Interviewing Q&A and Videos

My new manager has worked with me in the past for around 2 years (6-8 months as a manager and rest as a teammate) after which his team got switched. I have been working for the last 2 years (since the last time I got promoted) towards a promotion and even though organisational requirements need my team to be switched, I still want to target a promotion in upcoming year end review cycle. I have brought in several process improvements in the previous team and have tried to uplift my previous team forward in the last 2 years as a mid-level engineer. Given that the new team I would be joining is in a similar scenario in terms of code quality/processes etc. as my previous team was sometime back, what all should I do to get maximum leverage for a promotion? Do you suggest is it better to look for an up-level outside of the organisation or stay put ? What factors does it depend on?

Hi! I have an interview with the company that laid me off some months back. The manager who reached out to me for the role claimed that two people who work on this team already know me, so the idea would be to hire me on a contract, then get to work early since I know the system already, and get some quality work done fast. The manager and I have a pre-existing relationship: he was consistently checking in on how I was doing as I was in the process of officially leaving. This manager said he wanted to help me out, and that this role looked "perfect" for me. Given the market these days, I jumped at the idea. There's one really strange look to this. The recruiter told me from the jump that they're interviewing other people with 3 to 5 years of experience. Although I appreciate the honesty, you can imagine I'm pissed about having to fight other people for the job I deserve to have back (which the manager said I look "perfect" for), but I'm not going to voice that to the company because I'd look arrogant. This recruiter I was speaking with last Friday also said in an email "The interview panel will be mixed up a bit to try and be as unbiased as possible. They are excited to speak with you." Makes sense, because another thing in context here is that I do know quite a few people in that company. I got the name of who's interviewing me yesterday. I found the person on LinkedIn, and was very perplexed to see that it's some financial consultant person within the company. Someone with a very far from tech background, performing an hour long technical interview? Just ONE person, on top of that. I've seen interviews there where 3 people are grilling the interviewee. I have no idea what's going on. But I have 3 ideas. Firstly, maybe they're thinking "let's just give you the job and have a random interview you". That'd be nice, but I don't think it'll be that easy, so the second idea is they might be finding a technical interviewer, so they can run a strategy of "behavior cop/tech cop". Or, the last idea: they don't care and are gonna blow me off. Whatever happens, the company I'm interviewing for is opening up a LOT of software engineer spots in my area, so they're gonna try to find me a new position. I've asked multiple of my friends at the company what this could mean, but no one knows. I'll update this question when I receive an answer, but I wanted to gauge what y'all thought here. Thanks.

Am interested in some self paced online courses I can take from home, and one that ideally lead to some sort of certificate/badge/credential. Free resources would be best, but am willing to pay a few dollars for top quality. Something like leetcode would be too advanced for me. I am familiar with programming but never formally learned it and have 0 knowledge of these topics.

I occasionally have people reach out to me on LinkedIn asking me to refer them to my company. I want to be a nice guy, but I also don't want to refer people who are probably no better than the average person cold applying. How should I think about helping these people without sacrificing too much of my own time? E.g. I can ask to see their resume and go through it to see that they're basically qualified. In my mind, the more qualified they are, the more reason I have to refer them, although the less likely they need my referral. Am I thinking about this the right way? Thanks!

I’m about to start applying for jobs. I’d like for my next job to be at FAANG for all the reasons that Alex and Rahul mention it’s good to begin your career at FAANG. This is my third job out of school, so I’m a little late, but better late than never :) I believe what Alex and Rahul said about working at FAANG is that it’s good because you: Get to work with really talented people and learn good fundamentals and practices. Get top-of-the-market compensation. Set yourself up for more 1 and 2 in the future whether or not you leave My crude approach to getting into a FAANG/FAANG-equivalent company is to look at levels.fyi, and run down the list of companies and apply. This approach certainly satisfied point 2 above, and is also very good for getting 1 and 3 as well given that all 3 points are highly correlated. I know that referalls are important, so I do plan on tapping my network as well. But I wonder, am I thinking about this the right way? Is there a better approach? If I could in theory get super-amazing 1 and 3, and get less 2, I think I’d be willing to do that. But I’ll never come across such an opportunity if I’m just using levels.fyi All thoughts are welcome 😊

