Interviewing Q&A and Videos

Hey,

I have 10 years work experience, and I have previously worked at a FAANG that had no levels (big clue here!). So regardless of the scope of work, we were Senior. That kinda played at a disadvantage to me when I found my self looking for a job due to a layoff and visa issues.

I believe I am working at staff capacity, leading 5 folks, driving initiative. But I feel like I am unable to "show" Impact. We have metrics at each level. I have addressed the same with my manager, went over the metrics and identified gaps and took action.

I got lukewarm response, at best from other staff engineers and management. No idea if at all I will be considered for promo, and I get no response besides stating, it is a lagging promo.

Right now, I have no visa issues, so I can hop around other companies, I want to move back to a FAANG+ company because of higher pay.

Question is :

How do I ascertain my promotion?

and which of the following is a good bet:

1. Move to staff at Intuit -> Move to (Meta / Google/ Netflix) as L6
2. Move to (Meta / Google/ Netflix) as L5 -> work towards L6
3. Move to staff at Intuit -> Move to (Meta / Google/ Netflix) as L5 (as they down-level, at this point might as well move now)
4. Move directly to (Meta / Google/ Netflix) as L6 ( Highly optimistic, almost delusional )

• I need to practice questions for multithreading/ concurrency topics
• What resources to use for the practice? What type of questions am I expected to use it - leetcode type, low level design type?
• I need a few examples to know what to expect for Rubrik interview? Or any company that says they would ask those questions in system design round.

Hi all, I'm currently job searching after being laid off (junior engineer with 2.5 years of experience) and I know after browsing around here that side projects are heavily encouraged (especially Android apps) to boost up your portfolio and chances of getting an interview.

What are your opinions on doing certifications? I am making my way through an AWS Solutions Architect course while doing side projects - is it a complete waste of time or is it worth balancing along side project work?

Thank you!

Hello, I'm trying to figure out what level is likely to be what my current experience translates to at TikTok.

I have: 3.5 yoe at a startup + public co. (not FAANG)

1.5 years as L1 and 2 years as L2 (L3 is senior, L4 is staff)

I've done about 25 ML interviews in the last 3 months. Here's my tips

1. HM interviews are super common. KNOW YOUR WORK IN DEPTH. This is the single biggest tip I can give
   1. Be able to talk for atleast 5-10 minutes about the ML models you choose. You cant just give a high level description
   2. Understand the tradeoffs with the ML model you choose
   3. I think depth is just everything. You need to understand deeply the frameworks you use, the models you choose, the evaluation methods, deployment strategy. How it works under the hood
2. DSA is a must. It's hard to cram DSA, but you get really really far with just a bit everyday. About 30% of interviews have a DSA round onsite. Another 30% might have DSA screening (hackerrank/codesignal). I'm not saying grind leetcode 6 hrs a day but even 1-2 problems consistently everyday adds up a lot! and you dont want to be caught unprepared if u get a DSA interview, you cant push back interviews for a month right now
3. Takehomes/timed take homes are common. Make sure you clearly document and your code is easily reproducible and no steps are missing. e.g. if you did some data preprocessing but its not documented/shown thats bad. The conversion rate on takehomes is pretty high for me so do well on them and treat them seriously. In this interview cycle I've gotten first round interviews for all 6 takehomes i submitted
4. Interviews are 80% luck and 20% skills in this market. Sometimes you just cant help it they might want a golang developer and even if youre a 200IQ java developer they dont care. Transferrable skills are not the same in this market. Sometimes theres just not a fit and dont beat yourself up. You can do everything right and still fail interviews
5. Lower Pay/Lower presitge != Easier Interview. They're just different interviews looking for different things. Don't think that just because an interview is for a less prestigious company it will be easier. I've passed first rounds for roles that pay 3x more and 2 levels higher than ones ive failed.
6. Make sure to go through the JD and note the skills theyre looking for and spend 30 mins being able to insert talking points to highlight those skills

Any other tips anyone would like to add?

Context

I did a few interviews in the last months for some software engineer, and in the end it came down to 2 companies: Google (started loop as L4 but got downleveled to L3) & DoorDash (L4). I'm L3 at another tech company (smaller than these), already scheduled for promotion for L4 as I've been performing accordingly for some time. Per my understanding, levels (L3/L4/L5 or E3/E4/E5) are similar between these companies.

I have around ~4 YoE now and graduated 2 years ago, though only 1.5 YoE on larger projects at US companies (i.e. roles that I suppose would be closer to a FAANG environment), as I worked on smaller local products and consultancies before. This is my first time actually preparing for this format of interviews, so I'm kind of glad that I at least passed L3 for Google.

Offers

DoorDash already extended an offer and Google said that HC approved for L3, but still have to go through team matching. DD's offer has significantly more TC (like >30%).

Doubts

I really wanted to join Google at first since I have tons of friends and family working there, but at L3, seems that I would be taking a step back just for the sake of being able to say that I worked at Google, so I'm actually biased towards going to DoorDash, here's my rationale:

• Significantly more TC
• Remote-friendlier
• Already worked (and enjoyed) with a lot of people that I would be working with at DoorDash (also likely why they accepted me as L4 instead of L3, because I had some 'advocates' there). While at Google I still have to go through team matching and I don't have a clue on what I'd be working with.
• Would start as L4, with a higher performance bar and expectations, and aiming for 1~2 years later would be looking at L5, instead of still looking at L4 at Google.
• Even if I got promoted quickly at Google, would likely be at the lower band of L4 salary, so not only 1~2 years of lower TC and possibly smaller scope, but likely even more.
• This is my first time preparing for this type of interviews, so even if I want to join Google a year or two down the line, I would have not only more experience under my belt for both behavioral and technical interviews, but also more time and resources to prepare.

What flaws can you find in my train of thought? I find this very confusing to take a decision, seems that it is a common situation as I searched for it a lot and everyone seems to call FAANG in general as "kings of down-leveling".