I would encourage everyone to spend time and fully read the 54 comments (of which 1/4 or so are my comments) and judge for themselves how I responded to their feedback.
We have some people with no experience, you found one who had several internships but no full SWE experience, and that proves nothing. The other comment thread you shared has a person who loud and clear says they have 7+ years experience, and another person saying that most of the Fellows they work with have experience. And for the fourth time, you have our official data as the primary source proving this. **Yelling loudly doesn't make false statements true**, that's how fake news spreads, like in the 2016 election, which I saw first hand at Facebook.
There are people with tons of experience who are weaker at DS&A and people with no experience who are strong at DS&A, and that's why everyone at Formation gets a u…
Everyone's Favorite time of the half-year! H1 2022 CIRR Reports are starting to roll out! TechElevator, CodeUp and LaunchAcademy are live, Codesmith not live yet. First look at 2021 vs 2022 hiring climate stats and things don't look good :S
(will update as more results released)
IMPORTANT EDIT. See Tech Elevators comment below about an error on their CIRR worksheet that resulted in lower placement percentages. They claimed the percentages are actually very similar from 2021 to 2022 and the CIRR report has now been updated officially. I've stated numerous times about flaws with CIRR, for example that results are not audited before posting, or that auditors make mistakes.
**OVERALL: After Tech Elevators data correction, placement rates for H1 2022 are holding up and didn't crash that much yet! I expect H2 2022 to be much more impacted and we'll see in October.**
Notable changes Tech El…
>formation
/u/No-Leopard-1563
Hi, yeah I'm the co-founder and lead engineer at Formation, ex-FB (intern -> principal, over 8 years).
Formation's model isn't to have a dedicated 1-1 mentor. Instead you'll work with dozens of senior/staff/principal/managers/directors at top tier companies in dozens of small group (3-6 people), or 1-1 mock interview, sessions. You might work with some people more than others, but the goal isn't to have a long term dedicated mentor and rather get a larger volume of feedback from a wide range of people. If you do investments, it's kind of like buying into index funds versus putting all your money into one stock/crypto/etc... Any individual stocks in the portfolio might do better or worse, but over a long period of time, you get reliable return on investment.
It is also a large commitment with the current Fellowship we have. If you do it part time p…
More thoughts and random points /u/Independent-Tear3960, also /u/BudgetSense8077 and /u/InTheDarkDancing as I commented some of this on your thread and then deleted to move here. **I think point 4 is most important to the OPs questions**
1. The hiring market is partially to blame because it changed so quickly. One week Amazon was hiring, the next week they were laying off. People started bootcamps in a great environment and the carpet was pulled out underneath them.
2. I'm also not seeing bootcamps meaningfully adapt their program and strategies fast enough. Codesmith still tells people "taking a junior job is the worst thing you can do for your career". Now this is super bias, but I believe the way bootcamps are structured make it very hard to change everything overnight. At Formation, we are feeling the market pressure as well, we have much fewer opportunities to refer people to top t…
Hi there, I'm happy to give more info and my thoughts. Ultimately we want you in the right place and if that's not Formation, we're happy. I've responded a lot in other comments that might be useful as well and feel free to message me directly with more info about yourself if you want me to give more personal advice.
First off, we take every piece of feedback seriously, investigate and discuss it, so I don't want to come across as dismissive, but the majority of people have a great experience and recommend us to friends. Not a single person on this thread has responded to our team or reported anonymous/untraceable feedback despite open arms from everyone on the team. In terms of feedback, so far this evening there have been 7 pieces of explicit feedback (i.e. text feedback, supplemental to numerical ratings) given, 6 were glowing positive reviews about the impact the mentor(s) had, 1 wa…
I think one major con as you said in another post, that almost all instructors and TAs of are in India, about half of the cohort mates are in India, all the current job partnerships are in India, and every placement listed on their website testimonial was in India. The company itself is also based in India.This is not clear from their marketing and is fantastic if you are located in India but not as good of you are located elsewhere.