I aim to join a big tech preferably as a Software Engineer(Entry Level). I am currently working in Data Science and it has been hard juggling between data science at work and preparing for big techs. I prefer a Software Engineering role as I do not think that big techs prefer Entry Level Engineers with Bachelor's degrees for Data Science and ML roles. So how I should balance the work (Data Science) and preparation for the Job Switch to a big tech alongside DSA?

tldr - is it worth giving up brand name (amazon) for higher pay and potentially better work culture, especially if long term goal is entrepreneurship? Hi Taro community! I'm hoping to get some guidance from those who have navigated similar career decisions. I have two new grad offers and am trying to evaluate them strategically based on my longer-term goals. Background: CS degree from top university Multiple SWE internship experiences Strong interest in understanding business impact beyond just coding Naturally drawn to product/business side but also enjoy technical challenges Want to eventually move into entrepreneurship/product roles while building strong technical foundation The offers (both in-person in canada): Amazon Base: 79k USD, TC: 112k USD (minimal initial stock vesting) Pro: Strong brand name, good learning opportunity Con: Team allocation uncertain, heard mixed experiences about WLB BitGo (crypto/blockchain infrastructure) Base: 115k USD, TC: 125k USD Many ex-FAANG engineers Smaller company but established product More direct access to leadership/decision-making My questions: How much does FAANG experience actually matter for future career flexibility (especially if interested in entrepreneurship/product roles)? For those at Amazon - how much control do you really have over team placement? Are there strategies to land on teams with: - Good WLB - Product-minded tech leads - Opportunities to understand business impact - Growth-oriented culture Or is it purely luck? For those who've worked at both large tech and smaller companies - what are the key tradeoffs in terms of learning opportunities and career growth? Especially interested in hearing from those who later moved into entrepreneurship or product roles. Any red flags I should look for during team matching/final conversations that might indicate poor team culture? Would really appreciate insights from those who've navigated similar decisions or transitioned between these types of roles. Looking to optimize for both technical growth and exposure to product/business thinking. Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Hello! So, my job's getting outsourced this summer, and I'm deep into figuring out my game plan for interviews. I'm mostly a frontend engineer, working with Angular, SCSS, and ngRX for our app. I've dabbled in backend too, even went full-stack in my team, but my backend skills aren't great. My manager supports me marketing myself as a full stack person, but I'm wondering if going all-in on full stack jobs is worth the effort during the interview prep, especially since I'm not a big fan of backend work. Then I wonder if the downside of applying for frontend jobs is that there are not that many and the barrier for frontend is lower (maybe because of coding bootcamps and it can be self-learned) so competition will be higher. Now, I'm drowning in prep work - data structures, algorithms, frontend know-how, and system design. Recently got hit with a surprise system design coding round in an interview (an internal position I arrogantly thought I had in the bag) I thought was all about frontend and DSA. Did okay, but not stellar, and now I'm feeling unprepared for every interview. I feel crippled to even apply to positions. It's a bit of a mess. So questions: Any tips on tackling system design questions, especially the coding part? Most online resources seem to focus more on design rather than coding specifics. How should I balance DSA, system design, frontend prep? What topics and how much time should I commit to each of them? Also, am I on the right track leaning towards applying for just frontend roles? Appreciate any & all feedback!!

I have been part of an MNC for last three years. During this time I have been part of four different projects. I have added following points in my resume for those three projects. Data Scientist (Apr 2022 - Mar 2023) Analyzed data from various sources to identify issues impacting growth and profitability across product and service offerings. Utilized a variety of tools and technologies to conduct data analysis and visualization. Recommended solutions to address complex business problems based on findings from data analysis. Tech Stack: Python, Pandas, PySpark, Databricks, NumPy, SQL, Excel SAP BW Analyst (July 2021 - Apr 2022) Created custom reports and flowcharts to present the raw data to clients in an easily digestible format. Utilized innovative methods to increase efficiency and decrease run times for all reports by over 15%. Network Associate (Nov 2020 - June 2021) Monitored network capacity and performance to diagnose and resolve complex network problems. Successfully resolved over 500 complex network issues, resulting in a 95% customer satisfaction rating. For the last six months, I have been part of a Django development project as a backend developer, in which I could not get any work because the use case we are supposed to work on has not been finalized yet. I am actively looking for a job switch, looking for an entry level SWE or Data role and could not think about what should I write in the experience for the last 6 months.

