Formation Mentor Spotlight: Matt Oates – What Great Engineers Are Made Of And My Path To Formation

Welcome to Formation’s Mentor Spotlight, a new blog series designed to introduce you to our dedicated and experienced network of Engineering Mentors. Today we’ll meet Matt Oates, who is our Lead Instruction Engineer at Formation. Matt previously worked as a Senior Front End Engineer at Loop Commerce, as well as roles at Facebook, Microsoft and eBay. His experience interviewing hundreds of engineers throughout career is an invaluable asset to all the Fellows he mentors at Formation. Here’s his story.

Q: What is your educational/professional background prior to Formation?

A:  I taught myself to program in middle school and haven’t stopped programming since then! I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Computer Science. Throughout college, I had internships at Facebook, Microsoft, eBay, and have since then held roles as an individual contributor, technical lead, and Head of Engineering.

Q: What motivated you to become a mentor at Formation?

A: I’ve always enjoyed teaching and mentoring, as well as conducting technical interviews and mock interviews. I’ve also consulted engineers as an interview coach, where I had really wonderful success with several clients landing jobs easily after working together. I joined Formation to continue my experience in a more structured and cohesive offering, providing code reviews, technical discussions, and mock interviews with Fellows. Through my work at Formation I can focus on what I do best, working directly with engineers, and doing so with a group of Fellows who are driven and dedicated to achieving engineering excellence. 

Q: Do you / have you interviewed candidates outside of Formation? What are some of the most common mistakes you see engineers make?

The number one mistake engineering candidates make is not communicating their thought processes effectively.

A: Throughout my career, I’ve interviewed at least 200 people, including directly hiring for 5 engineering roles as Head of Engineering, and being heavily involved in the hiring processes of many others. I've definitely seen people make a few mistakes:

1. The number one mistake interviewees make is not communicating their thought processes effectively. They are either under communicating, or having trouble finding the right cadence of communication as they talk through their process while writing code. This is something we work intensely with our Fellows on, helping to unlock the tangled thoughts inside your mind into a sequence of procedures and eventually code.

2. There is a lack of a solid foundation in their knowledge and skill set. This is especially true for engineers with nontraditional backgrounds. For example, they might make changes in the code that show they are blindly guessing without understanding what is truly happening. With web development in particular, there can be a lot of languages such as JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and JSX at play, and it’s clear in interviews if engineers don’t understand how it all fits together.

Q: Can you think of the strongest engineer you know. What are some traits that make them such a strong engineer?

A: I’d say the most important quality in being a strong engineer is understanding why you are doing what you are doing. This means to zoom out from lines of code and see the ultimate real world impact of what you’re creating. Doing this helps you to ask the right questions, prioritize your work and be more efficient.

Secondly, the concept of ownership is very important. Taking ownership of projects or sections of the codebase allows you to build up proficiency and become the go-to person for that area. Diving deep into an area can also give you a deeper understanding of that area, making you a more valuable member of the team. With your deeper knowledge, you'll be able to make more informed decisions and team members will naturally turn to you for guidance in projects that involve your area of expertise. 

Lastly, a great engineer shouldn’t take a “not in my backyard” attitude, but rather focus on working together holistically on a project. If there’s an issue outside of your responsibilities, it’s important to raise it as an issue and not disregard it just because it isn’t technically your role. For example, if you see a security issue or bug in a part of the code you’re not involved in, you should share that with the relevant team member so you’re working together, and even work together with them to help get it fixed.

Zoom out from lines of code and see the ultimate real world impact of what you’re creating.

Q: What kinds of engineers would you recommend to join Formation and why?

A: I’d recommend Formation to any engineer who feels undervalued, engineers who aren’t landing the jobs they want because they feel like their interview skills are lacking, and individuals who hold an engineering background but aren’t sure how to land the top tier job they desire. Formation is a much more comprehensive program than any other I’ve seen and worked with, and most importantly, we have a strong track record of placing people at some of the most impressive engineering organizations in the world — Facebook, Dropbox, Lyft and more.

Q: Can you tell me about a success story with one of the Formation Fellows you've mentored and what do you think contributed to their success?

A: I watched one Fellow named Justin grow from an engineer struggling to get a 2D table rendering in React, to a well-rounded engineer that nailed his interview with Dropbox in just under 4 months of being in the program. There were a couple of challenging mock interviews along the way, but Justin always received feedback well, and it was clear with each time we spoke that he had worked on that feedback and improved.

Q: Do you have any advice for new Formation Fellows?

A: My top advice would be not to focus on the end goal immediately, but rather focus on improving day after day while in the program. This will help you to avoid imposter syndrome, feeling overwhelmed, and burning out. There is a whole community of top tier engineers and coaches that are assembled to ensure that you succeed, so lean on us for support and take the program one step at a time.