Comment from OP:
"Yes they are available in the US now(launched 7-8 months back iirc). Instructors are based in India. Some are American. Teaching assistants are all based in India. Hiring partnerships are mostly with Indian cos. Not sure about outside India. I am still in month 2 , so job portal is not yet open for me. It's a mix of American and Indian learners. Probably 60-40. My mentor is based out of India. He is an SDE2 at Adobe. Not sure if there are…
Hi, the application process is similar to the Formation interview process, with an additional requirement to submit a short video talking about yourself.
The benchmarking assessment is similar to normal Formation and is not meant so much as a test to rank people, but as a way to assess your starting point.
It's a combination of practical coding questions (which require little specific DS&A) and multiple choice debugging and knowledge questions which require much more advanced knowledge.
We are not looking for the strongest "leetcoders" at all, but you have to have a good starting point of DS&A and problem solving skills. The biggest advice I give about the benchmarking is to focus on speed, because it's a lot for the time aloted. The assessment is difficult to study for because it's trying to assess your general starting point and if you could cram for a few days and do meaningfully…
Hi, I wanted to comment directly since in reviewing the thread I realized your questions weren't answered.
1. I don't think OPs experience are growing pains, or at least not the way they were portrayed. Behind the scenes, our scheduling and matching algorithms actually get better and better the more people we have and create more opportunities for better session matches. We have chosen to grow much slower than we can, and investors want us to, to prioritize experience over growth and making sure everything is great in practice and not just in theory. I said this in another comment but it's not uncommon for 5 out of 6 people in a session to have great feedback and 1 to feel like it was a terrible session. We are fully aware that Fellows are paying a lot of money and expecting a lot, so one bad experience needs to be investigated and improved, but that one experience is also not represen…
Hi, I'm sorry to hear you both aren't finding value in the program. Can you surface specific feedback internally or message me on Reddit completely anonymously with specific feedback and examples so we can action it?
The majority of commenters on this thread are new and anonmyous accounts which makes it hard to get concrete feedback.
For example, IRobot, how do you know you are making better progress through other courses and what signals are telling you so? Like I said in another comment, we link to and suggest all kinds of free content, so I want some clarity on what this means. If you signed up to Formation as an alternative to Neetcode, you didn't sign up for the right reasons and I want to chat!
I can share my thoughts on these questions.
1. Everyone has a different experience at Formation by nature, and has different goals and starting points coming in. So if you already put in the work to apply and get signed up, you get 7 days with a full schedule before deciding if you want to stay so I would recommend doing that and judging for yourself. It might genuinely not be a good fit for you but you can make the most of that first week even if you are not a good fit.
2. One part of the "special sauce" is how we efficiently get you through topics and objectively evaluate how you are doing. So if you've already done 1000 LC problems and feel like you really understand the concepts, you might move through the topics very quickly and spend less time on them. Some people consider that poor value for your money, and some people consider saving your time valuable, depends on what you value…
Your post from two months ago that was auto-deleted: "all of those reviews online are from formation employees, this novati dude is a huge sleazeball"
Please stop following me and defaming the company with provably false statements.
We have really strong reviews because the majority of people have a great experience overall, get great placements, find a new job making significantly more in salary, and recommend us to their friends. A smaller number of people understandably do not. We are a fast moving startup but that doesn't mean the experience should be compromised and it's not an excuse, it's expensive, most people feel like they get good to great value for their experience and we want nothing less. If someone joins for the wrong reasons, doesn't have the experience they wanted and wants to leave, we want them to leave positively and feeling like they got value for their time. Every…
It sounds like you aren't on the same page about the value and reasons to do Formation, for example, we try to be very clear that we feel that there are hundreds of thousands of hours of content out there already that you can get for free and having original content is not a large value add - you shouldn't have joined for that reason. My offer remains open to personally and confidentially handle the refund on your ISA and remove you from the program to take responsibility for the misunderstandings that are ultimately our fault.
Otherwise if you don't want to leave and want to make the best of it, you have Daniel, Danielle, Selena, Sophie, ALL of the FMs, all with open arms wanting to talk to you and support you and help you keep chugging along in this challenging job market until you get a job - we all genuinely care.
