AMA: 👋 I'm Michael. Former-moderator of the sub, Facebook top performer, "the Coding Machine", junior -> principal / 2009-2017, helper of bootcamps students and grads, founder of Formation for experienced engineers preparing for interviews.

I can't disclose what Formation makes but I can say that we have hundreds of engineers doing interview prep at a given time and several thousand ever. But we're really not making that much money in revenue if you ballpark it and we have losses since day on. I personally make $0 salary, have made $0 from equity, no sketchy backchannel compensation, and even put more money into the company when I can. I do it because I feel like the world will be a better place if people land the right role for them and everyone is more impactful than they were. One of my hobbies is studying scams and fraud, and if all those scammers spent their energies on something value add for the world, we would be so much better off. If the bootcamps spent more energy with people getting outcomes then figuring out how to "creatively market" their poor outcomes, it would be better off. So I call out this behavior a lot too. I disagree with building a portfolio to get a job. It's a polarizing topic but I don't think you should try to game your portfolio. Instead I think you should make an LLC, get Stripe, get a bank account, build something real, and iterate on it for months/years.