👋, I was Facebook 2009 to 2017. Went from intern to E7 level (principal) software engineer. Went from 200-something engineers to somewhere around 10,000 when I left. The company's valuation increased over 100X (until the recent decline).
The world changed a lot during this time.
I was burned out and left a little too late. After leaving, I got married, and my wife (former Nextdoor) started a free iOS coding bootcamp, completely out of pocket. She had mentored at a bunch of bootcamps and they were not cutting it. It was small but the students all went on to do pretty awesome things, they are now at LinkedIn, Apple, Facebook, Google, and more!
I have a passion for mentoring as well so I joined her about 2 years later, we raised funding, and started building out a more scaled up, paid, training and coaching service called Formation ([formation.dev](https://formation.dev)) . Our mission…
I started Formation.dev and I would check it out and compare it to other options. We've worked with some CS grads effectively in a similar position. We typically work with people with more experience (\~1-3 years work experience), but if your skills are at a certain level it could be a good fit. If they aren't I would consider a bootcamp.
RE: your question. People who get the best jobs out of bootcamps typically have some experience or a CS degree, so if you do go the bootcamp route I think you have a better chance of success.
As an alternative, while cranking out job applications, try building out and launching a product that people use, even if they try it once and never again. Getting real people using something and treating it like a mini-company rather than a project, can help you a bit. Devote many hours a day to this.
And finally, +1 you are correct that it's tough without in…
Thanks, point taken and thanks for the feedback, very much appreciated!
I normally just tell people to do their homework and talk to people about Formation (both for experiences, but also because you need to know what you are getting into). Sometimes people are even still concerned because they haven't heard any red flags and generally hear anything from good to amazing things. To make that list I literally just went to an internal chat channel and typed out the last 20 logged accepts, very simple, no report, not audited.
So we are doing ourselves a major disservice if we can't communicate the outcomes properly so that people believe them.
Once again thanks u/RobSteinsVoice the feedback!
EDIT: regarding the cost of an audit. We are a company backed by one of the top investors in the world, Andreessen Horowitz, and we have fairly expensive lawyers, accountants, etc... so it's not a fe…
u/RobSteinsVoice thanks for sharing that well written response! I definitely agree comparing on CIRR Codesmith is by far the best results and at a slightly larger scale.
Good question about Formation. We might in the future actually! The problem is we aren't a school or bootcamp and we work with people for wildly different amounts of time (I've seen anywhere from 1 month to 12 months) and people all do different things. So there isn't a single experience we can summarize.
But the outcomes are extremely strong and we want to figure out how to communicate that better because people assume we cherry pick the best results.
Here the last 20ish offers accepted, in order, no filtering or editing: Bloomberg, Paperclip, Front, Workday, Neato, Microsoft, Bitgo, Amazon, Jelly Fish, GitHub, Microsoft, Toast, Quantcast, Meta, CloudTrucks, Plaid, 1Password, Microsoft, Google, Meta.
I wouldn't over index on the headlines. I'm an insider in the industry and there is definitely a lot of stress, but definitely a lot of demand for engineers. We've had several six figure starting with a 2 offers this week at Formation at top tier companies that are not in the headlines and going strong. So don't give up.
That said, don't quit your job and go all on, be smart about it, but the world needs a lot more engineers.
This is probably Codesmith because they make these promises.
I did a deep dive on 200 Codesmith students/alumni that I will repost here. The summary is that 120K is their median salary in NYC from 2 years ago, and that is legit, but that they also mislead people into thinking they can get mid level roles right out of the bootcamp. They base these claim on salary and it’s impossible to get a mid level FAANG role out of a bootcamp with no experience.
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I'm not affiliated with any bootcamps but I work with a lot of people who have gone to bootcamps in the past. I was also an E7 level principal engineer at Facebook, where I worked from 2009 to 2017, and interviewed hundreds of people. I run coaching and training for experienced engineers to help them level, but I've heard a lot of problems with bootcamps from people I work with and started hangout in this subreddit. I can give my asses…
Hi, I'm from Toronto but have been in SF for about 13 years now. I know the founder of Rithm and did an investigation in Codesmith because of some concerns that I heard about their students lying about work experience.
