The SDE 2 role at Amazon is for people.with generally 2+ YOE as an SDE 1 or equivalent so you are much better off posting somewhere else.to get advice because most people here haven't been to a bootcamp yet, nevertheless worked already in industry.
Now if you want SDE 2 onsite advice, I'm quite qualified to provide that.
1. Your coding interviews are standard LC style,.usually medium to hard questions and occasional touching on very hard topics like DP. At Formation, we benchmark and practice exactly what you need to know for this but outside I would say you should be able to solve any LC Medium you haven't seen before in 25 minutes or less with a very clean solution.
2. Ping me if you get an offer for negotiation,.so I can compare that to other SDE 2 offers I've seen at Formation this month and let you know.exactly what to ask for. They are unique offer structures. Don't trust Blind o…
It's more like this:
1. apply with the best channel, i.e. referrals if possible
2. send message to hiring manager/with the application - as personal as possible, referencing blogs or videos, or unique connection to company OR something special about your background
3. send double down - similar message to 2 but to an executive or very senior person and doing it shortly after 2.
4. follow up - if you don't hear back after a few days
But yeah I really don't buy that 5% of these end up in offers and the data sourcing seems iffy. I totally agree with this method but they literally tell people that this will result in a "minimum 20% conversation rate" and I don't buy that.
Yeah and those jobs to me are great first jobs and can be great jobs in general, just not what I call "solid tech SWE jobs". This companies have been hiring engineers for years and haven't changed that. Hiring ebbs and flows depending on the market, just like anything else. Banks doing fine with high interests hired a little more. Healthcare is hiring as more stuff moves online. These things go up and down and my point is there is no magical change in the world that results in those companies hiring more engineers now for jobs that didn't exist before .
Congrats, I would focus on doing well on the job. Schedule weekly 1-1s with your manager and ask for feedback every week to improve. Once you get a promotion or similar, then consider your next move if you want to change companies or keep growing there.
I agree with your framing too, I awas being a bit flippant, but I would agree their stance is they are trying to make well rounded engineers who are leaders in todays world. My argument is that all of those qualities were things that always made a good engineer and that this hasn't changed, but I don't think it's a bad or wrong view to have.
To me it's not FAANG === tech. There are a lot of tech companies that are not FAANG but are "good tech companies", like [Bill.com](https://Bill.com), Twilio, arguable Salesforce. People use FAANG+ sometimes but to this is the definition (my personal one):
1. Engineers are empowered to make major decisions, if not are major deciders in most decisions
2. The company is product led - building the best tech-based solution to problems, and the money comes from that as a consequence
3. The company has strong technical chops in it's founding team (this is…
I mean just look at the code yourself! I looked at two of the recent launches and found tons of commented out code without any reason why. Like a rushed school project flailing to the finish line, and then no further changes made to clean it up. It's not anywhere near real "work" in any stretch of the imagination - at least at strong tech companies, maybe it is at other companies.
Again, not bashing the students, it's just the nature of doing this thing in 3-4 weeks. Even though people can keep working on the projects - with vast majority not doing so - I see massive problems in the long standing stable OSP projects as well - like the ability for a bad actor to wipe a bunch of data from their database (which was disclosed privately to them)
The OSP projects I've seen recently have been great bootcamp projects but poor examples of real mid level code. So I'm not sure if those projects are actually getting through resume screens right now either.
This is correct about ISLs. If you never paid them, the bootcamp will go bankrupt - which is why a number of bootcamps shut down recently. So maybe it is a good deal for you if you graduate before that haha.
Thanks for sharing, this is why I'm almost jerking insisting that y'all ask for placement rates. A median placement time of 4 months doesn't mean much if it's only 10 people in that number versus 100 in the previous comparable number. (Not saying the outcomes are those, just an illustrative example)
Here are 15 changes we made, which is a subset of roughly a hundred: https://formation.dev/blog/year-in-review-2023-at-formation/
Obviously we're not a bootcamp and I'm not comparing apples to apples but just giving some examples of things people need that changed in 2023.
Codesmith's take is that they didn't change because they are the best and the world is changing because non tech companies are now hiring engineers and paying them a little less but close to what they used to.
