Behavioral Rounds Improvement
For my Behavioral rounds Preparation.
- I curated all the questions surrounding leadership principles
- I also created STAR answers for each question
I try to demonstrate that I have led Projected and Solved challenging problems on my own. But even with that interviewers seem to downlevel me from L5 > L4 (Amzon Levels). what qualities I should exhibit to get L5 level and how should I prepare for it?
![Mid-Level Software Engineer [SDE 2] at Amazon company logo](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffirebasestorage.googleapis.com%2Fv0%2Fb%2Ftech-career-growth.appspot.com%2Fo%2Fcompany_logos%252Famazon_logo.jpg%3Falt%3Dmedia%26token%3Dff5f2302-08be-43bc-b7b1-d381ba508d99&w=48&q=75){kind=logo}
Discussion
(4 comments)- 2
6 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroI'm going to talk about this in-depth in my upcoming behavioral interview course, but in the meantime, check this out: https://www.jointaro.com/course/ace-your-tech-interview-and-get-a-job-as-a-software-engineer/dont-get-downleveled/
It's hard to say why you're getting leveled at SDE 1/L4 (junior) instead of SDE 2/L5 (mid-level) without seeing the exact stories you're pitching, but what I will say is that given the market, companies are holding the bar much higher now as they have way more leverage. Amazon L5 is naturally a wide band to begin with, so it's possible that their bar for L5 hires is what L5.5 was in the "good" economy.
Also, given that you're an entry-level engineer (just based on your title within Taro), it will be hard to convince folks to uplevel you, especially FAANG. I'm assuming you have 3 YOE or less? The bar for FAANG mid-level is more like 4+ YOE now.
- 0
6 months agoEntry-Level Software Engineer [OP]Taro CommunityI have 5+ yrs of experience but only one year of that is in the US. but I have intern experience in FAANG too
- 06 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Okay, this makes sense. A lot of folks work outside of the US before coming here (often in India), and I have been on the hiring loops for many of those engineers. The outside-of-US experience is often discounted by 2x minimum (can be as high as 5x). So if you have 5 YOE outside the US, it will be counted at 2.5 YOE at the highest and just 1 YOE at the lowest. It's harsh, but that's just the way things are.
The caveat is that the discount will vary based on company as well: If you worked in like Google India for instance, there shouldn't be that large a discount.
If you want to counteract these penalties, I recommend side projects (how I did it) and open-source: https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/grow-even-faster-side-projects-and-open-source/
- 26 months agoEng @ Taro
Lee had a really good response for preparing for the Amazon behavioral interviews here:
I would make sure you are telling stories that demonstrate leadership abilities with a large scope and an impactful outcome.
