I don't think there's much value in looking at "top" graduates. The people that got jobs at FAANG companies from a code school were probably miles and miles ahead of your "average" code school graduate, in which case, of course they're going to get better jobs.

I think it'd be a much better use of time to look at the middle. What's the unemployment rate of code school grads that were at the middle of their class, vs. the unemployment rate of similar CS graduates?

While FAANG may not care so much so long as you know how to code, in the majority of industries or Fortune 500 companies will. They will see you don't have a BS and say no. My lead worked at a company, they got bought out, and then they told him he needs to get a degree or they could not keep him on (paid for by them of course).

Complete lunacy and absurd but a lot of companies that aren't top of the line do care about that piece of paper. I was told at one point in my internship, the IT department doesn't hire anybody in a programming position without a degree in CS. Full stop. They will auto reject the resume or not proceed with an internal candidate (aside from in school interns).

Also, if you look at the actual data from the study the article is linking, the average alumni employed at FAANG is ~6%. That's 6% of people who were likely wizzes, not average joes like the rest of us. That leads to 94% unaccounted for. So what about the full picture? Where are those 94% who didn't get into FAANG? What is their unemployment rate compared to their Bachelor Degree counterparts?

Code Fellows, Hackbright Academy, Hack Reactor all had similar numbers of alumni employed at the Big Five -- while costing 10% of the tuition charged at traditional colleges.