Justin Johnson: From Technical Theatre to Dropbox Developer

Welcome to Formation’s Fellow Spotlight, a blog series designed to introduce you to former Formation Fellows who have landed their dream jobs. Today we’ll meet Justin Johnson, a Web Developer at HelloSign, a Dropbox company. Justin’s background in theatre and audio technology led him to the world of tech, where he now works in an interdisciplinary role, celebrating his wide range of talents and skills. Here’s Justin’s story.

What is your educational/professional background prior to Formation?

I grew up loving music and went to music school when I was a child. I had an ear for music and interesting sounds. I started dabbling in theatre in high school, and when I went off to college at Hampshire College, I dove even deeper. I have a BA in Technical Theatre, with a focus in Sound Design. It combined my love for theatre with my technical, nerdy side I had growing up. I was always tinkering with something.

After college, I worked in the NYC indie theatre scene as a stagehand and audio engineer. I decided to transition into tech after a few years when it became clear that the technical side of my work was more fulfilling to me. I joined a web development boot camp to obtain some formal technical education — it was 12 weeks, and some of the most intense learning I had done in a long time. In 2017, I moved to Seattle, and for a few years, I went back and forth between theater and technical projects at places like United Way of King County and Boeing. Last summer, I found Formation and made the decision to double down on getting a job in tech that I loved.

I joined Formation in July and was in the program through October when I received my job offer from Dropbox.

What made you want to up-level your career? What problem were you facing or what opportunity did you want to pursue?

I found Formation in June 2020 and, having really loved my previous boot camp experience, I decided it may be the perfect opportunity to dig in and brush up my skill set. In my experience, most coding boot camps are heavily focused on teaching development basics quickly, getting your hands dirty, and building projects, but they leave you hanging when it comes to job searching. I was really glad to see a program that focused on that aspect. I joined Formation in July and was in the program through October when I received my job offer from Dropbox.

What was your specific goal in becoming a Fellow?

My aim for my time in the program was to focus on my job search, and take advantage of the active mentorship the program provides. Learning from senior software engineers that had a wealth of experience and knowledge to share was invaluable.

How did you work with the mentors?

In the beginning, it was a bit awkward for me since it wasn’t something I was used to — but it was something I really appreciated. Our work with mentors was mainly structured as learning sessions, either in small groups of 3-5, or one-on-one. It was great to learn a concept from a mentor that had done that task a million times and could guide us through it.

I enjoyed how Formation lined up the different mentoring sessions in a way that made sense for our growth and felt individualized, even when in a group session. While the earlier sessions with mentors were more algorithms-focused, as I progressed, we started focusing on job prep. We’d have weekly or bi-weekly mock interviews, focusing on either the behavioral or technical side of the process. I’d never thought much about the storytelling behind my background before, so the process was also helpful on that front. It helped me stand out in the job search and made the job search process much more interesting.

What did you think of the tech platform?

It was really nifty! Because the platform is custom-built for Formation with input from fellows as they are using it, it really catered to our needs. The feedback loop was amazing as well, we had a bugs channel and a features channel as Fellows, and the requests were handled within days if not hours.

How did you measure your progress/success through the program?

Tracking progress was really built into the program. There were several pillars of being a software engineer, and the platform tracked your progress. I also decided to copy it all onto my whiteboard at home, so I could keep track of when I advanced as well.

Did you benefit from practice interviews? How did your interview skills improve with your Formation training?

100%. Going into the program, technical interviews were one of those things I was kind of terrified of as I had never done them before. The interview setting was scary to me. The mock interviews made me more familiar with the process and upped my skills. When I came into Formation, I was actually in the running for a job position. The leadership team was really helpful and gave me the materials and sessions to prep for the interview at an accelerated pace, which also helped me to see areas of growth when I did not get the job offer.

For the first time, I felt like I was ready for the technical interviews!

While going through the program, the interview prep made me feel so much more confident. For the first time, I felt like I was ready for the technical interviews! I felt prepared for what I would say, as well as understood the cadence of the interviews and what was expected of me. For example, one technical problem that kept coming up from me, the spiral matrix challenge, flabbergasted me the first time I saw it in an interview before I joined Formation. I spent some time trying to learn it and was a little more prepared the next time I saw it in an interview. But after Formation, I could solve the problem in my sleep.

What team are you on in your new role?

My role is at HelloSign, a Dropbox company, as the web developer on the marketing team. It’s an interdisciplinary role within the marketing team.

How did Formation help you prepare for your new role?

First off, I feel more competent writing code. While my role doesn’t include a lot of coding day-to-day, I now have a very clear sense for doing a code review. I can write clean, readable code that actually works. I am also better at communicating technical things to technical people, which is something the program supported us with. At Formation they’d challenge us with situations like, “Here’s a feature, explain it to me as a marketing person,” emphasizing not to use jargon. Given that experience, I am quite good at being able to talk through what I am doing to a variety of team members. For the position I am in, if I build a web page, I often have to give a write-up of it, which I am not confident in. I am also able to write good pull requests and feel very confident on that front.

What is a project that you’ve shipped / or are working on in your new role?

The ongoing project I am part of is to create more cohesion between the HelloSign and Dropbox brands. After onboarding, I jumped right into an initiative for this, and got to build a small proof-of-concept page. In the development funnel, we’ll have a brief, which goes to review, then through designers once it’s green-lit, then to me to build. This was my first real bigger build project, which I completed within my first six weeks on the job. It felt good to be able to do a perfect implementation of a design, send through a round of QA, and implement feedback quickly.

[Formation] will stick with you regardless of how long it takes to land a job you’re happy with.

Quick-Fire Questions

Biggest mistake? Prioritizing memorization over understanding. In practicing for our algorithm tests, I spent too long memorizing solutions to specific problems, and not enough time learning how the algorithms really worked.

Favorite group session? Anything with Matt! We did a group live-coding exercise to build a Connect Four app that was really fun.

Biggest surprise about Formation? They will stick with you regardless of how long it takes to land a job you’re happy with. While most bootcamps feel their part is done with the first job offer that you receive, Formation really cares about you getting a position that you love and that you can grow in. Whether you’re in the program for 3 months or 1.5 years, they will keep working with you, pushing you, and helping you build your skillset, so you can land somewhere you are excited about.

Join Fellows like Justin who have found meaningful careers in tech. Apply on our site to join our Fellowship and become a top-tier engineer.