Success Story: How Mike Clarke, a senior software engineer, leveraged Formation to land a role at Meta

Welcome to Formation’s Fellow Spotlight, a blog series introducing you to former Formation Fellows who landed their dream jobs. Today, we’ll meet Mike Clarke, now a Software Engineer at Meta working on the Capacity Management team. 

Can you tell us about your background before joining Formation?

I originally studied electronic engineering. My first two jobs in technology were with smaller companies, which provided good foundational experience and many general skills. I installed networks, built telephone systems, wrote software, supported users, and more. 

After that, I worked in finance for about 22 years in total, 17 of which were at a Japanese bank called Nomura and four of which were at BlackRock.

And what is your new role at Meta?

I'm a software engineer. I work on the capacity management team at Meta. 

What made you decide to seek out a program like Formation?

I had been wanting to get into a true technology role for a little while. In 2023, I was laid off by BlackRock, so that provided a good opportunity for me to take some time and do some training to get my skills up to where they need to be to pass tech company interviews. So, that was my primary motivation for joining Formation, and it appears to have been successful.

Why did you choose the Formation Fellowship?

Many of the things available are more self-taught. I wanted a comprehensive, guided experience with the opportunity to participate in regular sessions. Formation provides that.

Did you have any goals coming into the Formation Fellowship?

I wanted to be comfortable in tech interviews. I also had areas in my existing skillset where I was fairly strong and had been exposed to a lot during my career, and some areas where my experience was relatively weak because I hadn’t encountered it much. I had never studied computer science originally, so the fundamentals of data structures and algorithms were never taught to me—I had picked it up along the way.

How was your experience at Formation?

Overall, my experience was very positive. I think the way that the sessions are structured and the way in which the course flows and progresses is very well thought out. The material is very well chosen, and the practice exercises solidify your understanding of the key concepts you’re working on in different modules.

The system design side of things is worth mentioning. The amount of work that Tony and his team had put into the documentation there and the process for going through system design training is not something I've ever seen anywhere else. It's a huge amount of work. It’s excellent.

How did Formation impact your interview skills?

I was much more comfortable in the technical interviews. 

I think I did relatively well in all the coding interviews I've done across all the companies interviewed with. Being comfortable with the technical concepts meant that I could focus on solving the problem. I wasn’t mentally struggling with not being familiar enough with a concept, so I could just focus on what the problem was asking and the kinds of data structures and algorithms I knew I could use to solve it. 

What was your actual job interview experience like at Meta?

I had three coding interviews with Meta. There were tight time constraints to solve the problems I was presented with, but I was well prepared by my experience through Formation. That’s not something I would have been able to do before having done Formation. “Here’s a problem; solve it in 10 minutes” wouldn’t have been possible for me.

Quick-Fire Round:

Proudest moment?

I think my proudest moment probably is getting an offer from Meta.

Biggest learning and Favorite group session?

I had a really, really interesting group session with Jesse Farmer when I started doing the graph module in Algo Olympics.

I don't even remember what the problem itself was, but just the discussion with Jesse, who's a mathematician, and the insights and things that he was able to give us were awesome. I ended up staying on the call with him way after the time allotted for the session, and we discussed the mathematical background of a lot of graph theory in relation to the problem we'd been working on, and beyond. He recommended a book to read, which I've actually bought, which is also very interesting. So, I think that session stands out as a particular highlight, but I really had a lot of great sessions. I remember having a lot of great system design sessions, too. I think pretty much every time I got on a design session, it was a good session.

Biggest surprise about Formation?

It’s surprising that there weren’t more senior people in the Formation course base. I think other senior people in a similar position to me would benefit from the material. The course is very well organized. It is certainly worth the money. 

Find out where you’re ready to apply

Interested in a new role, but not sure where to start? Our Technical Interview Readiness Assessment (TIRA) can help you gauge where your technical strengths lie, identify exact skill gaps, find out the types of companies where you’re ready to interview and get tailored advice on how to improve. 

Take the test and get your benchmark results today.