Is Formation.dev legitimate?

Hi I can comment, I'm one of the co-funders and heavily involved day by day, so my answer is super biased, but I can tell you about what we do and why we do it. First off, we're not a bootcamp and we don't have a curriculum or teach anything. We're a mentorship platform to practice, benchmark, and prepare for interviews and become a stronger engineer while doing it. Everyone does different things with us and the personal trainer analogy below is pretty good imo... we help you get from A to B with your job hunting goals and your path to get there will look unique to you. Second off, the vast majority of people we work with have 1+ YOE as SWE (often more) and are currently employed and doing Formation part time on the side. Our platform supports you ramping up or down your commitment every week, so people practice at their own pace and it tends to take people about 6 months or so before they get a new job and the range of time is huge. Cost: the $2500 is the monthly rate that we just started offering, and the $7500-$13500 rates aren't monthly, they are unconditional mentorship until you accept an offer you like, wether it takes 1 month or 2 years. What justifies the pricing model? The average placed person so far in 2023 increased their compensation by $82,000 (first year total TC, see the [website](https://formation.dev/terms#outcomes) for the exact details of how this is calculated) so a lot of people find value in the service and even though we're 4 years old, there are people who have come back a second time for their next job search, paid us a second time, to go through Formation again (further demonstrating how it's a practicing platform and not an education/learning experience) The main criticism of this model is that the timeframe on which this happens is not guaranteed. So the outcomes are mostly fantastic on average when you get a job, but you don't know WHEN. It sounds awesome to have unconditional support until you get a job, but if it takes you 1 or 2+ years you might not be as happy, even if you got your money's worth and we lost money on mentorship cost and you might get frustrated because you've done all the practice in the world. Because everyone has such a unique experience and contributes widely varying amount of time to Formation, it's really hard to make any conclusions about how long it takes. We want to share more, but we want to make sure the data is useful and helps people make the right decisions and it's very hard to capture this. Whether it's right for you is the key question and for some people it is and some people it isn't. We don't have a magic formula to get you a job, just like you can't hire a personal trainer to lose 50lbs overnight. We're like a personal trainer for a casual jogger who wants to run a 3 hour marathon. And just by getting you to a 3 hour marathon, that doesn't guarantee you'll win any races. We have a ton of examples on our website of typical weeks so I won't go into all of that, but you get a new dynamic schedule of things to do every week based on how you are doing, including sessions scheduled based on your availability and what topics you need mentorship in at that time. There isn't a fixed list of stuff to work through and we move you along based on your benchmarks - not necessarily when you are 100% perfect at something, but when we feel the time is right. The downside to this is you have a schedule that changes every week and I bet we have more cancellations and last minute reschedules than a fixed program would (about 5% to 10% of session maybe - not huge but enough. So our team builds products around rescheduling and finding replacement mentors/peers for sessions so that we can continue to work on your schedule. We aren't a school or program and we don't have many reviews as a result, it's hard to review, a lot of how people evaluate Formation is through their own expectations and I don't think any specific person's experience can characterize what your experience will be like. Someone once complained that they felt like they did LeetCode all the time and it was useless, but this person didn't even work on System Design - which is one of the most useful pieces for mid-level engineers from non-traditional backgrounds and a major thing that other people found super valuable and has nothing to do with LeetCode. Overall though, this is a pretty unique approach, and a lot of people like it, and some people don't, so I'm happy to chat more very candidly about if it might work for you. People who go there or went there can talk more about their personal experiences, but I would try to talk to people who have a similar background and goals to you or it's not really representative of what your experience might be like.

I wrote a long comment on the top level post, but all of this is correct. We don't disclose much information about our membership base and because of the flexibility of Formation, it's hard to come up with useful numbers that you can use. I usually suggest to find people with a similar background and goals to yourself that did Formation or are here now and find out more about their experience. There are people who get jobs in 2 weeks, people who struggle to get a job in 2+ years, and everything in between, and the experience those people have are wildly different - mostly resulting from different backgrounds and goals. We aren't a school or bootcamps and we have a dynamic program so everyone's experience is unique, we also don't ask people to write reviews. But we have a lot of strengths and weaknesses that I'm happy to elaborate on.

Hi, I wrote a more through reply about Formation on the thread but didn't answer these questions yet, so I'll do my best here: \- How many paying customers ever? I don't want to give the exact amount for competitive reasons, nor do I have it right now, but it's the high 3 figures / low end of 4 figures of people who have been accepted and joined \- It takes people about 6 to 8 months (it's gotten longer in the weaker 2023 market) on average to find a job, but the range is very large because of these factors: 1. We work with people who usually have 1+ years of SWE work experience but it varies from 0 to 20+ and people with 0 come in with no interviews in sight and the people with 2+ or more come with with interviews lined up. 2. People do Formation part time on their own schedule and put in whatever time they can, so it takes people variable amounts of time to find a job based on their own timelines. We don't promise anywhere any timeframe to get a job and it's not a place to go to find a job quickly if you don't have any leads. We are a personal trainer for your interview prep and job hunt and not a way to buy referrals or a job. 3. We support people for however long it takes to get a job for the same price, so it's not a fast paced accelerated way to get a job and doesn't advertise as that. It's a reliable way to get in best shape for your interviews on your own timeframe. If you have interviews coming up and want to get ready, we're ready to go, but it's all up to you! \- No one gets kicked out of the program unless you do something really inappropriate or disruptive to others, which is rarely if ever has happened. Because we work with people until they get a job, the only reason people leave is because of a change in their goals, personal situation, or they got enough mentorship and don't like Formation anymore. About a quarter or so (not sure the exact but roughly as of end of 2023) of people who have ever joined have left for some reason, including people who left in the first trial week. A lot of people leave on a positive note and have a good reason. A smaller fraction of those people leave because they don't feel like they are getting any more value or not liking Formation (which is expected and fine) and they leave with a partial refund. \- We're not a school, bootcamp and we don't teach anything, we are a mentorship, benchmarking, practice, and interview prep platform, so we don't have any reviews on any of those services. We don't ask people to write reviews. Because the experience is so unique and dependent on you and your goals, it's more effective IMO to talk to people with a similar background and goals who did the program as it might completely different for other people

