Interviewing Q&A and Videos

Hi there, I'm a senior engineer and I'm looking to apply to startups. I feel like this is a different ballgame compared to working with recruiters at big tech as there is no resume. For example one of my top choices has a job posting that simply asks me to submit my linkedin, github, or website link. How can I stand out? Many of their engineers are on linkedin, so I can try to start the conversation that way. Their backend is golang, so I've been working on building backend golang projects and putting them on github, as well as making youtube videos about my process. When I feel like I have enough of a portfolio, I could apply with my github link. I do use their product, so maybe there is something I can do with that. Maybe I could make a simple website where I introduce myself and link to everything - github, linkedin, live demos of my projects, etc. Any thoughts? Thanks.

I am a self-taught frontend developer with almost 2 years' experience working for an outsourcing company. During an interview recently, the interviewer said that I had good communication skills and should focus on technical topics. My stack consists of JavaScript/Typescript, React, and I know a little bit about Python and Django. Typescript is mostly what I use. Here's my questions: Is there a specific approach you recommend I take to this technical part? Do I need to learn more data structures and algorithms since I do not have a Computer Science degree? In order to build a strong foundation, should I consider applying to a FAANG company? Your comments will be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much!

One of my colleagues from university recently completed his final interview round with SDM & Senior SWE. It has been five business days since then, but he hasn't heard back about whether he was selected for the role. He mentioned that the interview was supposed to be with HackerRank but encountered issues, so they used Google Docs instead. He said the questions were exclusively on basic Java and little bit of algo. He completed all five questions, except for one where he didn't notice a bug in the line, and another where his syntax was incorrect, although his logic was sound. His recruiter has been consistently responsive, which I told him is a good sign. I want to know what is taking them so long, whether they are considering rejecting him because of his mistakes or if they are planning to give him an offer.

I hope you all find it useful, and I am happy to answer any questions here. ### Reddit The Phone Screen: 1 Coding (this was incremental non-LeetCode style) 1 System Design (Scalable Reddit) Onsite: 4 Rounds Coding (same style as TPS) System Design Behavioral Hiring Manager My Thoughts: Good recruiter | preps you well Good company vibe Felt like a convo not an interrogation Cons: Evaluation criteria is unclear, no clear feedback Don’t know how I did --- ### Airbnb The Phone Screen: LeetCode style Onsite: 2 stages Coding PR review System Design My Thoughts: Recruiters have a good say! So have a good rapport with them Cons: Even if they say they are moving forward with you, delays can happen Feedback takes time --- ### LinkedIn The Phone Screen: LeetCode style Onsite: 5 rounds 2 Coding System Design Behavioral Hiring Manager My Thoughts: Good pay Company brand Cons: Recruiting experience was all messed up / chaotic Didn’t feel structured --- ### Square The Phone Screen: LeetCode style Hiring manager round Onsite: 5 rounds 2 Coding System Design 1 Behavioural Hiring Manager My Thoughts: Team match is done before Manager was nice Cons: Unsure how they level/hire candidates Too focused on company values --- ### Atlassian The Phone Screen: Karat style – This was a combo of coding + short design Onsite: 3 stages (you need to clear each stage to go to the next) Coding Low-level Design Behavioural (Hiring Manager) My Thoughts: Some interviewers were good Recruiters were communicative Cons: Very long interview loops Some interviewers were unprepared --- ### Netflix The Phone Screen: Discussion about architecture, design, and past projects Onsite: 4 rounds Design Pair Programming System Design Leadership My Thoughts: Very product-focused Interviewers really cared about engineering Cons: Vague expectations Very high bar for systems --- There's a couple more, but this post is getting too long. Check out the full spreadsheet for the rest of them:

Basically what the title says. Market seems really bad right now for entry level and junior engineers. Any tips on how to become a better applicant and stand out?

Hi! I have been working at pre-Series A AI/ML startup for nearly a year. I was hired at a Principal Engineer level and then was promoted to Director level. Currently, nearly 15 engineers report to me. Despite the growth opportunities, I am not very sure of the overall success of the company. I am more keen to switch jobs and, hopefully, work at L6+ level at a Big Tech company. Any advice on how to go about that?

