I appreciate this discussion! I have my real name on here so that we can have this discussion! If you have anonymous accounts it's hard to track people's backgrounds and biases and that's even more concern for manipulation than people being transparent.
As other people pointed out, Formation isn't a bootcamp - we are an interview prep, practice, mentorship, and mock interview platform. Our acceptance bar varies with the market and right now we are taking mostly mid level senior engineers and a surprising number who formerly worked as senior engineers at FAANG companies.
I don't know why Codesmith people think we compete with them, including their Director of Outcomes stating that in their AMA. The most recent 20 reviews on Course Report: ALL 20 speak to either how they had no experience prior to Codesmith or they didn't say anything about it, but more generally how they recommend it for career switchers.
Meanwhile, the last 20 people to start Formation (outside of our special Netflix Pathways Program) all have many years of experience, and a number (I count 4) were senior FAANG ENGINEERS BEFORE STARTING.
We are a tool that bootcamp grads can use in their future job hunts so I would argue that's my biggest conflict of interest in this subreddit, talking about Formation in front of former bootcamp grads who are on their 2nd, 3rd, job hunts OR who are in bootcamps but should consider Formation in a couple of years.
But yeah, if we were competing with bootcamps it would be absurd for me to be talking about specific ones in this sub and I would deserve to be moderated out.
People who ACTUALLY APPLY AND TALK TO US find out very quickly who Formation is actually for and people with no SWE work experience will get auto-rejected without even a call.... CS new grads struggling to get jobs = auto rejected, bootcamp grads struggling to get jobs = auto rejected. If the market improves we'll be able to help those buckets more, but even those buckets are a step ahead of bootcamps.
It would take us a HUGE amount of effort to offer a product that is an alternative to a 12 week bootcamp and it's so different from what we do, it would also be a distraction and misplaced effort.
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
there might be a few posts by some bootcamp owner and employees on here now and then. But none of them are mods nor do they have a 1,000+ posts just in this sub alone attempting to control the narrative. ☠️
Also None of them scream “I’m not a bootcamp!! Don’t ask to see how an
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
This is a false narrative. If you think my narratives about Codesmith or Launch School or CIRR are false, you are entitled to methodically poke holes in the arguments with other facts and data, or opinions (stated as such).
1. I have to say we are not a bootcamp whenever anyone calls us one because we are tiny and have little presence so the public is mislead by those false remarks. The question should be why are people accusing us of being one in the first place and not dropping it when I explain so often why we aren't.
2. We spend very little on Reddit ads, we mostly spend ad dollars on Google search keyword ads to appear above Beyoncé's Formation album in results. You probably see the ads because you click on them and engage with Formation, that's how online ads are meant to work!! To target messages to people who engage with Formation for the lowest cost possible.
3. I can see how me posting so much can suck the air out of the room and I've been trying to post and comment less. If other commenters cover what I was going to say, I've been not responding.
4. There are some people that see me on pretty much every single Codesmith post and think I'm always on them. This bubble bias from people that only follow Codesmith posts. It's true I'm engaged in ALL of them, but I'm engaged equally in all topics, not just those.
5. I've explained why we don't have more outcomes, it's not that we don't publish them, we just don't have them. We track individual reported outcomes and we we report the average first year compensation increase over current compensation, which is increase of $109K in 2024 (see [details](https://formation.dev/terms#outcomes)). Because everyone comes in at different levels we try to focus on increases in comp. We have a FAANG senior manager right now, and an 8 year ex-Meta engineer as well , a 2 year SWE from a bank. Averaging the three's resulting salaries is MEANINGLESS NONSENSE and asking for it is asking for garbage. We have people coming in who have interviews lined up for a month from now and we have people coming in who are slowly preparing for a job hunt at the end of the year. Comparing their time to placement is MEANINGLESS NONSENSE.
u/StrictlyProgramming wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I wish there was a term for businesses like Formation. "Career advancement mentorship"? Or maybe "career advancement consultancy"?
There are a few out there that are non-US that provide similar services and don't fall into the classic bootcamp category since they're only for e
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hi, yeah there just aren't that many of us around because it's kind of a new idea. We compete with Pathrise and Interview Kickstart directly. Interview Prep or Career Accelerator maybe?
The idea of getting like a "personal trainer" for your career is kind of new and some people are still shy about sharing that they went to these places.
As you pointed out it's crazy different to have like 10+ year Google hiring managers who have really seen a lot and genuinely have insights advise you than at a bootcamp where an alumni who worked at Google for a year is advising you who hasn't interviewed anyone yet, neverless managed, or done dozens of hiring committee reviews, etc...
