My Final Review Of Formationdev

I can reply with my thoughts, thanks for sharing yours as well. We aren't a perfect program and because of the adaptive nature, no two people will have the same experience, so we rely on critical feedback to make improvements. Overall, we move absurdly fast, we make changes very fast, and we try to incorporate feedback fast. We aim to fix bugs within minutes or hours. We aim to acknowledge feedback within minutes or hours. And we discuss a lot of feedback internally for how we can incorporate it. 1. I won't comment on the cost. Formation isn't cheap by any means, but the average placed Fellow increases their first year total compensation by an average $127K right now, so it's extremely worth it for them. If you struggle to get a job and on the job hunt much longer than expected - we don't go anywhere and we still by you, but I very much understand that the cost could be weighing on your. If you change your mind and leave and have to pay a prorated cost, then I absolutely see the cost feeling super high, and we try hard to make sure you pay proportional to the value you received the best we can, while being fair to others. 2. We actually are removing existing standups and reworking. Both the feedback and our team agree that they didn't get much attendance and people didn't find them valuable, so we would rather invest in other things that people find valuable. 3. I also think we can do better to build community. I think we're somewhere in the middle right now. Some people naturally find a build a great community at Formation, some don't. Some want to, some don't. It's an area where we can do better if you are seeking out community and struggling to find it at Formation. 4. Poor UX of the Platform - I don't think it's THAT bad but it's also not the most flawless UX in the world either :P, but if you share specifics with the team we're more than happy to consider improvements. We built the entire Platform from the ground up so it's incredibly malleable. It's hundreds of thousands of lines of code and we push about 100 code changes a week - it changes fast. Moving fast often has more bugs. So to make up for it, we try to fix those bugs as fast as we humanly possibly. Our team wants to be more open about what we're doing on the platform, about launches, bugs, etc... 5. Problems you can do on Leetcode. Absolutely. We don't teach anything and we try to make that clear. We have some original mentor sessions, documents, or problems to work on, but we aren't teaching anything special. Our view is that there are hundreds of thousands of hours of free content out there you can do, and our job is to help you traverse it efficiently, not teach the underlying stuff ourselves. 6. Your standup group being there over a year. This is definitely a challenge with Formation - people who get jobs fast, aren't around long and you don't see them. Or if you see people getting great jobs and you haven't yet, it can feel a lot of pressure. So if you are one of the people around long, or a new people in a standup with people around long, it can feel not that great. I don't have a great answer for this. You get a team of 3 team members to support you, and one of the reasons you see people with use for so long is we **actually** meant it when we say we keep working with you (newer contracts have a 15 month soft-limit where you can be removed, but we have not exercised that limit yet). Now I totally understand how if you show up and in your first week meet people who are struggling to get jobs, that can be not a great impression. Whereas if you meet people who just got jobs at Roblox, DoorDash or PayPal (the last 3 placements) you might be full of motivation and inspiration. I think we can do better on managing this while ensuring each person is supported the best we can. We don't sugar coat or cover up the market and it's wildly great for some and wildly painful for others. 7. I think if the cost is worth it is up to an individual's opinions. Like I said, when you get the job in the end, almost everyone (but not 100%) think it's worth it. If you left and decided to no longer get a job, then we really spend time zooming into what you did and the value you got. If you did 500 sessions and 40 mock interviews, and you just can't get a job, like you have to pay something for that and we spent more than you are paying us to mentor you. Totally fine if you don't think it's worth it, but I don't see that as trying to prey on desperation at all. 8. I also recommend starting out with free and low cost options for everything! You likely won't get into Formation if you haven't already gotten your feet wet. Formation means different things to different people - so some people come with 1500 LC problems under their belt and want career support. Some people want to focus on system design. Some people have only done a few LC problems and are so lost they want us to make a path for them and hold them accountable to stick to it. You can get into physical shape without a personal trainer. But if you expected to make $100,000 by losing 40 lbs and you are considering paying a personal trainer $10K or not to help you (but not guarantee it) - it's a very reasonable option to consider and very reasonable to go it alone too.