Before I was at Amazon in Cambridge, England. I came to enjoy the quality of life there, but recent changes made me switch to Salesforce in India. The work-life balance here is good, but even as a staff engineer, I’m having trouble finding scope - I own just a small piece of the overall system my team’s responsible for. I was able to recently get an offer from Spotify for a UK office, which expires in a month. However, it’s for Software Engineer 2, a level below their senior level. This isn’t ideal as one of my goals is to be a Staff engineer at a reputable company. Should I stay at Salesforce where I’m already a Staff level and have solid work-life balance or move back to the UK to work for Spotify?

Hi guys I wanted to ask your opinion on open source on GitHub and how valuable having a solid portfolio of contributions there can be.

I found out that I didn't get an offer from one of my dream Big Tech companies. I asked the recruiter for feedback on my onsite performance and how I could have improved and she said this: > You passed the onsite at an L4 but we ultimately decided to go with an internal candidate that the team felt had the relevant business area experience which we had to prioritize at this time. Your candidacy and interview results will remain valid for the next 12 months and if anything else comes up, I'll definitely let you know. So she said I passed the onsite, which takes a lot of the sting out of the rejection! I have 2 questions: Can I trust her? I'd like to believe I passed the onsite, but maybe I didn't. Alternatively, maybe they went with an external candidate who did better than me rather than an internal one. Can/should I still get feedback for improvement? Of my 4 interviews, I know I could have done better on the Data Architecture round. Having their description of what I could have done better is more useful than my general sense that I didn't answer their questions well enough. Is it fine for me to follow up again asking for the hiring committee's notes on my performance and areas of improvement? Thanks!

age: 55 experience: 30 year of on/off programming. 7 years of managing SWEs After joining Taro, I am motivated to reset my career and not live in depression any more. Also, I think, due to side effects of Taro, my sleep has improved a lot and I am not consuming cheap dopamine any more. My next tasks are fix my resume and get it to near-perfect. apply at Microsoft while I wait for interview from MS, start programming in Angular / Typescript, .net services c# etc. This will at least help in healthy dopamine and mind set. and help me for future non-FAANG-interviews. if I get interview call from MS, start studying DSA, else continue to do side project in Angular / C# / .net But I was thinking, at this stage, given AI popularity, should I pivot and start learning AI because even if I get real good at side projects and programming, is it a better career move to be good at programming at this stage of my life? AI is going to get better and better and just being a good programmer is not going to cut it even in near-future? Thanks for reading.

How can I prevent myself from putting myself in a job where I have to recode an entire code base after a long amount of time on a product? More specifically, how do I identify good teams that have working styles where you aren't having to refactor an entire codebase and have a frustrating work environment? In the past, I've heard that at companies like Netflix that people can just code in whatever language they want, then when folks sometimes regroup/resync with a larger product team, one team in a particular language will win, leading to large parts of other specific devs on the team to hate it because they have to refactor their code. How does one come up with certain criteria (and follow through with it) as they interview for jobs and specific companies about working styles on preferences of code base, tools, frameworks? What other core principles and criteria folks consider as they're interviewing other people (not just the company interviewing for a role) that they should consider as a part of the dev culture, structure when it comes to these types of things so I don't make the same type of mistake? And yes, I know people refactor code bases (ex. legacy projects, cleaning out whatever tech debt folks have), which people tend to hate because it's a lot of work--and that it's still bound to happen and unavoidable, but how can we eliminate cultures we dislike that are refactoring code bases as a result of a dysfunctional tech team? I want to avoid having terrible experiences at a future company I work (similar to an hackathon experience I had recently working on a small MVP can be frustrating when folks are not aligned / on the same page for things that might take to long to complete or have to refactor completely if they are not communicating well or upfront from the beginning).