First, Codesmith is LA/NY based and has very few ties to SF.
I can help the best I can here:
1. For remote, both work for EST to PST so you'll be fine.
2. I have zero credibility on this one, but Toronto comp is so much lower than SF in general. An entry level decent but low end SF junior engineer is paid more in CAD than a mid level engineer in Toronto. So I wouldn't extrapolate anything from the outcomes of these bootcamps in the US.
3. I could totally be wrong but I can't imagine employers in Toronto knowing about Codesmith and Rithm, or knowing enough to hold them to a higher bar. If you obsess over bootcamps you would know of both, they both have generally positive…
Hey, I don't want to throw off the vibe of the thread, but I'm the co-founder of Formation and can give my take. 1. we only work with people we feel confident will succeed with our training and 2. if you do your part, you have our full arsenal of support (technical and behavioral mentorship, and a shoulder to cry on as well) until you get a job you are happy with. The result is that the vast majority of people genuinely have incredible/great outcomes. A small number have good outcomes that they are happy with but make some tradeoffs.
I would highly recommend contacting any current or former Fellow with a similar background to yourself and find out about their day to day experience, that's the best way to evaluate any program.
The secret: nothing and no one is perfect, there are numerous things we are trying to improve every day, but we have a one-of-a-kind unique program with legitima…
Hey, I'm the co-founder of Formation and stumbled upon here. I don't want to mess with the vibe of the thread because there is a good discussion here about cost and outcomes that I don't want to interfere with, but I wanted to add that that percentage is taken off of your base salary and at top tier companies (where most people end up) you receive equity and bonuses that add on to that. So most people don't have a problem paying. The last time we crunched the numbers people on average INCREASED their compensation by $80K. An example case based on numbers would be someone entering Formation making $110K with no bonus or equity, and leaving they are pushing $140K base + $25K/year equity + 10% annual performance bonus + $20K signing bonus.
Hi, I'm the co-founder of [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) and we don't tell people who succeeded to write a review there, we tell every single person that finished the program the following in an exit survey.
"Would you be open to sharing your experience on Quora? Reviews are hugely impactful to help people who were in your shoes make an informed decision about joining Formation."
I think that's pretty fair and neutral, and open to suggestions if you feel this is biased.
Our team works tirelessly to make sure our Fellows have great outcomes. We do whatever we can to make sure people have a good experience and the vast majority do.
Hey, you can look at Formation.dev (disclosure, I’m a co-founder). We generally work with people with 1-3 years work experience but occasionally work with people who have other experience or significant self taught experience. Check it out, not sure if it’s a good fit, but it might be. DM me if you have questions or ask here!
EDIT: I re-read and missed the part about scripting experience. I would definitely consider Formation in that case. Otherwise, 100% not a bootcamp, it sounds like you’ll waste your time and money since you have no problem picking up programming languages. I would self teach over bootcamp for sure.
[Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) (disclosure: co-founder) isn't a bootcamp, so it likely isn't a good choice, but it's a program that supports any schedule. Every week a new schedule is generated for the next week depending on your exact availability. There's no reason we couldn't work for bootcamps either we just don't support people without any experience yet.
Hey, yeah sure I can answer that about Formation.dev. The way it works is every week you get a new set of tasks and sessions scheduled to work on based on the areas you need to work on and your availability for the upcoming week. There are some example weekly schedules here: [https://formation.dev/program#week](https://formation.dev/program#week) "A week in the Fellowship"
It's not a program/course, it's more like having a personal trainer for working out, but for your interview prep and job hunt. So you'll work with many different people at different times. Towards your job hunt you'll do more 1-1 mock interviewers and feedback sessions. Throughout you'll do a lot (2+) sessions a week with an engineering mentor and up 2-4 other Fellows. These vary in format but the group is typically given a problem (algo/frontend/etc...) and work with the mentor collaboratively to work through it. The…
Sorry, you’re right that this is focused on Codesmith and not the alternative. I work with many Codesmith people and have a spreadsheet of hundreds of alumni and I went with that because I feel confident based on my research. It’s not a great answer to the question about alternatives. I’ll think about this a bit more overnight.
