annoyed every now and then when my tone was not professional, but most of critical comments about Codesmith center on The fact that their website has a giant banner saying from zero to mid-level engineer and I think that that's misleading and setting people up for failure in the software industry regardless of their outcomes or their talent. I'm open to hearing all sides of this, but it's a very reasonable opinion to have and state.
I'm going to focus on the MODERATION ACCUSATION first since that seems to be the main issue.
What moderating r/codingbootcamp actually looks like:
I don't own the sub - I report to the owner who asked me to help after I'd been one of the most active and helpful contributors. The coding bootcamp industry is absolutely infested with astroturfing. Brand new accounts, manufactured conversations, fake testimonials. It's constant daily spam trying to manipulate people making $15K-20K decisions.
My job is to support authentic discussion. We have above-average Reddit AI filters. We generally don't review flagged content because we can't tell who these suspicious brand new accounts are. Occasionally we approve legitimate posts caught in filters.
The accusation that I delete Codesmith's posts:
This is not only false, it's the exact opposite of what I do. I regularly break the sub's rules to manually approve Codesmith content that Reddit's automated systems flag as spam. I shouldn't be doing this - the same rules should apply to everyone - but I do it constantly because their posts get caught unfairly.
Why are their posts getting flagged?
In mid-2024, Codesmith hired a marketing contractor to post on Reddit. Their CEO even sent me proof of this. They probably didn't know it at the time, but this guy was running one of the most extensive astroturfing operations I've ever seen. Dozens of high-karma sockpuppet accounts. Fake conversations across hundreds of subreddits promoting hemorrhoid cream, garage door openers, lava lamps, custom suits, you name it.
I helped uncover this network and Reddit nuked all those accounts. But Codesmith's legitimate accounts got tangled up in it, and Reddit's AI started auto-suspending them by association - IP addresses, posting patterns, behavioral signals.
I explained this to Codesmith. Multiple times. By email. By phone with their CEO directly. With screenshots. With specific suggestions on rebuilding trust signals through authentic engagement.
They accused me of "deleting their posts." I told them I was approving their content, not removing it. They didn't listen, didn't change their approach, and to this day their content gets constantly flagged.
The evidence is in their own sub, look at some of their official AMAs:
Go look right now. Count how many comments are flagged/suspended/deleted/collapsed. Roughly half get flagged by Reddit within weeks. Not by me - I'm banned from that sub. That doesn't happen with legitimate engagement.
There was a fake account on LinkedIn liking all their stuff that is now suspended as well.
With my moderator hat on, I'm being accused of bias while actively protecting Codesmith from the consequences of their own marketing decisions. I approve posts that should probably stay filtered. I give them more leniency than other bootcamps. I've consistently tried explaining how Reddit works and how to fix their reputation signals.
On my criticism of their program:
Yes, I've been critical of specific Codesmith practices since 2022 - whether bootcamp grads should present 3-week projects as "4 months of mid-level experience" or market themselves as "mid-level engineers" with zero professional experience. I have strong opinions backed by outcomes data and CIRR reports.
But that has nothing to do with how I moderate. I've been equally critical of other bootcamps like TripleTen, BloomTech, App Academy. I recommend a dozen or two people go to Codesmith! At the same time I was questioning their marketing. My moderation standards apply to everyone except Codesmith, who I give more leeway to.
Bottom line:
If I wanted to hurt Codesmith as a moderator, I would simply let Reddit's automated systems do their job. I wouldn't override the filters.
> Get a media consultant. Seriously, you suck at this
Well the author thinks I'm a mastermind marketer ... maybe I'm not and I'm just a person frustrated with a company that I pointed out problems to for years, they did nothing about them, and those same problems caused their implosion.
If you want to publish your projects everywhere under the sun in public and ask for them to be 'stared on Github', giving people a script to instantly vote 50 claps on Medium, etc...
Then I can open up those people's LinkedIns and note down how they represent themselves.
Is that weird? I don't think so but you can decide, but it's not stalking and harassing.
If that's stalking then the guy who wrote the post was stalking the hell out of me.
Agreed, try to figure out how I benefit in any way from Codesmith's decline. Not theoretical, but hard facts. I know of THREE people that considered going to Codesmith and went to Formation instead. One of them I tried very hard to convince to go to Codesmith and she instead got a job on her own and then came to Formation.
All of this for three customers? It doesn't add up and there are some missing pieces in the story.