Monthly Deploy: June 2026

Welcome to the Formation Monthly Deploy, our monthly blog highlighting achievements, insights, and innovations from across the Formation ecosystem. Whether you're a current Fellow navigating challenges, an Alumni building your career, or a Mentor guiding others, this space is designed to keep you connected to your community.

🌎 Engineering tip from Sophie Novati

The fundamentals still matter 🧱

AI tools are changing how engineers work, but they haven't replaced the need for strong fundamentals.

✅ Keep investing in core problem-solving skills. Data structures, algorithms, recursion, backtracking, and systems thinking still show up in today's interviews.🧠 The fundamentals transfer everywhere. Even modern AI systems rely on concepts like loops, state management, recursion, and decomposition.
🔍 Use AI as leverage. The strongest engineers pair solid fundamentals with smart AI usage, and they treat the tool as an accelerant for thinking they can already do themselves.
❌ Don't assume AI replaces understanding. Prompt tricks aren't a substitute for reasoning through a problem clearly.

At Formation, we train for durable skills because tools change fast and strong engineering thinking compounds over time.

🌊 Recent Rising Tide winners

Each month, we recognize Fellows who consistently lift others up through collaboration, encouragement, and thoughtfulness. Our recent Rising Tide winner exemplified what it means to show up well for the community.

Matt Baranowski was recognized for the well-calibrated guidance he brought to a peer mock interview. One Fellow shared: "Matt provided the perfect level of guidance through my mock interview. It made for a highly efficient use of the hour. For the whole session I was either making progress or learning about my gaps and how to address them."

Arkady Dolina was recognized for his patience, positivity, and the encouragement he gave a peer working through a tough search. One Fellow shared: "I'm facing similar job hunting challenges at the moment, and getting better at DSA with practice, as Arkady suggested, gave me some hope." Another added: "Very easy to work with, and he understood the requirements of the problems we worked on. He shows patience in coding and stays positive when issues come up. I can see him progress more each week, and he works hard to get there."

Thank you, Matt and Arkady, for helping make learning collaborative and encouraging for everyone around you.

🌟Recent Lighthouse Award winner

The Lighthouse Award recognizes mentors who consistently guide, support, and elevate Fellows through clarity, care, and deep expertise.

Shubham Sharma was recognized for the specific, immediately useful feedback he gave after a mock interview. One Fellow shared: "I was given specific, helpful tips after my mock interview that I'm implementing daily, including how to manage my time and approach my Meta interviews."

Thank you, Shubham, for the care and expertise you bring to the Formation community.

🏆 Highlighted recent placement

We’re celebrating Fellows who turned persistence into progress and landed new roles, even in a challenging market.

Collin Guo → Atlas AI

Collin's search moved fast, and he credits the people around him for keeping pace. He shared: "I started Formation already 9 months into my job search, and got my job basically before any of the relevant training could apply (2-3 weeks in), so I can't say much about the bulk of the program. That said, the negotiation coaches were very helpful. If I had one tip, I'd say: make sure to talk to your team, and people in general. They can pretty much fix any problem you have. They accelerated my DSA pace and scheduled multiple meetings and mock interviews out of order because of my accelerated job hunt. I met a lot of great people."

🚀 What's new at Formation

📅 Upcoming workshops

Want to sharpen your interview instincts before your next loop? Join us for these free, mentor-led Studio Sessions designed to help you understand what strong interview performance actually looks like.

One Sharp Story: Niche Positioning

📅 June 11, 2026
⏰ 4pm PDT
🎟 Free

When hundreds of engineers apply for the same role, a resume that reads like everyone else's gets filtered out before a human looks closely. Sharp positioning is what earns a second read and a callback. This session helps you find the through-line in your experience and name the kind of engineer you are, so your resume and outreach stand out enough to land the interview in the first place.

👉 RSVP

Proof of Work: Build a Shippable AI Project in a Week

📅 June 18, 2026
⏰ 4pm PDT
🎟 Free

Anyone can list "AI" as a skill. Far fewer can point to something they built and walk through the decisions behind it. This session gets you to the second group. You'll scope a project you can actually finish, ship it, and come away with a story that holds up under interview questions.

👉 RSVP

See you next month!

We’re always proud of how this community shows up — with generosity, determination, and drive. Keep asking questions, lifting each other up, and pushing the limits of what you thought you could do.

Until next month,
The Formation Team

This blog is adapted from our monthly newsletter, The Monthly Deploy. If you're not yet part of the Formation community but would also like these updates directly in your inbox, subscribe to our blog:

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