Formation doesn’t work with people who don’t have experience, sorry if that came across as comparing it to Codesmith. Entirely different things.
I'm not affiliated with any bootcamps but I work with a lot of people who have gone to bootcamps in the past. I was also an E7 level principal engineer at Facebook, where I worked from 2009 to 2017, and interviewed hundreds of people. I run coaching and training for experienced engineers to help them level, but I've heard a lot of problems with bootcamps from people I work with and started hangout in this subreddit.
I can give my assessment of Codesmith, the good, the bad, the warnings. Overall, for a bootcamp it's think it's a solid consideration, just look for this level of detail in any bootcamps you consider.
GOOD:
1. Instructors are good teachers and care a lot about teaching. They publish a lot of videos and run a lot of free sessions, and they get really great feedback.
2. They've scaled pretty well. Like most bootcamps, recent grads immediately teach the current students, but…
Hi, at Formation you need to have some experience right now. Most people have 1-3 years of professional experience and we focus on amplifying your strengths and filling in your unique gaps. When people are starting out, you tend to need a little more experience to start figuring out those strengths. Experience can come in the form a real job, but could also be a related job, internships, previous bootcamps, freelance work, or \~2+ years of self study with projects. We don't overpromise anyone anything, so that's why we focus on what we can deliver on and we haven't invested yet into developing the materials and support for helping people a little earlier on in their journey.
Ok long paragraph haha, but the second thing you said is very important to look at. Don't trust any "job guarantee" for any bootcamp, period. That's not to say they are a scam, or they are all misleading, but someth…
Hey yeah you are on the right track. There are a lot of factors and it depends a lot on you, what your options are etc... So as you might expect it's a nuanced and multi prong approach
1. Through Formation you'll do a lot of interesting group (3 people) sessions to talk about your experience, background, etc... and help you get the ball rolling with becoming more self aware of what makes you unique. Towards the end you'll do some more intense technical behavioral prep.
2. In the job hunt, it's really case by case and we are driven to help you find a great match as the ultimate goal and do what we need to to have that. So for some people it might be trying to set them up with someone we know who had a similar path to talk to at a company before you interview. Sometimes it takes a little push for options we think would be good but you might not know about. Sometimes it's about how to ask…
Hi @Space-man_! I'm the person at Formation.dev that worked in this! It's an interesting story and absolutely a challenge.
Our designer came across someone that built something similar as a demo. The person, I can't find the link, basically wrote up something about this particle effect and published a really rough demo website as a fun project. Fortunately he created a custom license for the project that allows any kind of use, personal or commercial, and any kind of derivate works, so we were able to make significant modifications to rework the code and use it for our site. The only thing you can't do is sell his code directly but with your name on it.
The project was based on Three.js for the canvas. The demo was really not reusable. So we broke it apart and used the underlying particle logic and shading logic. We generalized a component that could fit in any shape and size rather…
Hey, yeah I'm busy but trying to answer questions!
Regarding finding company fit its both algorithmic matching and your Formation Team human effort (you have a dedicated Fellow Manager and your own private channel with a career coach and engineers, so literally a team of humans to help). The algorithms help make the humans more efficient, so you can get great advice from very experienced people and we can scale the cost associated with having so many senior people on your side.
Everything you do week to week, both the individual activity and the sessions with mentors are mostly algorithmic and again, with your Fellow Manager and our technical team fine tuning things by hand to make sure we dot all the Is and cross all the Ts. Algorithms are much better at scheduling hundreds of unique hyper focused sessions fitting into everyones schedules every week than a human could ever be haha.…
Hey, this is a really good series of questions that I have thoughts on.
