u/Efficiu wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Your argument is based on the false premise that all bootcamp graduates *want* to be in FAANG. They don’t. Consider a busy parent with a degree in an unrelated tech field. Do you really think they care if their company post graduation is a FAANG? Especially when they’re compe
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
I wholeheartedly agree with you and spend my time every day helping people find the best companies for their personal goals and situations. This above is general advice for most people that I haven't met and I'm always happy to chat through options with people!
I'm happy to talk about Formation and briefly answer the questions, it's off topic.
You are new here (your account is 2.5 weeks old) so quick introduction, Hi 👋, I'm one of the more frequent contributors to this sub and try to give people the perspective of someone with 8 years at FB, E7 level principal engineer, done 450+ interviews at FB - from interns to directors, was the top contributor of all time when leaving and they created an senior engineer archetype for me, and now I help run a training platform aiming to help increase diversity in tech by leveling the field for people from non traditional backgrounds and have worked with dozens/hundreds of bootcamp grads many very closely. I feel like this perspective is useful and lacking in this sub and many others feel the same.
Responses:
1. I completely agree that the tone can sound offensive to people who don't want to work at FAANG and I strongly support people turning down FAANG frequently for some of those reasons. More and more these days. At Formation we use the phrase "top tier company" to envelop a wider range of very strong engineering-driven companies with different cultures.
2. Facebook's reputation right now is based on management, not engineering. All the engineers I worked with are obsessed with privacy - it's the first thing you think about when building products and it's baked in to the lowest level of code. You have no idea how many companies have such terrible internal security and perspective on privacy that if that was revealed you would be SHOCKED. Facebook has a lot of problems they are working though company-wise so definitely point well taken.
3. You've been in "tech for a while" but seem to have only posted positive things about Codesmith, so if you are Codesmith affiliated, I'm confused. Codesmith markets "graduate outcomes of an elite grad school" and "75% of graduates get mid-level jobs", so I hold them to their own bar. Their recent wave of OSP projects have embarrassingly poor code review (in that I couldn't find a code review at all on Github) and that's not what the elite grad schools I know most intimately do. Elite grad schools, like MIT and Stanford have alumni starting "top tier" jobs and making much higher salaries than a $120K median. I think Codesmith is an incredibly strong bootcamp for preparing people for their first job, with an amazing community, I work with a bunch of alumni that I love chatting with and advising, they are doing a lot of things right over there! Just not "elite grad school" level outcomes.
4. Formation is very new relatively speaking. Sophie, the founder, has been mentoring and teaching for longer after leaving Nextdoor, but Formation itself is 3 years old and has most recently ramped up only in the past year... yes we are backed by one of the top investors in the world, but we needed some breathing room to grow slowly and make sure we set things up so that the Fellow Experience only keeps getting BETTER rather than worse.
5. We don't publish many outcomes. We have some averages on our website and that's it. We measure hundreds of points of feedback to know how we are doing, and have an industry leading NPS score for example. Formation doesn't work for everyone right now, but it works really well for the vast majority of people and we are proud to help our Fellows grow.
6. I can give you the last 15 or so placements; WePay, Amazon, Visa, DoorDash, Virgin Orbit, <top tier startup redacted>, UiPath, Amazon, Square, Instrumentl, Amazon, American Express, Zapier, Edelman, Stats Sig, About 81% of people accept top tier company offers.
7. Referrals aren't a big source of placement, no. We help people find the right paths for their own goals as it varies so wildly. Referrals are not always the answer surprisingly!
8. Formation is not a bootcamp or school, we are building a platform that competes with Interview Kickstart, Pathrise, Outco, Scalar. We help people with experience improve their skills, find great jobs, strategize, etc... The cost of these programs varies but are all in the same ballpark. The average Fellow placed, excluding people starting with $0 salary, increases their comp by $85K, so it more than easily covers the cost of training.