I think you are on the right track. My two cents having done hundreds of interviews at Facebook as a senior staff engineer, be good with your tools, e.g. console, network tab, React dev tools plugin.
If you have been self studying DSA and that’s your main gap, I would absolutely not look at a bootcamp, and instead look at more interview prep. I’m the founder of Formation.dev and an 8 year E7 engineer at Facebook and have helped many bootcamp grads with some work experience level up to top tier jobs. While we support you all the way until you get a new job, and it’s intense,it’s also not cheap so I would carefully look at your options and figure out what’s best for you.
Leetcode is a great way to get some kind of benchmark. For example, you want to be comfortable solving medium level problems to have a chance at top tier roles.
Everyone has a different path. I would look at Formation.dev (disclosure: I am a cofounder) if you are trying to fill in CS fundamentals and your goal is a job. If you are already getting interviews I wouldn’t consider a bootcamp. A masters degree has the advantage of being considered for new grad roles, but is costly and will take the most time. All options are very different.
At Formation, our recruiters are all super experienced former top tier company recruiters (e.g. Facebook 10 years) and they can talk to you about your goals and give you genuine advice based on your specific journey.
If you haven't already made a decision, check out Formation.dev (disclosure: I'm a co-founder). It might be a good fit and you should look into it and do your own research. It's not a bootcamp with a structured curriculum, nor is it a job hunt only program. We work with people to fill in whatever gaps they have across the board (technical and behavioral), refer you to top tier jobs, help you interview and negotiate, etc... And we work with you on your schedule all the way until you get your new job.
Our last ten placements (at time of writing) were at Plaid, 1Password, GitHub, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Google, Snap, Atlassian. Many of these engineers went to bootcamps in the past.
I also don't really know any other programs like this at the time of writing, perhaps having several private mentors who is are senior engineers at top tier companies and paying them directly?
I've worked with several alums who got their first job after Codesmith and it can get you there. However, if you are targeting top tier roles with a ton of impact and very high comp I would absolutely suggest a "2nd bootcamp"/more training.
At Formation.dev (disclosure: I'm a co-founder) where we do exactly this kind of additional training, our last ten placements (at time of writing) were at Plaid, 1Password, GitHub, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Google, Snap, Atlassian. And at one of these people was a Codesmith alum, many did other bootcamps in the past. I don't want this to sound like an ad, so please do your own research about [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) and other programs that do additional training and make an informed decision.
So people who want to achieve this truly top tier bar absolutely can benefit from more training.
Nice! Yeah that's not a good fit right now for what we do since you have your TPM hat on right now. Every person gets their own path that we adapt as you go but the range of paths doesn't support TPM's at the moment. And totally agree, we are focused on helping you achieve a strong job outcome and we are not a school providing teaching, so the cost might not make sense either.
I’m the cofounder of Formation. The other commenter below summarizes the value proposition well: if you do your part, we do ours and we work with you until you get a new job, through the entire journey, and never decrease our support. Many people drastically increase their income such that the cost of the program is a fraction of the compensation increase alone (and we help negotiate offers where a 5 min email counter offer can pay for the program).
If anything, the time and energy you dedicate should be a bigger factor if you are working already. We are your coach and adapt your training week to week to push you to grow, no shortcuts.
Hi, I’m the co-founder of Formation and specifically for this question of if Formation would be good for someone from CodeSmith… we have worked with a handful of CodeSmith alum at Formation and I would recommend trying to find them on LinkedIn and asking them about their experience. It’s hard to find people that list CodeSmith and/or Formation on their LinkedIns but some recent outcomes were Snap, Facebook x2, and some still job hunting.
Silicon Valley is a place that supports talent and this is likely not the end of your career. It does depend on the circumstances of the issue and relevance to jobs, as well as the time since the conviction, and you can expect employers to look into the situation during a background check.
Completely up to you, but do you mind DM'ing me some details and a LinkedIn and I can give more insight on it.
I would judge these positions way more based on the day-to-day skills that you'll be exercising. If they're both primarily software engineering roles on software engineering teams working with software engineers then I wouldn't care what the job title is.
I think you should consider your fit at both of these companies and how passionate you are about what they're doing, because I think that will lead to your future success, all else equal, much more than the job title will.
I was a senior staff engineer at Facebook for 8 years and interviewed about 450 people, and I would say that it's a little bit of a mix of both. You need to be good enough at leet code like problems to pass the bar and it's a fairly high bar. But at the same time you need to have something interesting on your resume whether it's a project or past internships or experiences that add some dimension to you as a candidate. There have been several memorable people that have interviewed that have been way too good on the algorithm side and had nothing else to talk about and they didn't get offers. On the other hand you really do have the crush the coding interview or you won't get an offer either.
It depends on the company you're at and the companies you're targeting, but at the top companies if you leave after 6 months as a new grad and don't have a new job there will be a lot of questions about why you left and questions of whether you are fired or not.
Do you mind sharing what specifically about the job makes you want to leave or unhappy with it? I'm a big proponent of making sure that companies are really good fits, because people who are a good fit at a company tend to have their entire careers accelerated, so might be worth reflecting on what kind of company is right for you.
As someone with a few years experience, you probably won't have a hard time getting interviews for new positions. But given your experiences it sounds like the company fit is really important for you, so when you're interviews make sure to spend a lot of time finding a company that is a good fit for you and not just ones that will give you offers or give you the highest compensation... it will be best for you long term.
Didn't catch up on all the comments, but options and other equity grants are often subject to board approval and are not guaranteed in the offer letter. That doesn't mean that this isn't a terrible experience but just something interesting to note.
I would try to jump into the next job with a fresh start. Even experienced engineers have anxiety in a new job because all the systems are different, the tools are different, the culture is different. So in some sense you get to start fresh.
I have no comments at on all the legality, but I want to play devil's advocate with the comments on this thread. One of the best ways to improve a product is by having the entire company 'dogfooding' to really feel all the pain points of users and test for bugs. Facebook is a company known for using production as much as possible for this reason. I would be considered if there are lax data standards and any employee could access your data, but if the spirit of this is 'dogfooding' then I could understand the motivation for sure.
This sounds like the company was not a good fit and you will be much better off at a different company. That said, you should cool-off a bit and try your best to look at things from the previous company's point of view to see if there is anything you would do differently next time in a similar situation... trying to make the most of a bad situation.
A gap isn't a red flag, but you'll probably be asked questions about in interviews. For example, did you fired? or why did you leave your last job? You should just explain the truth like you did above. Your career trajectory at the previous company will be much more interesting and relevant.