* RE: Formation/the time it takes/business model. Our mission is to get people who have non traditional backgrounds, underrepresented in tech level up into these top tier roles. It takes everyone a variable amount of time. If you are committed to putting in the time you think you need, you are paying us to spend that time more efficiently at Formation. You are paying us for the outcome - to get a top tier job you are happy with. The gaps that are needed vary from person to person. We've built technology to help us figure this out and fine tune the training for these needs. So the interview fashions of the day aren't really that relevant to our business.
* RE: Types of interviews. Data structures and algorithms interviews level the playing field. Google gets like a million job applications a year or something and the…
Hi, for Formation, it's based on your goals and your current skill level. One way of looking at it in my mind is that you are starting at point A and trying to get to point B and it will take C time (and D cost). We pattern match to your A, decide if we think we can get you to your B in a reasonable C time (3-6 monthsish) and you are ok with D cost. If all those things check out it should be a win-win.
Some reasons one side or the other have not moved forward are:
\- a starting skill level and goal that we don't think we can bridge in a reasonable time
\- timeframes that we don't think we can work on
\- goals we don't think we can get you to (e.g. we can't help with data science)
Hi nice to meet you! Good memory! Yeah Sophie spent several years mentoring at bootcamp and used to operate Buildschool to teach people iOS for free. It was a really small program and she personally worked with each person to learn iOS skills from scratch. From all of these learnings and more, we built Formation as a way to offer personalized coaching to a larger, remote audience, while maintaining the same effectiveness/results as having Sophie there 24/7. The material isn't available, but I would say the real value came from having Sophie (a staff level iOS engineer) working with you all the time.
In terms of learning iOS. The market hasn't changed that much in the past few years and it remains difficult to get a top tier iOS with no experience because it's a "specialist" role. The roles do exist! Many of the former Buildschool members have iOS jobs at top companies now, but it took a…
Hi Michael! Sorry to hear about your injury but I'm glad you found something productive that you like doing, that was probably a big unexpected life change.
Yeah not to push Formation but this is the common background we work with to help fill those gaps. So even though you feel a bit isolated, you are not alone in these struggles!
RE: Interviewing. There are a lot of companies out there. The top tier companies often use data structures and algorithms problems as a way to give everyone, with varying experience in varying stacks, an equal experience. If you are aiming for this level of company, you're going to have to invest some time in both learning more theoretical concepts, as well as practicing using them in interviews to pass (which is a different skill). Secondly, your practical experience sounds great, so you probably have a lot of stories to tell in a behavioral interview. The…
Hi, good questions. I don't think there is conscious bias, but humans have unconscious biases. Facebook runs this (I believe mandatory) session on acknowledging unconscious biases to try to help surface some of those things. They try to have the interview processes surface these unconscious biases as well. When I left, engineers were encouraged to use gender neutral pronouns when talking about candidates.
I've seen tremendous efforts in recent years across all of big tech to try to get to address demographics that are underrepresented in tech and they are just starting to move the needles a tiny bit. However, even the areas that companies track in their "diversity reports" are a fraction of the hundreds of things we should be tracking and I think this will continue to be something invested in at least a decade to see the results. Formation exists to accelerate this.
Open source on resu…
Hi, I can respond to both questions separately:
RE: social inequality. Before the internet, and still now to some extent, city boundaries and zoning have had a lot of problems with fragmenting cities. There are many experts who are dedicating their lives to these topics so I won't comment much, but humans interacting with humans everywhere have historically had these kinds of fragmentations, and I don't think it's Facebook's fault if they appear there as well. That said, Facebook wants to reduce inequality by hopefully reducing that fragmentation from what happens in real life by making it easier to interact with people.