They are making a narrative that fits the outcomes instead of making changes to fit the market. The types of companies hiring haven't changed whatsoever and the companies hiring engineers haven't changed.
Again, this sounds critical and insulting, but it's meant feedback. Most other bootcamp leaders just talk to me and I give my opinions privately, so maybe it's a weird way to give feedback, but people tell m…
I can't comment on behalf of Netflix, but my personal understanding is that there have been changes since previous years and you should keep an eye out for the latest official updates.
It shows 40% were above 120K, which seems about right. That's a very very large drop. The median was $115K according to this and this data is legit and up to date and it was $127,500 on their last CIRR report.
Regardless of the context around the numbers and cautions one should have, these are very larger drops in salaries.
Codesmith's CEO has attributed it to people taking lower offers sooner instead of waiting for a better one and that the world is changing - more types of companies are hiring engineers.
I attribute it to people taking less strong jobs are less tech-focused companies and that the world isn't changing.
But the jobs are clearly still very good compared to most bootcamps.
\+1, yeah definitely agree it's good advice to push grads to follow the advice
I don't have the full context on this presentation, but I do think Codesmith can do more though than use data to convince people to do the same old same old because what worked in <= 2021, doesn't work the same now, and alumni that talk to me don't think Codesmith is doing anything to address that. They've added 2-3 career support engineers, but a number of people feel like Codesmith is telling them everything is fine it's just taking longer to find jobs.
But with all of this new data they share to convince people of this, they haven't given any placement rates to compare and people aren't happy so I'm giving that feedback :D
They go over it in public talks but its:
1. apply
2. send email/cold outreach to engineering leader (referencing blog posts or showing that you put in the work and it's not a random email you send everyone)
3. send double down email if no response from 2.
4. send final follow up email if no response from 3.
With more direction on what to say in each step. It's basically a sales funnel to sell yourself and follows like cold outreach sales model.
Yeah I'm familiar with the Codesmith style 4 step application, with the double down and follow up, etc.. on the receiving side too haha.
I meant that I'm curious what people say and if how they portray experience in that process.
But yeah if you are using your own trackers, like sheets and notion trackers that Codesmith has access to, but it's enforced or standardized then they have no idea how successful Codesmith-style applications are.
It's entirely possible that people just log those more often because they put a lot of effort in them and they need to stay organized throughout the process. Whereas with quick applies, it's so easy that people might not be as diligent with recording them.
I'm giving direct insight though - if people are not required, they won't record all their job applications. Some bootcamps have people required to send in proof of applications to maintained job…
I have a ton of questions about this because I've seen similar numbers before:
1. What tools does Codesmith track to know conversion rates? Do they have a central tool that you have to log all applications in and what type of application it was? I work at a job hunting and interview prep platform and I know for a fact that people don't love logging all of their applications and tend to start logging them after the interviews start rolling in, so it could appear that conversions are higher but it's a lack of information. We have a completely custom in house built centralized platform for this and it's still hard! So I'm curious how people log the applications and how this data is collected.
2. This is really granular data, so what are the placement rates for people, I'm assuming they shared this if they shared that detailed data? Median time to offer is useful for one aspect, but if 100%…
The part time is the same but stretched out over longer time and at a slower pace. It's broken into 3 phases instead of 2.
The workshops tend to be a bit higher quality than the actual teaching but similar style.
The instructors at Codemsith almost all have only worked at Codesmith and the content and lectures are fairly rigid. So they have very good consistency as a result which is very predictable.
The downsides are they are limited by lack of experience and often can't give more context on why things are the way they are. So you hear "trust the system" a lot and "Codemsith put a lot of thought into this and know what they are doing" versus like confident answers.
Not a bash on the people's potential and abilities just lack of experience.
Sure.
So I'm talking about the full time immersive that is 13 weeks.
It's split between the junior portion and the senior portion.
There are about 4-5 weeks of classroom style units. You spend a day or two on a topic and then do some homework / practice, then get the approach from the instructor the next day, then move on to the next topic. There are weekly tests and if you don't do well you get extra 1-1 help from a senior or an instructor. Once you pass an assessment you are done the core materials and become a senior.
