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How was Rahul able to interview for a Meta E5 SWE position with 3 YOE

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Entry-Level Software Engineer [SDE 1] at Amazon5 days ago

In one of Rahul's videos [1], he mentions his interview journey when he had ~3 YOE and how he interviewed for a Meta E5 SWE position.

I interviewed for Meta this year w/ 3 YOE similarly and they would not consider me for E5. This is also similar to most other people I know with 3 YOE.

Was it because he had a previous internship at Meta as well as his many other internships? I know Alex also interviewed at Meta with 3 YOE and was down-leveled.

Rahul also mentioned he received an L3 offer at Google (which makes no sense btw!). I'm curious to know how there was such a large variability in the offer levels. Thanks!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpBvQ-SPSDM&t

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Discussion

(10 comments)
  • 10
    Profile picture
    Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
    4 days ago

    Rahul also mentioned he received an L3 offer at Google (which makes no sense btw!). I'm curious to know how there was such a large variability in the offer levels. Thanks!

    Oh yeah, I have an answer for this one: Google is the undisputed (and shameless) mega king of downleveling.

    This is because Google hiring still believes that it's 2012 and Google is the hottest company on Earth that everyone wants to work for. While Google is still undeniably an amazing company to work for, it's pretty far from being super #1. That title obviously goes to OpenAI at the moment.

  • 7
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    Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
    4 days ago

    Here are the reasons why:

    1. While UCLA is a Top 15-20 CS school, Stanford is a Top 1 CS school (Stanford is literally why Silicon Valley exists). There's a big difference and power law starts applying very hard once you go from Top 10-ish to Top 1.
    2. Rahul has a Master's and I don't.
    3. Pinterest is a far stronger company than PayPal and Course Hero.
    4. Rahul got like 5 competing offers from FAANG-level companies and I didn't.
    5. The economy was better back then, and Meta was more willing to splash the cash as it was still in hyper-growth phase.

    You can still get interviewed at Meta as E5 with 3 YOE (I have mentees doing this), but you need to have an equivalent level first. So if you are a true prodigy and are already an SDE 3 at Amazon or a Google L5, you will get interviewed for E5. Meta has a big internal matrix mapping external company levels to internal ones. That's the main thing used for leveling, and I think that's the right call.

    Here's an in-depth explainer of Big Tech levels (Amazon, Google, Meta): "What do career levels structure in big tech company look like? What are the responsibilities for each level?"

    Of course, if you're currently interviewing, your current level is your current level and it's not likely you can change that in the short-term. I made a video on the levers you do control to prevent getting down-leveled as part of my master job-searching course here: Don't Get Downleveled

  • 4
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    Friendly Tarodactyl
    Taro Community
    4 days ago

    I don't think we should fixate on a particular person did what at a particular company for a particular level. Each is a different case, and it was also a different time. We should focus on ourselves and the general trend instead.

  • 4
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    Supportive Tarodactyl
    Taro Community
    4 days ago

    Not all experiences are created equal. Rahul has a brand name, Stanford on his resume as well playing a key role in a startup that was acquired by Pinterest. It was a different time as well, I believe that 6 to 7 years is required for a candidate to interview for an E5 role at Meta these days but I am sure that for the right candidate there is always an exception made. Would love to hear Rahul's take on this.

  • 2
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    Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
    4 days ago

    Some great answers here already, and Alex hit the nail on the head. A few things I'll add:

    • Of the 5 interviews I had at Facebook, I crushed every single one. At the end of the on-site, I was almost positive I'd get an offer, but I didn't know what level. (This is rare, but it felt great when it did happen.)
    • Pinterest was a pretty hot company back in 2017, and there was a bunch of cross-pollination (in both directions) between Pinterest and Facebook.
    • I joined Pinterest via a startup acquisition, which added more credibility to my profile. Facebook has a very startup-friendly culture. I also had 2 Stanford degrees. So I presented at least 4 different data points that de-risked my abilities as an engineer.
    • Finally, I framed my profile as an Android specialist, which was in high demand at Facebook. I had done Android at Pinterest and also had a few published apps at this point.
    • 0
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      Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
      4 days ago

      Oh right, another thing that Alex mentioned which may be the most important point: I had 4 other competing offers, and at least one other company (Snapchat) had already offered me a Senior Eng position.

    • 0
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      Helpful Tarodactyl
      Taro Community
      4 days ago

      Did you use your 4 offers to convince Google to uplevel you? If so, what was the experience like and why did Google not budge?

    • 0
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      Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
      a day ago

      To be clear, the offer from Facebook was always E5 (I didn't initially receive an E4, mid-level, offer). With Facebook, I strongly insinuated that I had pending offers from competitive companies like Snapchat and Google.

      Google probably didn't budge because (1) they didn't feel my interview performance was very strong or (2) they were relying on their brand to carry them.

  • 1
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    Helpful Tarodactyl
    Taro Community
    4 days ago

    As a follow-up, a few questions I have:

    1. Why did Alex get down-leveled for Meta, and what could Alex have done to not get down-leveled and even potentially get up-leveled?
    2. Besides interview performance, what factors go into leveling a candidate? Amazon is presumably a more prestigious company than Pinterest (and maybe as a higher engineering bar) but OP isn't considered for L5 whereas Rahul is?
    • 0
      Profile picture
      Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
      4 days ago

      Why did Alex get down-leveled for Meta, and what could Alex have done to not get down-leveled and even potentially get up-leveled?

      Meta primarily uses the prestige level of the candidate's most recent company to determine the level. It's not a perfect method, but it's accurate most of the time. I enjoyed my time at Course Hero and there were many great engineers there, but it frankly wasn't at the level of Meta.

      Down-leveling me to E4 was the correct call. It's possible I could have figured things out as an E5 at Meta, but my PIP chance would have been very large. I'm actually 100% fine with how things turned out. Also, going through the E4 -> E5 promotion gauntlet gave me a valuable perspective which allowed me to mentor many engineers to do that promo lightning fast and ultimately make one of my best courses (IMHO): Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer: L4 To L5

      Besides interview performance, what factors go into leveling a candidate? Amazon is presumably a more prestigious company than Pinterest (and maybe as a higher engineering bar) but OP isn't considered for L5 whereas Rahul is?

      Amazon is definitely not more prestigious than Pinterest, especially in 2017. Keep in mind that the top pre-IPO unicorns are very, very picky with their talent. It's way easier getting into Airbnb today compared to Airbnb in 2017. Back then, Pinterest was a step function above Amazon in terms of talent. This is almost certainly a huge reason why Rahul got upleveled.