On the recruitment side, it's not super lucrative yet for these companies. There are still so many people applying naturally big tech doesn't really need to partner with anyone and there has to be a reason. Will these companies save time/money in skipping screening interviews? Will they send over better people who the companies would have otherwise skipped? Could the companies advertise to these places so the engineer will choose those companies?
Lots of possibilities, nothing yet has happened.
u/RealArmchairExpert wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Yes obvious conflict. Never trust people with long explanation that ends in go to my school if you’re this or that. It’s a popular sales technique to make it look genuine and sway you to buy their stuffs.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
NOTE: I reported this for calling me a douchbag but I didn't moderate it, if it gets removed it's because another mod did or Reddit did and not me.
u/jcl274 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Did you even read the post? Lol. The OP clearly states why they think it might be a conflict of interest.
> Promoting their own product
For the record I don’t give a shit either way but it is weird to me that he is a mod and not a single bootcamp founder is. Formation doesn’t
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Conflicts of interest exist whether you call them out or not and a lot of people have them... discussing what I may or may not have is an incredibly fortunate opportunity we're in.
Imagine anonymous accounts claiming to be normal alumni that are people employed by a school with no way to check it out.
Or people claiming they got a job with no experience but their LinkedIn says they have "10 years of experience" and I can't say anything without DOX'ing them.
These are two cases I know about and can't say anything about without DOX'ing people and how I know, but these kinds of things go completely UNQUESTIONED because people are non transparent like I am.
I except to be respectfully challenged but that also involves listening to what I say and judging the facts and not making false conclusions because you are suspicious.
u/jcl274 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I appreciate you because you do tend to post a lot of helpful stuff about bootcamps in general, but it’s weird to see someone who has no affiliation with Codesmith whatsoever post regularly about them, lol.
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
It's a hobby, I get really interested by things like Codesmith. I watch documentaries about all kinds of business things like I've already seen the new Ashley Madison doc on Netflix and the Con Queen one on Apple+
Codesmith is just a super fascinating entity that is absolutely unique amongst bootcamps and extremely polarizing. People love it or hate it and maybe I'm the only person in between lol.
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Look, I'd take you more seriously if you practiced what you preached. We all have biases, but the key is not acting on them. Pushing one bootcamp relentlessly and flooding this subreddit with ads is the height of hypocrisy. Can you ever discuss anything without dragging in Codesm
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Can you block the ads, we genuinely have a low ad budget on Reddit and I don't really want it all going towards you hahaha.
I pointed out some challenges in number 5 above. I think it would fair to publish more data with detailed explanations of what it means.
The motivation is actually the opposite. If we publish data that is misleading it's a much larger risk for us then not publishing data. We can spend 30 min calls one on one going through your personal situation and making sure you are clear on what we do to make up for it. But if we publish averages without a lot of explanation and caveat they might mislead people a lot.
The average comp is so high right now because of a bunch of people that got senior offers at Meta. And it would be absurdly misleading that anyone's starting now gets $300k to $500k offers. hence why we need to be really careful and explain things really carefully and right now we just take the time to do that. one-on-one.
u/Weird_Ride213 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
How is it not misleading to showcase a $766k salary on your homepage without any context? There's no information on the job title, prior experience, the company, or the time it took to achieve this salary. Highlighting a single anecdote of a $766k salary doesn't help anyone under
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I don't really think this is a great number but it's far from misleading, it's very clear what the number is and how it was calculated, and that it was the highest reported offer in 2024 up to April 22nd.
We then talk to each person before joining to explain how Formation works and learn about your individual goals and advise if Formation is a good fit or not.
I can't give specifics about that person because it's not public and I haven't asked for permission, but the person placed at Meta in a SWE role and has about 13 years of experience. The person took their time and was currently employed when doing Formation. The offer is very reasonable for everyone at that level and we have a couple of people in Formation now at that level who are looking at changing companies. That number is a bit low for them and we had to talk and explain to them about what their outcome might look like.
At the same time there are people with less than a year of contract experience post bootcamp who have been really struggling for a while. Non of them expect a $766K offer. We're working with them to get apprenticeships and contract to hire and other roles and we work with people until they get a job.
u/Chemical_Cup_6496 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Option one becomes less likely when you consider another statement, roughly that lying/doing unethical stuff to get a software job will hurt your career unless intervention is done. (Sorry, the reddit/markdown issues ate most citations here and hereon). Adding that to the mix Fra
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Hey, short answer to long prompt but I did read it all and appreciate you sharing your thoughts about it. I think you are trying to pull conclusions from my writing and tying them together and the missing piece is that it's not my job to blanket recommend or not recommend programs. Every program has good and bad things and the larger the program the wider range of experiences people will have there. I actually stand by most or all of the things you quoted.