After that you start doing projects and there are 4 projects you do, which I won't go into more detail on right now, but 3 of them are a bit smaller and end up being listed as "open source" work on your resume. The biggest one is the OSP which most people feature as standalone experience on their resume and takes about 3 to 4 weeks.
During the project phase there ar…
Thanks, a lot of people see Formation as something Codesmith grads would do in their 2nd, 3rd, etc... transitions if they are leveling up from a solid SWE job to a top tier SWE job and in a lot of ways it could be a great and supportive partnership where we complement each other... imagine that!
For example, Formation Fellows who want to work on projects could help make OSPs better and act as mentors to Codesmith residents. We could help Codesmith with DS&A and SD - two areas they are extremely weak at for top tier companies (but are one of the best at for a zero to 1 bootcamp). We could at a minimum collaborate on public content and sessions.
But for some reason, staff/former staff members report to me that Codesmith's leaders (particularly Eric K and occasionally Will) firmly believe that I'm trying to take down Codesmith and get people to go to Formation and that I'm personally sip…
Definitely good questions. We stand by what we do but we also don't do everything and I fully support making sure you know what we do and know it's a good decision for you.
Overall I would say we are good for half of what you mentioned.
The SD and technical behavioral practice the explanation part. Technical behavioral is about talking about your past work in the best way possible. SD is about connecting your big scale experience with more general concepts and applying those as tools to discussing general systems problems.
Anyone can read a solid systems design book for general materials and we're focused on actually applying the tools and communicating well in group and interview settings (and getting feedback) so you can successfully pass system design interviews.
We don't do any hands on projects or capstone projects and we don't do anything that builds your resume. It's somethin…
We don't cover CICD or DevOps and we also don't have mentors I would say who could do mocks overing those topics specifically. We have some mentors which an do iOS and Android mocks, so while we don't cover those skills either day to day, there's at least some practice available.
There's no fixed curriculum and you'll do different things at different paces. But the overall areas we cover are:
1. CS fundamentals/DS&A, up to all the topics needed for the hardest interviews (including DP, advanced graphs). How much you do will vary by your goals but you can go all the way up to the hardest of the hard.
2. System design. This is full stack system design preparing for top tier company system design interviews.
3. Technical Behavioral. Preparing your resume, pitch and practice hiring manager interview and things like the Amazon Bar Raiser
4. Minor areas: frontend (practice and mocks), softwar…
Hi, I'm happy to answer questions and always like to hear what others have to think. I'll list just a couple of shorter comments to help answer, but feel free to me, I'm very open with people about if I think Formation is a good option to consider or not, and ultimately you have to decide.
1. It sounds like you are somewhat familiar with it at least, but just to clarify that we're not a bootcamp and have no fixed curriculum, lectures, classes, lessons, etc... We are a practice, benchmarking, mentorship, job hunting and mock interview platform. You do practice by yourself in in small mentor-led group sessions, you get feedback in those sessions and through benchmarkings, and you trust us to move you through topics and skill areas at whatever pace you go at, and you trust us to tell you when you are at the top company bar. So you are paying to reliably get your skills (from DS&A to System…
I can answer this very transparently, apologies it might be long or over detailed, but trying to explain clearly and openly.
Originally we worked with Leif to administer "classic" ISAs, which is something like, don't pay anything until you get a new job, then pay X% a month for Y months, capped at Z dollars, e.g. 10% per month for 15 months, targeting 15% of one year's base salary. These also had caps so if you make over $165K base salary, you won't pay more than the cap. If you didn't make $65K or more then your payments are paused until you do, or until a year passes in which case the contract is cancelled.
There's a lot of good things about classic ISAs as they really help people pay who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford, or be approved for an upfront cost or a loan.
The flip side is that, as I've said many times, the job market was particularly rough in 2023. Since we work with…
Tangent: this is timely, but you should apply to this if eligible: [https://formation.dev/partners/netflix](https://formation.dev/partners/netflix) (disclosure, co-founder of Formation), but you should not apply to Formation otherwise if you are still in school - this is a special program for Netflix.
The best thing you can do is to get an internship this summer. If you can't get an internship, then volunteer for Hack4LA or for a professor. If you can't volunteer, make a "startup" and build that all summer super disciplined and try to find others doing that to join with, like Coding for Callie, 100Devs community, etc....