Like I said, no hard feelings and no judgement if you want to turn t…
You sound extremely frustrated in your job hunt and with Formation, but taking it out on the team and portraying us a money hungry individuals repeatedly is offensive. Sophie and I have not made a penny from Formation and pay ourselves $0 from day 1. Sophie has pledged any profit from Formation's stock to reinvest into others in the future and to not benefit personally from.
What makes you think we are money hungry and preying on the weak? When people pay upfront we have cash flow, and when people pay with ISAs we generally get paid far in the future, and it's a lot better for people to pay upfront for a small company like us even if we get paid more on an ISA down the road. So I think you have a big misunderstanding about ISAs. If Formation was 100% upfront only, it would be tremendously better as a business model. We offter ISAs to support people that don't have thousands of dollars l…
You have several comments and deleted comments that are fairly offensive or negative about Formation's intentions that have been hurtful to the team and it makes me feel like you just don't want to be here.
If you do want to be here, we need to get back on track and be on the same side for this to work.
If you don't want to be here, please message me privately on MM and we'll remove you and figure out a cost that is appropriate to the value you think you got from Formation and we'll be more than fair to make sure you feel good about that cost. No hard feelings and no judgement... it's a stressful time for early career job hunters and we'll be happy to have you back in the future if there is better alignment and we are on the same side.
100% agree that great engineers are not always great mentors, couldn't agree more! This is one of the reasons I personally don't do sessions, and focus on writing code, but that Daniel, Sophie, and others do sessions.
So most of our mentors are industry engineers who first go through light training (reading materials and videos) and then go through a shadowing and reverse shadowing process to be approved to run sessions.
For 1-1 mock interviews they are instructed to run them as industry mock interviews, and they complete a structured feedback form at the end with dozens of data points.
For group sessions, it's a little more complicated. We have a few dozen session types and people need to get shadowed and reverse shadowed for each type. Each session has very clear instructions on how to run that session - both technically and regarding the overall flow. Every single session technical…
Hi, we severely limit the number of people with zero experience (hence waitlists or rejections) and you can see in our recent placement data that about 1/3 of people had no full time experience and that was equally split amongst: bootcamp grads, CS grads, self taught/other degree: [https://formation.dev/blog/2022-formation-fellow-placements/](https://formation.dev/blog/2022-formation-fellow-placements/)
I would argue that CS grads have fundamentals, some bootcamp grads do if they self studied post bootcamp, and self taught is the real wildcard where we would only admit people who meet the bar and just happened to do it themselves - typically over many years.
RE: Sessions. People get dynamically scheduled for sessions based on the skills and difficulties they are working on right now, so generally speaking, you should be in sessions with people around your level. We have a lot of improv…
Yeah the job market is very hard right now. Formation Fellows are still getting jobs at good companies, like Bloomberg and Cisco in the past few weeks, but there's no magic path that you can just pay for to get a job at FAANG, and people should NOT join Formation if that's what they are looking for. People with no professional experience are having a particularly hard time getting interviews and we are like a coach in the corner by your side, but we can't create entry level headcount that doesn't exist. We're trying! We have a deal with Netflix we just announced to hopefully get 20 entry level CS grads into Netflix this year!
You should join Formation if you want to build solid fundamental CS and problem solving skills that you might be lacking from a non-traditional path, and get personal-trainer-like practice and ongoing support until you get a job.
Hi! Thanks for sharing your feedback as well. I have some comments:
1. For you specifically, you demonstrated your DS&A are at the bar in only 3 weeks and got to move on and for someone else it might take 3 months. In other programs you get a fixed list of questions or a fixed schedule of classes. I totally accept the argument that another alternative is to not do Formation at all, but for people who are committed to doing a program, I think our model works really well at efficiently getting people to that bar and adding confidence that you are legitimately there.
2. Our mission is to support people from non traditional and underrepresented backgrounds and not all people (in fact, very few) come into Formation having interview-ready level Graphs and DP like you did. We actually get the feedback that Formation is harder than expected much more often than easier. That said, we want to ad…
Thanks for sharing your feedback and opinions about your experience. Regardless of the tougher job market making it harder to get interviews, making sure you feel supported is one of most important internal goals that we constantly monitor with a magnifying glass and I'm sorry that the support you aren't receiving isn't meeting your expectation.
