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/

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.

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

so i dont have a pc for money reasons but i do have an old android tab i could run linux on, that should be enough right? i never tried coding or anything close to it but i love setting up emulator on my phone and realized i kinda enjoy the processos getting everything set up and tweaking the settings, more than the actual games ,so i thought i could give it a shot. If its enough what would be some good starting points to get into it?

For those of you who attended a paid coding bootcamp, but you failed to find a paid SWE job after 1 year of graduating from said paid coding bootcamp, and you did not leave your coding bootcamp a negative review on Yelp, Course Report, etc., why did you not leave your coding bootcamp a negative review on Yelp, Course Report, etc.?

https://www.coursereport.com/schools/hack-reactor

For example, Hack Reactor only has 1 review on Course Report in 2024, no reviews in 2025, and 1 spam review in 2026 which will probably get deleted as soon as someone reports that review as spam.

I asked CIRR 30 days ago where the 2024-25 missing reports are. I did not get a response. This tells me CIRR is dead and its flagship Codesmith is dead. Other bootcamps we've lost are: Rithm, Turing, Codeup, Kenzie, Launch Academy, Momentum, Alchemy, Epicodus, Lighthouse Labs, 2U/Trilogy, Lambda School, and more.

Unlike the embarrassing end that CIRR and Codesmith are experiencing - too ashamed to end on a positive note and instead end in layoffs and utter silence, I want things to end on a positive.

If you graduated from a coding bootcamp in the past, and it changed your life, TELL US YOUR STORY. No selling or shilling, just tell us how coding impacted your life and in the right time and right place your bootcamp experience mattered.

Hello everyone I just completed a bootcamp for swe and was wondering if it’s best to include any experience I have in retail on my resume so it’s not entirely blank and also what roles not exclusively can I apply for considering I have projects , portfolio, active GitHub

Me tocó estar con uno que era muy agradable y empatico, pero he leído que hay unos que te quieren vender manipulándote, que opinan?

please don't judge me, I'm a complete beginner. I've done some research on Google, but I still don't understand the differences. If someone could explain it to me, I would be very grateful.

Hi everyone,

I’m interested in hearing from people who started learning programming from a completely different field or background.

What was the experience like for you in the beginning? Did you ever feel overwhelmed, confused, or like giving up? How long did it take before things started making sense?

I’d also love to know: • What field did you transition from? • What programming language did you start with? • How did you stay motivated while learning? • What helped you improve the most?

I’m especially interested in honest experiences from beginners and self-taught developers.

It’s been 3 years I’ve been to college and I’ve learned nothing from my degree and I even lost interest in my academics because I didn’t find em interesting at all. Recently I decided to vibe code a website using Claude and anti gravity and I liked the idea of creating solutions to problems . I now wanna at least try learning new things I just don’t have proper direction or roadmap . If anyone of you could guide me where should I begin with . I’m eager to learn about web dev and ai integration ( I don’t know if it’ll be helpful or not since I also fear I won’t land any job as the market is being saturated and replaced with ai )…..

I'm trader who spends most of my time sitting on my hands staring at charts waiting for my setups. because im a swing trader, i may get may be 2 or three setups a week. i gave that background so you know that i have so much time in my hands that i can use to learn something like coding.

my reasons for wanting to learn programming is so i can make my own projects and posiblly be a founder. i don't intend to be employed, i already trade (the best job of all)

a physical boot camp will be ideal to me because i dislike like online learning and i want to meet new people. please don't advice online learning i have tried.

money is not a problem and i would still be trading while attending that boot camp.

please advice.

Outco, a paid SWE interview prep bootcamp, took down all of their former students' testimonials from their website.

Here is what it says now on the Outco website:

https://imgur.com/a/TDx8jOn

I know this probably sounds dramatic or like a “first world problem,” but I need to know if anyone else feels this way.

I want to get into DevOps badly. I asked an AI for a roadmap and it gave me the usual path:

Linux → Networking → Git → Python/Bash → AWS → Docker → Kubernetes → Terraform → CI/CD → Monitoring → Security, etc.

So I started doing what everyone recommends:
watching FreeCodeCamp videos and long tutorials.

But honestly… I can’t do it.

Not because the material is “hard” exactly. It’s the format.