Codesmith is more for people who are almost job ready to brand and market themselves for the job hunt, it's not really a strong learning experience itself in my opinion (I can go into why, but it's 6 weeks of curriculum, almost all instructors went to Codesmith itself…
Yeah no worries at all, I just have to reply to everything very clearly for everyone else reading it and I think my tone also gets misinterpreted sometimes - it's something I try to balance.
Now that it's been a day, you can see that cglee is super right - and the voting reflects the distribution of conversation in this sub.
This is also the reason why you see me talking about Codesmith so much IN THIS SUB (and I never talk about it in any other subs) because it just reflects the nature of the conversation.
Haha, so Formation isn't a bootcamp or an option to consider instead of a bootcamp and doing so would be a huge mistake. Formation is an interview prep and mentorship platform that doesn't teach any specific skills and instead is about practice - benchmarking - feedback - and mock interviews/job hunt support.
From my best estimates, there are somewhere between 5 and 10% (i.e. 2 to 3 people per Codesmith cohort out of 30+) that might BARELY be candidates for Formation - and only if they understand what Formation is and it's genuinely the right move for them.
In this market that has become rarer and rarer and it might even be almost 0 overlap because the number of people with under 1 year of experience we accept now I can count on one hand, and the people spend a ton of time talking to our team and determining that Formation is indeed the objectively right fit.
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# RE: "CODEMI…
This is similar to a lot of top programs (and quite frankly, top CS schools as well) where the higher entrance bar (selecting small number of people who are pre-determined to likely meet the traits of successful alumni) results in better outcomes.
I mean I work with alumni who went to all of them so I have some good insight across the board.
I disproportionately hear about Codesmith because it's the biggest anomaly of them all that just has a very unique ecosystem around it. But maybe given the results of this poll so far that helps explain why I get such polarizing information haha.
Yeah, but you do have to be expecting to graduate end of 2025 through spring 2026. If you really want a job sooner, the timing doesn't work out and you likely have better options to pursue.
This is true hahaha
There was a post from two months ago with 3 upvotes asking for the best bootcamp and someone commented "Codesmith" about a week ago, and within a day it had 38 upvotes :S
📌 Netflix x Formation Program is back for 2026 grads in the USA aiming to do SWE internships at Netflix in summer 2025. It's a free part time program over the summer (paid for by Netflix) and the goal is land an internship at Netflix! Applications close Feb 16th.
Hi all sharing this with the community if you haven't seen it already! This is a competitive program to train all summer to get ready for Netflix internship interviews in the fall, and hopefully land a coveted Netflix internship for 2025!
See the details here on LinkedIn and let me know if you have questions: [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7160354895420604416](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7160354895420604416)
From the announcement:
>[Formation](https://www.linkedin.com/company/formation-dev/) and [Netflix](https://www.linkedin.com/company/netflix/) are joining forces to help un…
Course Report is run by nice people with great intentions, but the nature of the business is that it makes money from bootcamps and therefore has an interest in promoting the ecosystem. I don't like that they don't disclose that videos and blogs are sponsored (directly or indirectly). I reported a review to them that was done by someone who had worked at the program and they didn't disclose that in the review, and they replied saying that was not a violation of the terms of service.
It's like CIRR, that has great intentions and run by great people, but it has no purpose if bootcamps aren't doing well (as we're seeing it shrinking and all past data disappearing from the site).
Codesmith grads don't list on LI, read this why: [https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis\_of\_52\_most\_recent\_codesmith\_offers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/analysis_of_52_most_recent_codesmith_offers/)
What you can do instead is go through the OS Labs projects (or watch for their launches in the CSX Slack) and then message the people from there. Everything lists the project members and their LinkedIns there or on the project websites: [https://github.com/oslabs-beta/](https://github.com/oslabs-beta/)
BloomTech (who didn't create ISAs but was the big pusher of them a couple of years ago) had a clause about the type of job.
The problem was in the grey - the tech-adjacent jobs. A lot of BloomTech grads god adjacent jobs and they would say their job was not a "software engineer-related job" and not want to pay.
I don't know how they solved it, but it's a mess.
Sounds like it should be simpler, but it isn't.
