u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I'm the co-founder of Formation so I'm really biased.
I would say that none of these are boot camps, so the perspective you get from here is probably skewed to boot camp grads that then went to some of these programs. Which could be really useful if you're also a boot camp grad but less useful if you're not.
All of these are really different.
Outco, I got the vibe was shutting down or isn't really running because you can't apply on their website and their founders seem to have moved on and there's been a number of people being threatened to be sued by them who didn't get jobs within 12 months. I haven't heard firsthand from the company directly so I can't say anything definitively but I'm not really considering them right now when I talk about competitors.
Pathrise, they publish some annual stats and the number of people who go there as a software engineer is has been decreasing so it's now more of a place to go for a career help less for technical help. You get a dedicated career coach and it's heavily focused on optimizing your job application funnel. I personally think for the cost, it's a bit too high but it's probably the best at systematically helping you optimize job applications as the other ones focus more on the technical aspects.
Interview Kickstart and Formation are most similar but still entirely different haha. Both focus heavily on technical and preparing for technical interviews. Interview Kickstart is more fixed curriculum. Has weekly lectures for 4 hours on Saturdays and tutorials in between. Formation only has 3-6 person small group sessions and 1-1 mocks and every week has a new schedule depending on your progress and availability.
Interview Kickstart is India based and focused and Formation is more Silicon Valley based and focused.
I'm happy to answer honestly any questions you have about Formation specifically. It has been incredibly effective in 2024 so far if you are a good fit (2+ years of SWE experience and able to get some intervies on your own and need to focus on preparing for and passing them).
Formation is not a good fit if you have less than 2 years of experience right now. We still have some people in that bucket from that started before the market downturn and we will stand by our promise to support them until they get a job, but we're basically seeing that those people are getting super prepared for their interviews. they just aren't able to really get interviews easily on their own. We have an absolutely fantastic network and we're really able to help with referrals if you are a good fit for what the companies are looking for, but if the companies aren't hiring people with less experience then we can't just find magical opportunities for you that don't exist.