I respect your opinions and won't comment on everything you mentioned that I might personally disagree with. For others reading, I'm going to add some responses to specific statements that I feel will be helpful to clarify.
1. We don't let in everyone who wants to join and we only accept a fraction of people who apply. Acceptance is based on three things: 1. a benchmarking assessment that gauges your starting skill level and has a complex evaluation model that is not akin to "passing a test". 2. your past experience. 3. your goals, timeline,…
Hi, I haven't read the entire post yet! We collect feedback on every interaction you have at Formation, as you know, annoyingly so, and I'm really heartbroken that you have been feeling negatively for a while and this hasn't been surfaced, or if it has been and you don't feel it was actioned, I apologize and want to make it right.
Who did you talk to about a refund or adjustment if you want to leave early and can you message me about that? I don't think I saw this ever reach my inbox and want to launch an investigation of what happened.
We can't control the job market and referral opportunities obviously, but we have been investing in adding FAANG/ex-FAANG recruiters as career coaches to try to level up our career support in these hardder times (and this was intended to be a benefit), but I'm happy to jump into your private channel and help advise if you are open to that!
Yeah possibly, if you are failing FAANG-level technical interviews and getting by easier ones, but your goal is a top tier company, we should be able to get you to that bar and confirm it through a combination of benchmarking, mentor feedback, and passing mock interviews.
Formation is not time-based, meaning you keep going week to week for as long as it takes to get a job, and you keep training the whole time, so as long as you do your part, you'll get to that bar in whatever time it takes you.
The market is not great right now for new grads to be blunt. We have a program with Netflix you might want to check out that is aimed at helping new grads. We don't have any magical powers to create jobs that don't exist, but you get our unconditional support and best efforts through the ups and downs if you show up and do your part.
I'm obviously biased! But seriously, it really depends on you, your current skill level, and your goals. It is objectively good? How can you tell haha? I think we operate with integrity, we listen to feedback, we try to be fair, me and my co-founder have not made a penny of salary from Formation in the past 4 years, and we genuinely care about what we do.
If you want to give more info about your background and goals, I can say if I would suggest it or suggest something else instead.
Formation's mission is based on helping people from all kinds of non traditional backgrounds get a seat at the table, which includes bootcamp grads. We work with many bootcamp grads in our normal programs with many great success stories and that motivates us to do more and more to help you in your careers.
You do not get paid, no, but if you were to train with Formation on your own, you normally have to pay up to $24K (15% of your first year base salary). So if you are selected for this program, Netflix is paying all the fees for you, essentially, so you don't pay anything.
It's limited to 20 spots, that's correct, because this is the launch/first instance of the Netflix specific program.
PSA: Netflix Formation Program applications opened today! (2024 CS grads in the USA). Sadly, this is not open to bootcamp grads this time around, but any CS students who are considering a bootcamp before graduation might benefit from this program)
Hi friends, Netflix [announced](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heyjoshuag_formation-activity-7033558750359683072-hGi9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop) the launch of the Netflix Formation Program, a **free program (paid for by Netflix)** for 2024 grads to get rigorous CS fundamentals training and potential interviews with Netflix for entry level SWE roles. This is intense program and is extremely competitive to get into, but if you qualify, check it out!
Now many of you know me well in this community and I champion helping bootcamp grads get great first, second, third jobs. This time around, unfortunately this program is only open…
PSA: Netflix Formation Program applications opened today! (2024 CS grads in the USA)
Hi all, Netflix [announced](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heyjoshuag_formation-activity-7033558750359683072-hGi9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop) the launch of the Netflix Formation Program and applications are open now through March 5th, 2023. This is a free program (paid for by Netflix) for 2024 grads to get rigorous CS fundamentals training and potential interviews with Netflix for entry level SWE roles. It's an intense program and is extremely competitive to get into, but I wanted to share it with the community so that people interested can check it out!
From the post:
>Netflix has teamed up with Formation to bring rising seniors personalized training and world-class mentorship from the best engineers in the tech industry. This is a **free** **program**, and participants who demonstra…
Yeah +1 to others, it's not super relevant that Will went there, and yes it's true: [source](https://www.coursereport.com/blog/founder-spotlight-will-sentance-of-code-smith)
Hack Reactor was acquired by Galvanize in 2018, and then K-12 acquired Galvanize in 2020. And then K-12 restructured as Stride Learning at then end of 2020.
