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DoorDash

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Is it worth it to be downleveled to get into FAANG?

Mid-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Mid-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community

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".

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Posted 3 months ago
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8 Comments

What does a good Tech Vision doc look like?

Senior Software Engineer [E5] at DoorDash profile pic
Senior Software Engineer [E5] at DoorDash

I am about to start writing a multi year/multi quarter Tech vision doc for my org. To give a bit of background, my org contains 4 teams (1 front end team, 3 backend teams). All 3 backend teams (~20 engineers) work on a big monolithic service containing around 40 different APIs. Of the 3 backend teams, 2 of them work on Product features and the 3rd team (my team) is the Platform team which works on clearing tech debt, architectural enhancements, migrations, etc. For the last few quarters, the entire Platform team has been working mostly on clearing tech debt added by Product teams. The product team engineers have a very tight deadline, so their designs and code are bad or not well thought through.

My vision is basically to split the monolithic service into 3 services with clear separation of concerns and let the product teams be in charge of their own destiny. The reasoning behind this is that I feel like Platform team has been stuck in a perpetual cycle fixing bad work done by Product teams. There is no time for Platform team to enhance the capabilities of the platform. I spoke about this to my manager and he is very excited for me to come up with a vision doc and offered whatever support I would need.

So, given the context, I have the following questions:

  • What does a good tech vision doc look like? What sections should it have? Currently, I have the following sections: Motivation, Future Architecture (Splitting the Service), Deploying in the new world, Automated end - end tests in the new world (we don't have end - end tests currently)
  • How do I "sell" this vision to my management chain (my manager is onboard with the general high level idea), Principal Engineers, Product engineers in my org? I know the Product engineers are not gonna like the monolithic service to be split and will push back. How can I convince them?
  • What pitfalls should I be aware of while doing this work?
  • What upfront legwork can I do before I present this doc to everyone?

Appreciate your help in advance!!

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Posted a year ago
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1 Comment