RE: Formation being paid. "Fellowship" is a word that doesn't really have a common definitely outside of academia, where it has a specific different meaning. We feel what we offer is clearly communicates what we do and would be devastated if people felt deceived, and s…
Hi, no Formation isn't a bootcamp. We happen to work with a lot of bootcamp grads that were some of the lucky ones who got any job out of the bootcamp to level up to a top tier job. People's negative experiences with bootcamps are one of the reasons we made Formation because we felt bad for all those people who are capable of having better careers but didn't get the personal coaching and mentoring they needed.
I also wouldn't say all bootcamps are scams either. Some programs are bad intentioned, some are good intentioned. My biggest problem with bootcamps is most of them give you the promise of a job at the end and this just shouldn't be part of the offer. They should stick to training basic programming skills and they might have a better reputation.
hey, I haven't worked on coding for the metaverse yet! ( I have something like 15,000 commits in the past two years working on Formation, so I'm busy in the non-metaverse right now)
I do hop into some Oculus worlds every once and a while, we use this product called Gather to hangout casually at Formation, and Tandem to chat for work related things.
If we look at the richness/engagement of online human to human interaction over time, it's gone from very limited async text, to voice, to photos, to videos, video calls, etc... I think the social side of the metaverse will be about bringing even more richness to our online human interactions. It might not be about funny looking avatars, but just richer interactions. I still have so many text-based chat interactions with customer service for example, where I get really angry and lose my patience in a way I would not in a more face to face c…
Good question. Facebook's interview process might seem surprisingly similar for like 10 years, but it shouldn't be surprising. When you have candidates trained in different languages, and working on vastly different companies/projects, you need an extremely consistent interview process to fairly evaluate people and compare them to each other. Behind the scenes there's even more checks and balances to keep the process consistent and fair.
RE: System design. It's hard at Facebook because it's testing for your experience with different kinds of large scale products (whether it's more backend scaling, or highly used user facing products). If you don't have that experience, it's hard to fake it. They have a program called the "Rotational Engineer" program that's a mid-level program for people who never had the "scaled up" experience and need to fill in some gaps. The other thing about Facebo…
[crosspost] I’m Michael. I was a principal engineer at Facebook from 2009 to 2017, where I was the top code contributor of all time and also conducted hundreds of interviews. I recently co-founded Formation.dev, an engineering fellowship that trains and refers engineers directly into big tech. AMA!
I'm running a Reddit-wide AMA today, ask your questions about breaking into the tech industry on the official AMA thread:
[https://redd.it/ui98mg](https://redd.it/ui98mg)
I’m Michael. I was a principal engineer at Facebook from 2009 to 2017, where I was the top code contributor of all time and also conducted hundreds of interviews. I recently co-founded Formation.dev, an engineering fellowship that trains and refers engineers directly into big tech. Ask me Anything!
PROOF: https://i.redd.it/e74tupgktbx81.jpg
I have a lot to say about what it's like being an engineer in big tech, how to prepare for technical interviews, and how to land engineering roles at these companies. I would also love to hear your stories and give you personal advice on this thread! But feel free to ask my anything!
As an E7 level principal engineer, I made thousands of changes to Facebook across dozens of areas, impacted the entire Facebook codebase, modified millions of lines of code, and interviewed hundreds of engineers. Looking back, the most rewarding part of my time at Face…
I would add two general pieces of advice to 1 and 3 that I always give people as well (I’m the cofounder of Formation.dev which is not a bootcamp, but I worked with a lot of bootcamp grads a few years down the road)
1. Check who the instructors are and if they or the TAs are recent graduates. A lot the programs that have recent graduates teach while their job hunting have a lot of churn and the TAs leave the second they get a job. Second, a recent grad who doesn't have any professional experience might be able to help in some ways having recently gone to the program, but you won't be getting professional level code review from very experienced engineers that you're aiming to work with in the future.
3. I always strongly recommend people try to find alumni as you suggested, but focusing on those with backgrounds similar to themselves. There are always a few people who have prior experi…
It's very case by case and depending on timing. Right now there is a rumored hiring freeze on E3 and E4 (and possibly more), they haven't said anything publicly.