Codesmith itself (staff and leaders) are strongly against lying. Somehow though most graduates I've seen on LinkedIn end up with embellished resumes.
I have heard numerous theories why, but it's not as clear cut as Codesmith the entity is a bad actor manipulating the industry and some people do go through it feeling like they didn't lie about anything and got a great outcome. So if I think you would be one of those people, go for it! If you aren't then don't.
That one is more of a call on your value system and I don't want to impose mine, which is why I dont' make any broad conclusions about them one way or the other and am very careful at doing so.
u/starraven wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
The one Formation alumni who responded to me on LinkedIn was talking to me very amicably until I mentioned Formation to him and asked about his experience. He immediately ghosted me at that point. I followed up thinking that he had to have just been busy but nope. Ghosted permane
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
One of the challenging aspects of Formation for us to explain how it works, is that more experience people tend to not broadcast on LinkedIn that they went to Formation and people with less experience tend to put it out there to build a profile. Like if you currently work at a good company at doing Formation to level up, you don't want your company to know necessarily you are doing Formation or that you were doing it for the past six months to leave.
So if you are experience (which most of the people we work with are) then it's harder to find people like you to talk to.
Add in the fact that our entrance bar was slightly lower in the boom times and we took more bootcamps grads about 4-6 months post bootcamp or CS degree, a number who are struggling still in the market, and you end up with a biased sample size on LinkedIn.
I also fully expect Formation to not work for everyone too! We're very far from perfect! But we want to work for most people, be confident in accepting you that we can help you, and be confident you'll see the cost as worth it (which the reasons vary by person). But we're not perfect, and people's goals can change.
u/starraven wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I think to climb in my career I'm going to have to buckle down and actually learn some leetcode. Maybe one day i'll check Formation out further. I've been blessed not to need it so far. Just curious, how do you communicate outcomes to your prospective fellows? I just see a page t
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
In general, we try to look for recent outcomes of people who are similar to your background on paper, and where you are starting from and compare that to your goals.
So if your goal is to become an E5 at Meta and your background doesn't support that we might say, people similar to you have gotten E4 Rotational Engineer jobs at Meta and we would be aiming for that if you came to Formation. That job pays $175K base with a $50K signing bonus and is a 12 month rotation that converts to full E4 if you ramp up as expected.
It's really personal and through examples and pattern matching but it's much more specific than any aggregated numbers could be.
u/starraven wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I've gotten interviews at meta and apple, so I know they're interested. I just can't pass their interview. I wanted to know about how your approach helps your fellows? I guess.. you are saying you have a team of people who reviews applicants, does this mean you keep your fellows
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
Yeah we only take on Fellows we can support, right now in this market we have more capacity, but in the past we've had a waitlist when we didn't think we could operationally provide the experience we want.
You do four primary activities:
1. Practice (doing problems by yourself and with others)
2. Benchmarking (you do a ton, probably dozens or over a hundred practice assessments and get evaluated on each one)
3. Mentor Sessions (typically 3 to 5 person group sessions where the mentor guides people through a problem and you all work together to solve it)
4. Mock interviews (1-1 run by actual engineers as real interviews but with feedback on where to improve)
You do a combination of all of this and it changes week to week based on how you are doing.
And when you get to the point that you are consistently at the FAANG-level bar, we switch to job hunt mode and we track all your applications and prepare you for upcoming interviews to the best of our ability (which is often mock interviews or practice negotiation conversations, etc...)
What we can control is the quality of the mentorship and we feel confident that if you are accepted we can get you to the point of being able to pass top tier interviews (nothing is guaranteed because you can't control the individual interviews, but we can get you to the bar).
What we can't control is how long that will take, and the job market for what real interviews you will get.
u/sheriffderek wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
This post makes me want to reframe a bit - and ask a question.
What would the ideal community and conversations here be?
It's specifically a sub about **codingbootcamp** (*I'm not sure why it isn't plural - but OK* ;).
.
## What is a coding boot camp?
...
## What else is in
u/michaelnovatireplied·★ FEATURED
I would probably talk way less about Codesmith if their CEO commented on here, because the discussions would be efficient. I will absolutely grill him on the facts, but respect his views and people would efficiently see different sides of the argument, no name calling and anonymous attacks from people making false assumptions.
Without that voice, we have a dozen alumni contributing pieces of that discussion and not being qualified to respond to challenges about the pedagogy and strategy.
u/starraven wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Ah when you list it out like that it becomes less mysterious. Thanks.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
There shouldn't be a mystery and there's no magic! Don't buy magic from anyone unless you know how the trick is being done.