Currently in Codesmith, question for former students?

Great question. So we have a deep bench on staff. I was 8 years FB E7, we have two other ex-FB E7+ engineers, two senior/staff ex-FB/MSFT engineers, an ex-Oracle/Amazon senior engineers, ex-FB 10 year recruiter, and two other ex-FAANG \~5 year each recruiters. We also have top tier investors who have a pulse on the industry behind the scenes too. So through all of these connections and network (and obviously how Fellows are doing on the job hunt) we have a pulse on how things are moving. We lean very very ex-FB heavy, and while we've been at FB so long we know people all over the place now at pretty much every company, we do have a Facebook-leaning network. I love that you mentioned probabilities. Some people come to us thinking that they do Formation to "pay for referrals" or asking us to "guarantee they pass their Stripe interview" and that's not how the industry works. Every interview has a probability of passing, based on skill, luck, and all kinds of things. A small number of people get a Google job out of Codesmith and that's because based on Codesmith and a lot of extra DS&A prep, you might have a 5% to 10% chance of passing a Google onsite. We view our job as preparing you to have the highest probability of passing interviews (we want you passing FAANG mock interviews at least 50% of the time for example) but that's never 100%. This extends not to gamifying and hacking the interview, but the best way to increase you probably is to have very strong fundamental tools and be ready to adapt to new situations. We want you do to incredible and creative things with a small toolbox of old beat-up tools , rather than sell you a full $1000 set of power tools that you don't know how to use properly but look nice. Sorry sidetracked on interviews, now answering the actual question.... Some people think we have an unfair referral advantage because of our network, and that's not the solution at all. We want to find the best path for your target companies and teams on an individual level based on your goals and fit at the companies. So for some people that might mean an apprenticeship at Dropbox as the best path to converting quickly to full SWE there. For some people they have recruiters pinging them all over the place and it's about finding the right teams and the right timing of their interviews. So FAANG-FREEZE! Facebook is frozen, but they are hiring ML, Business Eng and Network Eng, Production Eng. SWE is the right role for the majority of people, but some people might be good fits for these roles and are interview there right now! Apple has a lot of roles open. Amazon is starting to slow a tad after moving like their pants were in fire, but managers have a lot of power there and we'll try to send you to a good-fit manager that we know is hiring still. Google is temp frozen and we are expecting lower L3 headcount. Google does interview and hold people in team match for up to a year, so we have people moving through Google but we prep them to not expect offers super fast. Netflix we've never had a hire at or interview at and have less knowledge of. Now other companies that are arguably better than FAANG-FAANG are hiring: Stripe, Square, Notion, Figma, Databricks (all larger ones, but many more). We don't do magic and we aren't magicians, you gotta work with what you got, but we feel like we are a very good co-pilot for you in navigating whatever the market is and helping you land safely at your dream destination 🌴... I swear to god they don't let me write anything at Formation because I'm not good but this last sentence could be a good slogan haha.