Question on FAANG timed assignments as initial screen

I think it’s the standard for Amazon, especially for earlier-in-career engineers like yourself.

IIRC, Meta didn’t give these timed challenges like HackerRank. If they didn’t weed out a low-quality candidate with the resume screen, they would try to catch them with a recruiter screen.

In general, companies are willing to make exceptions if you have leverage. For FAANG in particular, the best way to have leverage is to have a competing FAANG offer or at least be at the onsite stage for another FAANG company.

The purpose of async coding assessments is for companies to quickly filter out a bunch of candidates without wasting their precious human time

It's good for the company, bad for the candidate. So your best bet is to ask to do a human phone screen if possible. If that's not possible, you still end up taking the timed assessment, but at least you tried!

Your goal as a candidate is to engage with a human ASAP. You can only form a connection with the interviewer, ask thoughtful questions, or collect feedback about your performance if you have human interaction.

If the company has reason to believe that you are already one of the better candidates in their pipeline, they'll be happy to move you to a human phone screen instead of some multi-hour coding test.

Here's how to show that you're one of the better candidates:

• You have a strong referral
• You have a demonstrated history with the company's tech/product area
• You talk about having several other interviews and you'll prioritize companies where it's a 2-way street

See more details in my thinking here: How common is hacker rank at FAANGMULA companies for initial tech screen?