So whatever experience he had back then it is certainly a little different from the experience now.
The only think that's relevant to some degree is that Codesmith's instruction staff all come from Codesmith alumni who become TA's, get hired full time, get promoted to leads, etc... and they are lacking like real industry experience in the ranks. Their main investor has many startups, is mostly known for film, but did an SAT prep company, and their head of outcomes did a startup as a product-person many years ago and then wrote movies as well. There on and off…
I lost track of the thread because you commented 4 times so I'll reply here. I totally understand all of this and this is competitive to what Formation offers (which is why I know so much about them), but I'm asking if they have branched out of India or not yet, as all of the people I could find who did it did it in India and got jobs in India.
1. Are there hiring partnerships outside of India?
2. How many of your peers that you interact with are located in India vs outside India?
3. What percentage of the mentors you worked with are location outside of India?
It depends a lot on you personally, how far along you are, and what kind of environment you want to learn in. As with almost any program, you have to do the work and get the job. No program will give you a $100K+ job... you get paid that kind of money because of the impact you have in generating more value than that for the company.
Rithm: 9am to 6pm, direct instruction from senior engineers/instructors, capped at 18 people class sizes, mock internships. Focuses on actually learning.
Codesmith: 9am to 8pm + Saturdays, Cohorts are 36 people and instruction is from former students (either new grads, or previous grads who were hired full time). More of a "firehose" style program where ambitious people who power through do well. Entry bar is designed to get people from free sessions -> prep -> immersive and selects and for people who are already strong from self teaching, and communicate w…
I'm the co-founder and lead engineer and have been in the industry for 15 years, 8 years at Facebook and then a break, and then 4 years at Formation. Formation's predecessor, Buildschool, was a free coding bootcamp, and Formation was explicitly founded to not be a bootcamp.
There are a few differences, for which there are no bootcamps that offer this kind of thing:
1. Formation has no length, no curriculum, and no expected time frame that you will be training for. You start training on day one and you keep training until you get a job. We work on things week to week that you need to work on, and constantly benchmark across many skills until we think you are at the top-tier company bar (not just FAANG, but the broad top tier bar). As the OP posted, you might have good weeks or bad weeks, but you are paying for unconditional support until you get a job.
2. The majority of people at Forma…
To clarify for anyone else reading, Formation isn't a coding bootcamp and is not an alternative to a bootcamp if you are looking for a program like App Academy, Codesmith, Springboard, Hack Reactor, etc.... It's a program for experienced engineers to level up their skills!
I try hard to state this like a broken record and if that isn't clear, let me know so we can clarify our language!
It's really important to understand that what we do is nothing remotely like a 'coding bootcamp' and I want to make sure people know what they are getting into!
Hi, thanks for sharing a great summary of your experiences and I really appreciate you sharing thoughts to help people figure out if what Formation currently offers is for them or not. Our team cares deeply about each and every engineer succeeding and works with people for as long as it takes to get a job, but we are your partner in the journey and being on the same page is critical.
I won't say much on this thread, other than a few points below, unless people address me directly, because I don't want to interfere with the discussion or step on your toes.
RE: Session consistency: For context, we create a new schedule for each Fellow, and mentor, every week - truly from scratch, and entirely different every single week.... hundreds (crossing thousands) of sessions scheduled every week dynamically from scratch. The real challenge with doing this, is that it's incredibly hard to handle at…
Their CEO posts about placements all the time on Twitter and how well people are doing. He claims 100% of job seeking people from their backend program got jobs and many before graduating.
Can you shed some light on those 3 to 4 job offers? I know they report graduates who get 2nd, 3rd, etc.. job offers down the road. I've worked with a few alumni from Bloomtech at Formation and Bloomtech has reported their placements in that channel even though they came to Formation afterwards and some even had work experience in between.
It really depends on you, your experience, your time commitment, your natural abilities, etc...