My advice would be if you got a non software job, voice your concerns and unique situation with a/A and see if they can offer a discount based on your experience. If a/A did everything they said they would do and that's how it happened, you might not get anywhere, but it's worth trying.
Sorry yeah I should have elaborated and even though that was a very terse reply, it wasn't meant to have any mean tone or anything haha
connka answered what I would agree with adjacent to this.
Sorry again!
I find a lot of polarization from graduates I chat with. Some good advice for anyone you talk to about any bootcamp is to dig into the HOW and not just the superficial.
There was a Codesmith grad last week that wrote a comment 'I graduated and it changed my life'... that was it, and it got 40 upvoted in a day on a 2 month old dead post that 3 upvotes.
That's fantastic, and it has changed hundreds of people's live, over a thousand! But HOW did it change them is key because what worked for them might not work for you too and you have to get into the details.
1. What kind of background did they have before?
2. Can you see their resume that finally worked?
3. How long have they kept their job for and how did Codesmith prepare them for the job and what do they wish Codesmith had prepared them for? (Codesmith says every single info session I've seen that 100% of grads get promotions within…
Not a waste, just consider it a step in your journey. People quitting their job because a website advertised an 80% placement rate in 6 months making $100Kso you signed right away is a mistake right now. But if you have related experience and chose the right bootcamp for you, then worst case you leave with some knowledge and maybe overpaid a bit, best case you get a good job relatively soon
Definitely not, sometimes having too perfect code is suspicious even haha.
But by the end you want "clean code", which is both bug free and just elegant.
RE: space/time complexity - you need to not just answer the question, but explain why in plain words and walk through it... they ultimately want to know you deeply understand the code, and not if you memorized various complexiities.
I'm 50/50 on the handful of stock picks I've made.
I got incredibly lucky joining Facebook when I did, and performing well enough to be granted discretionary equity several times early on.
The best thing I could have done was work so hard at what I'm good at - i.e. being the #1 code committer at Facebook, and get granted special stock, rather than guess on the market haha.
I don’t earn a salary from Formation but my Meta stock went up 200X from when I started which gives me the savings to not be motivated by making a salary now and the ability to dedicate my time unencumbered to what I care about to the fullest extent possible.
Codesmith has posted twice in their CSX that someone is posting negative comment in multiple channels, anonymously. I have no idea what the comments entail but a number of people have shared different side conversations around this that I won’t get into.
We’re launching a FAANG partnership publicly and I haven’t been paying much attention but asked about my name being thrown around to see why.
Yeah I know when Formation started, Outco was a big player, along with Pathrise and IK, but a lot of benefited from the tailwinds of the market.
In the toughest market, we had a notable drop in top tier placements (down to about 50% of placements from 70%ish) and first year TC increases dropped to 80K on average. I think our numbers still justify the cost of the program for us, but we can't change the market, I wish we could, but we're way too small!
But that said, I can see how it's harder for the teams to say focused and motivated. Employees might leave or do new things, or there might be layoffs. I know a couple of people that did Outco that came to my company later on and they felt like it didn't have the heart in it that they expected from the past (completely anecdotal personal reflection, ask people for yourself).
It's why every program is different. Like me and my partner have…
I can speak on the side of a "career accelerator" / interview prep platform. I can't speak with the perspective of a bootcamp though.
So the TLDR: It highly depends on the program. The platform I started works with people until they get a job, so it doesn't "end" ever - there's someone approaching 2 years and still doing technical mentorship every week. That said, you might feel like you got the value after a year and want the job and just having support until you get a job might not feel so great if you don't get the job after a year. If the program ended after a year and sent you on your way (which is what most bootcamps offer) then I totally understand the frustration.
Feel free to DM me more about the program you did and I can give you advice or comments. Again, can't speak for bootcamps, but on the career accelerator side with Pathrise, Interview Kickstart, Coachable, Outco, I can…
Yeah the reason I ask is because many online self paced programs like Springboard and BloomTech much lower completion rates than fixed length programs.
TripleTen touts a very strong placement rate within 6 months upon graduation, but gives ZERO insight into how many people graduate.
I've talked to people that work there and it's very relevant. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's just something they care a lot about - people not dropping out, but I have no numbers on it.