Interested in joining Formation.dev? Here's why you shouldn't.

Hi there, I'm happy to give more info and my thoughts. Ultimately we want you in the right place and if that's not Formation, we're happy. I've responded a lot in other comments that might be useful as well and feel free to message me directly with more info about yourself if you want me to give more personal advice. First off, we take every piece of feedback seriously, investigate and discuss it, so I don't want to come across as dismissive, but the majority of people have a great experience and recommend us to friends. Not a single person on this thread has responded to our team or reported anonymous/untraceable feedback despite open arms from everyone on the team. In terms of feedback, so far this evening there have been 7 pieces of explicit feedback (i.e. text feedback, supplemental to numerical ratings) given, 6 were glowing positive reviews about the impact the mentor(s) had, 1 was a constructive feedback about having Fellows work in parallel versus sequentially. Again, we flag and discuss almost every piece of constructive feedback, but it's also not representative of the majority experience. Some people join for the wrong reasons at the wrong time or just aren't on the same page and have a particularly bad experience and our entire team tries our best to find a unique path forward that works for that person, whether it's staying or leaving. Second, this is one opinion and everyone has different reasons, starting skill level, experience level, and goals. If you went through all the trouble of signing up, then you should do your 7 day trial and judge if it's a good fit for yourself. Third, if you were accepted, then we are confident in helping you level up your DS&A and problem solving (not just LC), system design skills, and behavioral skills. Fourth, regarding referrals. We sourced several referrals today and we did a call with a hiring partner recruiter to send over a few people, there just aren't many positions right now and companies are very picky about who they will accept as a referral. Things change month to month and we cannot promise anything, but in the better hiring market, referrals have been extremely impactful for Fellows, particularly junior ones. 9 to 12 months is a long time, and if you are especially not in a rush, I'm more confident in a FAANG-level placement. I can give more specific advice on where you stand for referrals if you message me your background info. Fifth, last placements in order, unedited except for privacy reasons: Bloomberg, <Bank>, <Large Healthcare>, <SASS Startup>, Cisco Meraki, Realtor.com, Realtor.com, <SASS Startup>, <Ed-Tech Startup NonProfit>, American Airlines, Welcome Homes. Clearly not FAANG-FAANG and clearly not all "mediocre startups" and I think the February slump might be impacting some people's perspective, especially for people who are frustrated with the current job hunt. Most common companies with interviews this week are looking good: Bloomberg, Nextdoor, Google, PayPal, Repl.it, Palantir, ServiceNow, Expedia, Cisco. But overall, do not join if you are joining purely for referrals, even in a good market. We are primarily focused on getting your skills up to a FAANG-level bar and join if that's what you want to do. We've asked the team to review all communications to make sure people don't interpret anything we say or do to imply that someone can pay a lot of money to do Formation to get referrals as the main benefit. If anyone who has already joined has joined thinking that we are happy to talk about a reasonable exit.