For example:
Codesmith: great for ambitious people with hustle mentality and the means to do 11 hours a day, people with natural/existing talent, recommend full time
Rithm: great for small classrooms, high exposure to senior instructors, 9 to 6 days
Ada Academy: great if you fit their demographic profile and are more comfortable learning in this kind of environment
Launch School: more async at your own pace at first in core
Nice! Yeah they are legit DS&A! I consider them a competitor to us (Formation) and not really a bootcamp. Let me know how it goes! They are based in India and started off with a DS&A platform and recently launched Scalar as a bootcamp so I'm curious how much of the audience is in India vs the USA, Europe, Canada, Australia.
If you have a CS degree I would consider a career accelerator in the mix instead of a bootcamp. I'm the co-founder of Formation.dev , which focuses on DS&A and fundamentals (very little hands on project work), and other ones include Outco, Interview Kickstart, Scalar, Pathrise, Coachable. I would look into all of these and see if any are a good fit for you.
Bootcamp-wise, you probably want to look at the Codesmith, Rithm, and Hack Reactor, as bootcamps that work well for people farther along.
Yeah everything in this thread is truth, not sure why I got downvoted. Whoever is downvoting that comment... show me the numbers and prove otherwise... nothing wrong with a 40% placement rate within 6 months, just be transparent and explain what you do and don't do.
A Codesmith alumni came to Formation and got a true senior job at C1 - due to their own hustle and drive - but it's correct they are not hiring people with no experience at entry level roles right now.
\+1 to everyone else, (I'm the co-founder) but [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) hits the spot :D, also look seriously at Interview Kickstart, Outco, Scalar, and to some extent Pathrise (which is more job-hunt focused). I'm sure one of these options is what you are looking for and feel free to ping me with more info if you want my thoughts on which is good for your situation.
🦇 I actually get notified for every single new post in here ;) not JUST Codesmith ones
I have a really good understanding of Codesmith and it's a well rounded one. I have had several former employees, fellows, and students tell me how spot on my analysis is. It's a bit unfair because I don't have this depth of knowledge of other programs. I know a significant amount about Lambda School/Bloomtech, and I know Rithm pretty well, then Hack Reactor okay, Launch School okay. I have Youtube videos running the background of talks from all kind of programs, bootcamps, schools, mock interviews, etc... and naturally pattern match! I also have like 8 years of quite in depth FAANG experience + 4 years running a program, and I have pretty good insight to read between the lines and connect those dots! I also have good computer skills and you'd be surprised what programs have publicly that they might…
Hi, yeah that's a slightly above average starting score means you have some room to get to the consistent top tier bar but Formation could potentially be useful yeah! We work with people based on their experience and background and their goals as well, so I would suggest applying so that you can talk to a member of the team about the later and see if it's a good fit for your current goals.
I'm extremely biased, but you should look into the career accelerator bucket of programs in addition to bootcamps since you have some experience already. These programs are focused on getting you a better next job in the industry, instead of getting your first job in the industry.
Formation.dev is the one I help run, which focuses on filling in skill gaps for people with non traditional backgrounds, targets too tier companies, and works with you for however long it takes to get a job, as long as you do your part. But you should look into Outco, Pathrise, Interview Kickstart, Scalar... each one is very different.
Look at career accelerator style programs. Disclosure: I'm the co-founder at [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) but you should also check out Pathrise, Outco, Interview Kickstart, Scalar, and others. I know I'm super bias, but you should genuinely consider this kind of option in addition to considering a bootcamp.
So we actually always wonder like what if you meet a cowoker on Formation or someone you knew from a bootcamp, and at least with colleges and bootcamps that's not uncommon. We genuinely have some people out of bootcamps, but we also have people many years out of bootcamps that TEACH at bootcamps WHILE also at Formation. Because of the way you progress independently week to week, we are trying to put you in sessions with people at your level on a given topic, so you kind of find your pocket of people naturally.