I’m considering leaving a startup because of 2 things I’ve seen on Taro: faang+ early is gold for your resume as a long term investment in your career IC L5+ looks super fun. 2019 Goal of Joining a Startup Learn a lot about how to be a good software engineer Be an early employee at a startup that makes it big Quickly become an Engineering Manager because I like working with people, helping others 2023 Thoughts on Staying as an Eng Manager or Joining Big Tech Dream of being an EM, is happening on small start up scale with a growing number of reports who like my management so far The dream is to be early at a unicorn and that is close, but - The new standard should be 10B not 1B - Doing this with a first job is not necessary and high risk In 2-4 years I’d likely still be a engineering manager from a no-name startup L5+ engineer in big tech may fit well with my personality right away based on Taro, where I love collaboration, helping people, product and technical challenges - I like not just spending 80% of my time heads down coding and that may be possible and expected right away in big tech, no need to be a manager Getting a 2 FAANG+ badges on my resume over the next 4 years would be more way more worth it than even a million dollar payout from a startup - Could have many doors opened for high level roles at startups OR faang depending on what I feel like at the time - Big tech stock offer may also easily be worth 1M in 4 years Priorities 2019 Supportiveness of team Growth opportunities Company prestige Maximum outcome (Risk) Compensation Company ethics Product space Technical space Work-life balance Level/title Benefits Location Stability Remote work Priorities 2023 Supportiveness of team +0 Work-life balance +7 Compensation +2 Company prestige -1 Growth opportunities -3 Stability +7 Company ethics -2 Remote work +6 Level/title +1 Benefits +1 Location +1 Product space -5 Technical space -5 Maximum outcome (Risk) -10 Taro priorities video is here Startup Stats 150 people, 25 engineers (doubled from a year ago) Fall 2021 had 50% investment at 250M valuation Dec 2022 450M valuation Revenue has since doubled in last year to 125M Profitable per years with 20% gross margin Growing industry Not venture backed, so not expecting 20x growth Estimated in 2-4 years to sell for 1-2B How to evaluate a startup video here Current job stats Team lead for a year after 2.5 years as Software Engineer 0.1% equity, 100k cash 18th employee, 4th engineer Dream of being an early employee at a unicorn, seems close Would lose all stock if I leave before acquisition/ipo Biggest point for discussion: 2-4 years of being manager at a small startup may not qualify me to be an EM in big tech FAANG+ Offer L4 equivalent 190k cash, 350k stock over 4 years, 60k sign on bonus Work life balance is supposed to be great Great food, big tech lifestyle that I’ve always heard/dreamed about Would work to be promoted to L5 in 1-2 years, then manager a year after that. Being a new person at a fresh company sounds very exciting now, I know the business fully and the tech stack of the current place to the point where many things Ive see before and feel stale/boring Questions Based on my write up about values, priorities, liking collaboration, would I like being an IC L4 coming from being a manager where I have solid tech skills but strong soft skills that I enjoy using. If I stay at the start up would I be able to get a big tech EM offer with 3-4 years of management experience at the start up? Note this question here shows what I’m learning now as a manager. Should I down level myself from L5 to L4 if I think I could get the offer at L5 but am not sure about the certainty of success? (Question asked separately here)

A quick TL;DR of my career, I started off at Lockheed Martin doing Linux C++ and Java development with a bit of SRE work building out Jenkins+Docker CI/CD infrastructure for my team. I then went to do frontend web development on Google Cloud. However, after around eight months, I wasn't too confident on my trajectory within the team, so I moved over to a team outside of Cloud. In this role, I did Android development with some C++ backend work mixed in. Looking at my background, I've worn several hats and more or less had multiple different roles during my ~4 year career. This is all because I care more about the end result of my work instead of the work itself. The language, tech stack, etc that I am using is not what gives me fulfillment. Unfortunately, it seems like I'm getting punished for this mindset, as every employer wants someone who has been using the same stack their whole career. It's not surprising given how recruiters and anyone in the hiring process is seeking to find any reason to say "No" to you. They have become adversaries that one has to take down, since passing Google's hiring bar now no longer carries weight. Each interview I fail to pass just appears to perpetuate a narrative that I was nothing more than a COVID overhire and deserved to be laid off. Is there a gainful role out there for me, or am I going to just have to settle for some dead-end job that will just drag these career woes on?