I can't emphasize enough how unique each person's background and path is, no one could read this and get THE answer for how to get a job at Facebook. That's part of the value we offer, Facebook, or otherwise, we use all of our expertise to help craft your path to YOUR goals (a lot of people really don't like Facebook and don't want to work there). Similarly as you start interviewing, pass/fail, your timing changes, your preferences change, remote vs in person stuff, we adapt to what you want, and we're a shoulder to lean on for advice (and sometimes proactively give advice as a lot of people have misconceptions as well). At the end of the day every person at [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) wants to see you in a super imp…
If you have specific feedback on how we can improve our coaching, let us know. We support you until you get that outcome, but time is the variable, and we are always trying to be more and more efficient.
We coach people on DS&A, System Design, frontend and live coding, technical behavioral, negotiation. It's all personalized and if you talk to a former Formation Fellow you might get a better idea since I might not explain clearly what we do. I would love to clear up any misunderstanding.
>So is the goal to present this final project as work experience?
In my experience talking to Codesmith grads about their projects, most could not talk about them at the Facebook, full blown SWE level behavioral bar for entry level roles. (I posted above but I worked at Facebook for 8 years as one of the most senior engineers, trained Facebook engineers on how to run these interviews and many of my current co-workers have as well). The projects are not run like real companies so people don't have real answers for many critical questions and raise a lot of flags.
A good example is a project where the team chose to rewrite their project using a brand new open source framework instead of a super reliable framework (not disclosing details to reveal anything personal). The team had no idea about the tradeoffs of using something stable and reliable for a large scale project vs using someth…
In my opinion, the problem with ISAs and coding bootcamps is that an ISA only works if you are actually guaranteed to get a job at the end, then it's a win-win. Unfortunately, like you pointed out, so many people don't get jobs out of bootcamps and break this model. The win-win approach of both sides giving 100% until the day you get that job has been working really well for us at [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev), but we're not a bootcamp or eduction program so it's a little different.
u/Comfortable-Cap-8507 do you think it would make a difference for you if GA was 100% training you until you got that job without stopping or do you still think you it would be a bad idea to do an ISA?
I have some neutral comments on the project-as-work-experience debate. I was a E7-level Engineer at Facebook for 8 years, interviewed hundreds of people, read thousands of resumes. I'm co-founder of Formation.dev now which does mentoring and coaching and I have worked with many Codesmith grads and alumni and am familiar with their program. We also have recruiters at Formation with 10 years recruiting experience at Facebook as well who review Codesmith applicants to Formation. We also hired a Codesmith alumni who we worked with at Formation as well.
1. If you put something on your resume that says Software Engineer for a "company", where the company is an open source project, it's a little grey area/pushing the limits of what people deem acceptable at top-tier companies. Here's an example of a prolific open source contributor and what their resume looks like with things clearly labelle…
It's great to see so many supportive comments on the thread, and the fact that you got some interviews means there is hope and it sounds like you have some fight in you!
If you DM me your LinkedIn/Resume (or provide a little more details about what you've done in the last 7 months here), I can take a quick look for more detailed advice (I'm co-founder of [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev), and was a E7 level Engineer at Facebook for 8 years, interviewing hundreds of people and reviewing stacks and stacks of entry level resumes).
\+1 to all the people who said you probably need coaching and interview prep more than a bootcamp. There are two things to deep dive into, 1. benchmarking your raw skill levels to see if you are interview ready or not yet. 2. you need help getting the interviews.
Given you are applying to 100 jobs a week, I think you absolutely need some help on your approach.
There are different options for all of these goals, [interviewing.io](https://interviewing.io) is good for doing one off interviews without any training or job hunt help, and [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) is much more expensive and is your one stop shop (disclosure: I'm co founder) for assessment, skill building, job hunting, negotiation.
There are some other options for coaching, like Pathrise and Outco and you should do your research, and figure out what's right for you, but I would strongly suggest something like t…
Hey, I'm the co-founder of Formation that the commenter below mentioned a few weeks ago. We are indeed busy and growing the recruiting team... we are a small team focused on the quality of our training, so we want to grow sustainably.