Formation is not me doing mentorship. We have a team of two dozen people who are building a platform and product that supports dynamic mentorship by giving you practice, benchmarks, and 3-5 person or 1-1 sessions with over 200 industry mentors (who are individual engineers and recruiters, many of whom are seniors plus engineers). We have thousands of tasks you can do, hundreds of sessions across dozens of types, over a dozen mock interview types. I'm not involved in the actual technical skill side nor do I run sessions, I build the platform and I help people that typically have senior or staff FAANG interviews with advice on preparation and helping navigate the job hunt process. This reply is mostly for other people reading it to clarify what Formation is and that it has very little to do with me. Sophie is the founder who steers the direction of the company, she's just not on Reddit and posts all the time on LinkedIn because that's where more people look for and engage with us.

This is correct, the OP didn't properly quote the price. Formation's unlimited packages are currently $**7500 to $13500 flat fee**s and you receive continuous technical mentorship and support until you get a job, which might be months or over a year, and it's significantly cheaper than many bootcamps for the amount of time for most people.

It's based on the experience level and how much work we think you need based on your benchmark. The longer you are at Formation, the more money we spend mentoring you, so if you need more work, the fee is higher. I need to reiterate emphatically that Formation is not a "program" and what you do will be different from what everyone else does (like the same topics and skills, but completely different pacing and focus areas). So we want the fees to be based on how much delta we think you have to getting to the top-tier bar and to pay a fair amount based on what others with similar background and starting point are paying. Generally speaking if you have several years of SWE work experience, maybe an interview or two on the horizon, you'll be on the lower side and less than a year of contract/internship/freelancing on the higher side - most people in the middle. We only take people with under 1 year of SWE work experience on a case by case basis (with a deeper dive in expectations and perfect alignment of goals), but that still falls on the higher end as well.

Hi, thanks for the question, We don't support people only looking at one or two companies. we do support you if you have a small number of dream companies, but are open to taking a good offer that you're happy about at a different company as well. You could be the most prepared possible and due to factors beyond your control just not pass and our job is to get you the most prepared possible, but no one can guarantee that you'll pass a specific interview.

Typically around 5 companies yeah, but you have to be open minded and.not limited to just them, because we have no control over the market. We can prepare you the best we can for those companies but if you interviewed at them all and didn't get an offer and you give up then you can leave Formation, but you won't get a refund. If you are targeting just 5 companies I would recommend the 3 months package we currently offer. It's the month to month subscription with a discount if you pay for 3 months upfront for $6000 (as of July 2024). We prepare you the best we can during that time and then you either get an offer and leave or you leave and wrap up your job hunt on your own.

You could leave (at the $500 a week refund policy rate). You could target new companies and keep going. So our process has two parts. First, you go through a number of challenges to practice and benchmark until your raw skills are at the top company bar. Second, as you get real interviews, we help you do mocks for the types you have and strategize for the process (e.g. push out interviews if you aren't ready). The first part is like getting in shape at the gym. The second part is like practicing a race before the final race. So if you change your targets it's really the second sort you have to keep doing and adjust and not the first.

With flat rate unlimited (which is still offered but unlisted on the site right now) there is no timeframe yeah. We have a small number of people with us for quite a long time and still going as a result. With the performance based unlimited (our main option right now) there is a 15 month cap (which can be extended because of personal circumstances if approved). This is why we might not accept you if you only have like two companies you're targeting or will only accept an offer at a very small number of companies. We don't know what the market's going to be like in a year and if we did our part and prepared you for all the interviews and your passing all of the mock interviews and doing great and those companies just aren't hiring. there's nothing we can do about it but we did our part. So maybe I should emphasize that you're primarily paying to confidently get your skills and interview performance up to the top tier bar and will support you no matter how long that takes as it takes each person a different amount of time. And you are paying for our job hunt support like strategizing for interviews, communicating with recruiters and negotiating offers. But you are not paying for referrals or a guaranteed job at a specific company. so if that's what you primarily want, then it's not a good fit. in other words, if you showed up and we got you to that point and you could only get an interview at a company you didn't really like and we helped you prepare for that company and pass anyways. then we've earned our fee even if you only wanted to work at a different company. so if that doesn't work for you, you should not come.

There are no explicit requirements or quotas and the rule in the contract is broader that you have to be actively job hunting and intending to get a new job. We are so adaptive to each person, having exact quotas doesn't make sense. We see our role like a coach or personal trainer and we need to have a trusting partnership with ways. Meaning if you are seeing Formation as a transactional way to get a job for the lowest cost you can, it's not the right mindset. You have to trust us and our advice that we are trying to help you achieve your goal, and we have to trust that you are showing up and working with us. If you aren't ready to interview we don't want you applying to jobs. If you are ready we want you applying to jobs. The advice depends on you and your progress, traction, strengths and weaknesses, feedback etc....