I just finished up my final technical round (went well) and the recruiter reached out wanting to chat about salary expectations before the offer stage. During my initial call with the recruiter, she did ask me about salary expectations. I deferred by saying fit and potential impact are most important to me and that I'd like to defer until I learn more. Now that I've already interviewed, I'm not sure how to handle the conversation with the recruiter. It seems wrong to give a number before getting an actual offer, but at the same time, my initial reason for deferring talking about salary is no longer valid because I've already gone through the interview process. Any advice on what should I do here?

What are the pros and cons associated with picking a founding full-stack engineer role at a pre-seed startup over a senior SWE role in a platform engineering team at a decently high-scale late-stage post-IPO startup? Does being a founding engineer make you unemployable even if you have 5-6 years of experience? Will working on larger-scale infrastructure projects make a significant difference in terms of employability? Are there any other career risks associated with being a founding engineer?

All Big Tech including Google, Meta, Amazon have done one round of layoffs. Interesting to hear what is your opinion is on the severance packages in the subsequent rounds. Does it get reduced? Asking because I am in interview process with Google. If they do a layoff will I get very less severance than the 1st round? My friends at Google are certain that there will be more rounds of layoffs in coming months.

I was recently approached by a recruiter to interview for Bytedance, Singapore. My DSA skills are rusty, not having interviewed in over a year. The primary language I use at work is Golang, but I do not think its good for DSA interview rounds as it has limited in built data structures. Earlier I have given interviews in Java but I have not touched it in a year. Given I have 3 weeks to prepare for the DSA Coding rounds, should I consider learning Python as I have "heard" that its the preferred language and faster to use in coding interviews? Given I have to ramp up on my leetcode and learn python, I feel this might be setting myself up for failure. Would like suggestions on how to think about this.

Can someone be able to give me specific feedback on how i should improve? the recruiter wasn't able to do so. here's the design i came up with, he specifically didn't want to discuss uploading of movies only streaming, recommendations, user management many thanks in advance!

Hi, is cover letter still able to raise the likelihood for an applicant to stand out and get hired these days? And if it does, what is the high quality ones look like? Thanks!

Sometimes I ask people for referrals and they take some time to respond. Some companies, like TikTok, have a referral link for people to apply, so I’m blocked on waiting a referral until that person responds. Wondering if it’s better to wait for a referral, then apply, or if it’s better to apply without a referral (even in cases like TikTok)? If the former, how long after a job posting should I wait before applying? In cases of linked-based referrals, is it possible for the referrer to refer me after I applied? If so, how does that usually work? What should I tell my referrer?

Hi, I hope to join at meta as a MLE for ads rankings team (E4)? now, I am a recent Phd grad, I have worked with efficient ML algorithms for my Phd and mostly used Pytorch for work (but no experience with ads). Now, what other technical things (frameworks/tools/whatever you think it'll be useful) can I learn to better equip myself for success? As a grad student, I was mostly focused on a small project at a time, so I don’t really have large scale design/distributed systems experience. Please share resources (code/just knowledge-wise, any books/papers or links etc?) that you think as an incoming MLE, I should know. Thanks a ton.

So if the bar is lower at non-FAANG companies that means if you take longer to complete a task or lead an initiative that takes a little longer won’t that be something that gets exposed quickly and it indicates you’re not ready to operate there? What’s the right mentality to be able to build your stories authentically for interviewing for FAANG companies where the bar is much higher and frankly seems to be less room for error? Do I go and get a mentor who can basically ask me to go into detail for how I went about projects and analyze interactions and learn how to think about this stuff so I actually can push myself to work faster or operate at a high level at my current job?