If you are still interested DM me and I can follow up and see what happened.
I'm a co-founder of Formation, you should do a lot of research and make informed decisions. Most importantly, we work with you for however long it takes until you have a great job and you have our full support the entire time. As of writing this, our last 10 offers signed, in order, are from great companies: CloudTrucks, Plaid, 1Password, GitHub, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Google, Snap, Akasa. It's not cheap, but it works.
I would try to contact current and former people we've worked with to see what their experience is like. Some of the people with less experience list Formation.dev on their LinkedIn and if you are more experienced it's a little harder to find people, but you can look on our network page and ping some of those of those people that have a similar background.
If you have been self studying DSA and that’s your main gap, I would absolutely not look at a bootcamp, and instead look at more interview prep. I’m the founder of Formation.dev and an 8 year E7 engineer at Facebook and have helped many bootcamp grads with some work experience level up to top tier jobs. While we support you all the way until you get a new job, and it’s intense,it’s also not cheap so I would carefully look at your options and figure out what’s best for you.
Leetcode is a great way to get some kind of benchmark. For example, you want to be comfortable solving medium level problems to have a chance at top tier roles.
Everyone has a different path. I would look at Formation.dev (disclosure: I am a cofounder) if you are trying to fill in CS fundamentals and your goal is a job. If you are already getting interviews I wouldn’t consider a bootcamp. A masters degree has the advantage of being considered for new grad roles, but is costly and will take the most time. All options are very different.
At Formation, our recruiters are all super experienced former top tier company recruiters (e.g. Facebook 10 years) and they can talk to you about your goals and give you genuine advice based on your specific journey.
If you haven't already made a decision, check out Formation.dev (disclosure: I'm a co-founder). It might be a good fit and you should look into it and do your own research. It's not a bootcamp with a structured curriculum, nor is it a job hunt only program. We work with people to fill in whatever gaps they have across the board (technical and behavioral), refer you to top tier jobs, help you interview and negotiate, etc... And we work with you on your schedule all the way until you get your new job.
Our last ten placements (at time of writing) were at Plaid, 1Password, GitHub, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Google, Snap, Atlassian. Many of these engineers went to bootcamps in the past.
I also don't really know any other programs like this at the time of writing, perhaps having several private mentors who is are senior engineers at top tier companies and paying them directly?
I've worked with several alums who got their first job after Codesmith and it can get you there. However, if you are targeting top tier roles with a ton of impact and very high comp I would absolutely suggest a "2nd bootcamp"/more training.
At Formation.dev (disclosure: I'm a co-founder) where we do exactly this kind of additional training, our last ten placements (at time of writing) were at Plaid, 1Password, GitHub, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Google, Snap, Atlassian. And at one of these people was a Codesmith alum, many did other bootcamps in the past. I don't want this to sound like an ad, so please do your own research about [Formation.dev](https://Formation.dev) and other programs that do additional training and make an informed decision.
So people who want to achieve this truly top tier bar absolutely can benefit from more training.
I’m the cofounder of Formation. The other commenter below summarizes the value proposition well: if you do your part, we do ours and we work with you until you get a new job, through the entire journey, and never decrease our support. Many people drastically increase their income such that the cost of the program is a fraction of the compensation increase alone (and we help negotiate offers where a 5 min email counter offer can pay for the program).
If anything, the time and energy you dedicate should be a bigger factor if you are working already. We are your coach and adapt your training week to week to push you to grow, no shortcuts.
Hi, I’m the co-founder of Formation and specifically for this question of if Formation would be good for someone from CodeSmith… we have worked with a handful of CodeSmith alum at Formation and I would recommend trying to find them on LinkedIn and asking them about their experience. It’s hard to find people that list CodeSmith and/or Formation on their LinkedIns but some recent outcomes were Snap, Facebook x2, and some still job hunting.