u/ramentop88 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I've been out of Formation.dev for awhile now and I'm glad that I was able to escape that program. Scrolling through some of the comments, it looks like not much has changed since I left. Don't join this program! They will throw a bunch of assignments on your schedule every we
u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
Hi, I respect all opinions and I'm sorry your experience wasn't what you expected. Hopefully you feel like leaving was the right thing and left on a fair note. While the majority of people successfully get placed (on no guaranteed timeframe) and we try to accept people who are a good fit for what we do, we very much understand Formation is not for everyone and support people leaving who aren't a good fit.
I want to correct some inaccuracies though for others reading this and I hope my response is very fair and transparent.
1. I agree Formation is very intense and I discourage a lot of people from joining who don't seem on the same page. I'm sorry you might have joined with the wrong expectations. You can change your workload and schedule week to week up or down as things change and no other program I've seen allow this but it might be that even with that, we couldn't support your needs.
2. We allow people to pause for mental health breaks and are extremely flexible to changes in life circumstances that require changes in commitment to Formation. We have an official policy in writing that allows you to take breaks of a certain length and if you weren't aware and no one told you, I will give that feedback to the team. We also consider special circumstances on a case by case basis. I personally see cases of every life circumstance you can think of and how we have approved leaves of all kinds.
3. If someone forced you to work through burnout can you please message me anonymously who they are so we can investigate fully and take action against the person if needed. I've seen cases where people don't have any reason to pause but just aren't a good fit for the style of training we do and we mutually agree Formation isn't working, but this should happen as soon as you feel burnout, not long after.
4. We don't have any mandatory lunch and learns. They are strictly optional and clearly labelled as such. If you got in trouble for not attending, that warrants an investigation and if you misunderstood that they weren't mandatory I also take responsibility for the platform not communicating that clearly enough.
5. I've commented on referrals before and while we do actively refer people who match requested background experience and skill levels, the market conditions are such that these opportunities are very slim. For example, if someone hasn't passed any mock interviews yet and a company wants to interview candidates who have received a strong yes with a FAANG engineer, we can't refer you to that opportunity, and we instead keep working on getting your skills up to that bar so we can hope to refer you in the future.
6. I completely agree that the best engineers are not the best teachers. Formation also doesn't "teach" anything. Instead we have industry engineers working through problems with a small group in an interactive way, so that the Fellows can see how experienced top tier engineers think about problems and get feedback. This style of training is not for everyone, and it's why I adamantly DISCOURAGE anyone looking to learning from joining Formation. Formation is like a personal trainer at the gym and not a university professor.
If you would like to share more personal details or feedback about your experience feedback anonymously, please message me!