I’m Michael. I was a principal engineer at Facebook from 2009 to 2017, where I was the top code contributor of all time and also conducted hundreds of interviews. I recently co-founded Formation.dev, an engineering fellowship that trains and refers engineers directly into big tech. Ask me Anything!

r/IAmA

u/Zoetje_Zuurtje wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

Thanks for answering! That's interesting, I've never considered the messiness/imperfections of the real world a pro, rather than a con. If I wanted to learn how to code, what would be a good starting point? Currently I'm learning JS at codecademy, but I wanted to know what othe

u/michaelnovati replied · May 4, 2022 ★ FEATURED

Yeah that's a good start! After you are comfortable with the syntax try doing some React hands on practice: [https://reactjs.org/tutorial/tutorial.html](https://reactjs.org/tutorial/tutorial.html) If you have some engineering background already and some professional experience in a different area you might be able to do a bootcamp to switch careers. If you are a student and planning on going to college, I would consider a top CS school and focus on internships each year at top companies.