Can I get a job at FAANG (or an equivalent) if I'm not in the right place?

Question

I happened to stumble across a YouTube video of Rahul Pandey (99% Of Engineers Never Get Into FAANG And Here's Why), and then I was encouraged to get a subscription on formation.dev and try their test.

Everything went really well, I passed the DSA section and Selena got in touch with me. Unfortunatly, she gently tell me that we cannot proceed further as I am lacking the American working permits.

From asking around, it turns out that for the US government to give you a work permit, the company must certify that the skills for which the work visas are going to be issued does not exist in the country.

I think we can all agree that in area of computer science, the US has everything it needs :'). So Based on that:

What will be the criteria for FAANG companies (or their equivalent) that will make them recruite a stranger?
What kind of roadmap do I need to fill the gap, if it exists one?

And yes, I did hear that FAANG only hires top 1% engineers:

What does that even mean?
Where would we even find out about our rank on such a list, or things we need to improve and get there?

Also my experience is mainly focused around the creation of the backends for the web app, primarily built using python or java spring boot, and those backend has not been as much volumetric as we encounter for instance in the system design interview.

Is such experience deemed sufficient for the job?

Thank you.

anamazonsde · Accepted Answer

I think you need to separate 2 things here, getting a job at FAANG companies, which are available in many locations not just the US, and getting a job in a FAANG in US.

Getting a job in one of the FAANG companies is indeed hard enough, but doable, you just have to 1) Prepare and learn needed skills, and 2) Understand exactly what they are looking for.

I see a common problem where people train for Leetcode for months, then say I did great in the interview, and still got rejected. That is mainly because they don't realize that behavioural is equally important in FAANG companies as the technical skills, they also fail to see that knowing how to solve the problem is one thing, and showing your thought process and sharing it with the interviewer is the key there.

So, I would advice you to:

Decide the goal that your looking for first.
Continue working on your technical skills (DSA, problem solving, etc...)
Start applying NOW!
If you fail in the next interview, assess, and repeat.

I can assure you, starting to apply while learning is the best mechanism to know where you stand and get a real-world assessment for yourself.

Can I get a job at FAANG (or an equivalent) if I'm not in the right place?

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