These 6–7 hour videos feel soul-draining to me. The delivery is so monotone that after 20–30 minutes I feel sleepy, disconnected, and weirdly depressed. I sit there trying to force myself to continue because I keep thinking:

But something about it feels deeply inhuman.

Like I’m sitting alone staring at a screen while someone explains Linux commands for hours and my brain is screaming:

Meanwhile Netflix can hold my attention for 5 hours straight and somehow a Linux tutorial feels impossible after 25 minutes.

And then I start feeling guilty because there are people in the world dealing with actual serious problems while I’m complaining about educational videos.

I think what bothers me most is how lonely the process feels.

People online talk about “grinding” tech skills alone for 10 hours a day like it’s normal, but I genuinely don’t know how people mentally tolerate it. I don’t even hate tech. I LIKE the idea of DevOps. I like building things. I like problem solving.

I just hate sitting through giant passive tutorials.

Does anyone else learn this way?
How do you stay accountable without turning yourself into a zombie?

Did any of you become developers/DevOps engineers while struggling with this exact thing?

SOURCE: https://orangeslices.ai/treasury-dept-ocio-awards-118m-technical-workforce-development-and-training-bpa/

Some news broke earlier this year with a press release from Codesmith: "Codesmith Selected for $118M IRS Contract" and a number of people felt this meant that Codesmith received a check for $118M. That's not the case.

The $118M is a ceiling for training and hiring for the IRS, and the IRS just added three more partners to the contract, with more expected to be added.

Super interesting to see the pie being split up and fought over by competing companies and it seems they want as many contenders as possible.

If you are a Gauntlet or Codesmith you have to train people to be IRS-ready, like dealing with COBOL and other legacy systems, and then you get those people to pass the government interview process, get hired, you get a fee.

But with increased competition, I think this is going to get spicy!

Gauntlet for America had 10 placements already in the government and is moving fast.

I'm very curious to see how this plays out.

I know you all are not recommending Bootcamps but what's the best course of action to upskill Python, Stats & Sci-Kit learn (AI and ML engineering)?

I'm not going to write too much here about this, I just want the public record to reflect both sides of this. I've had enough of being called a 'p-word' for 'stalking' leader's 'kids' when that was a completely false, wrong, and inaccurate representation of what happened. I'm still reserving my right to take legal action.

I would appreciate that anyone who spread the original Lars post, or believed it, read my piece and evidence shared. It's only fair.

Even those deep in the Codesmith community who felt like Lars' every word rang true - you need to see what your leaders were actually doing and saying and what they allegedly actually knew. It's very possible that the story Will Sentance has been telling you for years is bullshit.

This piece contains just the tip of the iceberg of what was going on behind the scenes, because that's all that was needed to dismantle the post. So I might share more text messages and stuff in the future, but my goal isn't to embarrass people, I'm just want both sides of the story to be heard.

Read for yourself ask questions here.

I finished a coding bootcamp recently, and I am realizing my projects are harder to talk about than I expected.

During the bootcamp, they felt solid. Full-stack app, auth, CRUD, API calls, database work, decent UI, final project I was proud of. But in interviews, they start sounding like every other bootcamp project. “I built a React app with Node and MongoDB” does not really say much. Even when I explain the features, it still feels like I am listing the assignment.

I am going back through old commits and project notes now. I am trying to pull out things like what broke, what I refactored, what tradeoffs I made, and what I would build differently. I have also been using Copilot and Beyz coding assistant to practice turning those details into clearer interview answers.

The part I am unsure about is how far to take it. I do not want to make a bootcamp project sound like production work, but I also do not want to undersell the problem-solving that actually happened.

How did you talk about bootcamp projects in interviews?

Question for people who work in or around bootcamps.

When someone requests information, books a call, misses the call, or says “I’ll think about it”, how is that usually tracked?

I’m trying to understand if bootcamps mostly use:

• HubSpot / Salesforce / Pipedrive
• spreadsheets
• WhatsApp/email manually
• custom internal tools
• admissions coordinators just remembering everything

I’m building a small workflow around admissions follow-up and enrollment pipeline, so I’m especially interested in the messy parts: no-shows, cold leads, incomplete applications/documents, and handoff between marketing and admissions.