Similarly with mentors, we have Fellows who work at FAANG companies right now, or were laid off and someone from their company might be a mentor at Formation. We also might have a super senior mentor who gets laid off and wants to join Formation as a Fellow because while they are fantastic at coaching the thing they are mentoring, they might need a lot of practice with System Des…
What true Open Source Software means from my perspective in the industry and how I recommend contributing to it to get your foot in the door (spoiler: it's not what most bootcamps do)
Hi all, I've been having numerous intense debates publicly and privately about open source projects. They have become the cornerstone of the resumes of many bootcamp grads, from Codesmith to Launch School Capstone, to Hack Reactor. But some people are trivializing the meaning of "open source" and I wanted to summarize my thoughts in a post I've been working on on the side for a while. When I did my first SWE job back in 2006 as an intern at IBM, I had a similar gross misunderstanding of open source... so much so I bombed an internal fun competition to create a business plan around a new open source product. I thought I would just share it here or on Quora, but I have a decent following here so here it goe…
For super serious engineers who are in it for the long haul and have a day job to pay the bills, it's a fantastic time to continue working on your skills at places with longer term training philosophies, like PE.
We're seeing a surge at Formation from people that don't have any kind of fixed timeframe - since Formation training is perpetual (haha intentional pun, Derek will get it) until you get a job you don't have to game the timing and all you have to do is show up and do your part. People don't want to wait until the market warms to **start** practicing, they want to be ready to pounce on great opportunities that arise.
How much coding experience do you have and what kind of experience is it?
If your practical experience on your current job is sufficient to get an entry level job, you might be better off with a career accelerator that helps fill in more fundamental gaps and helps you practice for SWE interviews.
I'm the co-founder of [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev), and other options are Interview Kickstart, [Outco.io](https://Outco.io), Pathrise, and Scalar.
It's worth looking into them and if you aren't quite far enough along, consider a bootcamp for sure.
Hi, nice to meet you, lots of questions I'll try to address.
RE: Formation fit. Yes, 1+ years of real SWE experience, even if it was in the past, and teaching experience is a good fit. We've worked with a number of people that have taken multi year career breaks, and it's a very good fit not just for the technical aspects, but for building confidence in your behavioral narratives. For FAANG companies, you don't need to so much worry about updating your practical skills to the newest frameworks as much as building confidence in the fundamental skills and story, and building confidence happens day by day as you practice and get feedback that you are improving.
RE: Timing. It's not the best time for classic FAANG, but it's still a decent time for FAANG-level companies. Depending on how much experience you have, you could be aiming for mid-level roles. One of the nice things about Formatio…
Yeah Launch School's Captone projects are definitely better than Codesmith's. I would say they are similar but the attention to detail and legitimacy is higher on the Capstone.
RE: Formation, we aren't a self paced program, it's actually the opposite, you do no work in deciding what to do, and every week we tell you what to work on! And what you get adapts based on how you do.
We are working on predicting time frames better based on other people who did Formation but right now, it's too hard for a human to estimate precisely given how unique each person's experience is and we need to do more complex predictions. It works best when you have a job and do Formation part time so there is less financial pressure.
I don't think I questioned the integrity of the results in my post. When you have been calling CIRR the "gold standard" if you meant the specification itself or the auditing process was industry leading you are extremely mistaken and every bootcamp leader I've talked to agrees. And I take all of their words over a Codesmith alumni who has no context there.
I have read the CIRR standards doc (which I can't link anymore because the site is still down) many times and there are many problems due to lack of attention to detail. And they have similar problems attention to detail in managing their domain name.
The reason I mentioned Codesmith, is that if you are telling your students "studies show that Codesmith is better than Harvard and MIT" (this is a quote a few people shared with me), and in your own description calling yourself competitive to "elite grad schools", then the bar is high a…
RE: Formation's growth. I might have explained too many details about the growth. From the Fellow point of view you would only perceive more support and improved tasks and sessions. The goal here isn't to automate away but to enhance what humans are capable of doing. The number of live mentor sessions we don't expect to change much as they are some of the most important practice opportunities.
RE: Code reviews. Yes, from experienced engineers on bugs, tasks, and take home assignments we assign you. No, on code review for personal projects (officially, but possibly case by case).
RE: beyond DS&A. We have FAANG recruiters and managers around as well to answer questions and mock interviews and sessions in the job hunt phase (once your skills are deemed at the bar), Formation is far from just technical training alone.
We have hired back two Fellows as full time SWEs. We have 5 senior (l…