Alumni Follow-Up: Cindy Lam, Frontend SWE at Intuit

We first met Cindy Lam earlier this year when she joined our Fellowship. Prior to joining us, Cindy graduated from a coding bootcamp, had about 2 years of SWE experience and was looking for her next role. She learned about us through Taro (formerly Tech Career Growth), one of our newest community partners.

A few months into her journey, we wrote about Cindy and her eagerness to document her Fellowship experience. Today, we’re following up with her as a Formation Alumni! Cindy recently landed a role at Intuit and we checked in with her to hear about her Fellowship experience.

What were some highlights of your Formation experience?

Community: The ability to connect with Fellows, Mentors, and Alumni were much better than I expected. I was mostly self-studying until late April-May when I reached out to others in the Fellowship. I saw how different people experienced the Fellowship, heard about their takeaways and learnings, and incorporated some of those things into my learning style.

Through Formation, I was able to sharpen my profile and behavior interview skillsets, both of which helped me gain more visibility in my job-hunting process.

Mentors: Live coding sessions with Mentors helped me so much, especially in real interviews. Each Mentor gave me really constructive feedback on my performance that I used once I got to the real interviews. I built close relationships with Mentors, and sometimes I would meet 1:1 to learn more about what I could be doing better. They were always very open to meeting with me and helping me become a better engineer.

Career coaches: they helped me so much! Learning how to negotiate an offer was really uncomfortable at first, but I tried to push myself. Eventually, I received an offer that was above my expectations. Through Formation, I was able to sharpen my profile and behavior interview skillsets, both of which helped me gain more visibility in my job-hunting process.

Support: It was great to have a team of Formation people who I could ask for help. Whether it was career coaches, Mentors, or other staff, I felt like everyone paid close attention to my growth. There were so many mock interviews where I received critical feedback that helped me grow and learn from others.

How have your interview skills improved?

Before Formation I had 10 interviews; I didn’t pass any of the technical screens. I was really nervous and wasn’t able to communicate well in an interview. I didn’t know what kind of approach I should take, and I struggled a lot in silence. I had a difficult time with implementation — I could do it in a normal setting, but I froze up during interviews.

During my Fellowship, I learned a little bit of everything during my mock interviews with Mentors. I tried to get a wide range of perspectives from different mentors to hear what others would do in an interview. I failed in my first mock live coding interview, but that helped me get critical feedback that I could use moving forward to help me get to a working solution.

In one of my actual tech screens, I got stuck halfway through the process. I had two paths: say nothing and stay stuck or talk about my thought process, communicate, make assumptions, and see how the interviewer responds. I did the latter and actually ended up getting hints! Most importantly, I got to a working solution at the end of the interview! I have gained so much more confidence in interviewing. During my Fellowship, I had 8 technical screens and passed 3 of them. While those numbers might not sound that big, I definitely learned so much from each interview.

How did you make the decision to join Formation?

Joining the Fellowship was another investment I had to make, so I thought carefully about it. I looked up reviews online and read some Fellow Spotlights to hear others’ experiences firsthand. Once I joined, the community motivated and inspired me. Hearing placements announced each week at kickoff gave me the confidence that I would land a job soon, too. And I did! I’m now a Frontend Software Engineer at Intuit.

Interested in becoming a Fellow like Cindy? Apply for our Fellowship today to supercharge your job search.