Team Selection Q&A and Videos

I am working in a product, it has been 4 years, started from level 59. Now I am at level 61 for 1 year now. I am reporting to the same manager in these 4 years. I am not excited in the current team and want some change but these factor is holding me:

Pros:

1. The product team is expanding, this time they have taken work from US and hiring in India.
2. They are promising for new challenges this year with the product with AI features.
3. Last year, this product was having visibility from CVP, now they are claiming it will be having visibility from EVP.

Cons:

1. Last year, the head of UX left the team to join outside firm and recently the head of PM has taken internal transfer.
2. Overall team culture score(known as Thriving Score) is lower than the average score of Microsoft.
3. To be honest, I don't use this product in my day-to-day life, neither my friend does, even my team mates doesn't use. But it has good number of downloads.
4. WLB is sometimes worse for a specific period.

Note: Not considering switching to other company as stocks are doubling every year here.

Should I switch in-org or outside org or switch to other company?

God, the universe work in funny ways. I've been in my current job for a couple of years and have been looking to get out basically since I started. The job was never as engineering-oriented as I wanted it to be, but my manager was really nice and I grew comfortable, so that slowed my exit a lot. I also went through an evolution in my job search, from certificate gathering to blind Leetcode grinding to job hunting over those 2 years that made me a better job-seeker.

And then finally, this week, fortune smiled on me: I got not one, but two job offers that pay decently (both comfortably above my current role) and where I would develop much more valuable skills as a Software/Data Engineer.

One is at a large financial data vendor (think Bloomberg) with 10K employees. The other is at a boutique data science and analytics consulting firm that only has 10-15 people. The latter offered actually a little more money, but not significantly more. The title at both is "Senior Software Engineer", which is good, because even though I'm actually a Data Engineer in both places, I know I'll be an Engineering-oriented one rather than an Analytics-oriented one.

But here's the twist: I'm pretty sure I want to move to Asia now. The reason for the move is personal: I have a lot of family and friends there and it's been something I've wanted to try for a long time.

So here's my dilemma: do I stay or do I go? If I don't end up leaving, then switching companies is obviously the right move. However, this is unlikely. I'm pretty sure I want to go. I cite this because making the move to a different country is a process that will take me 4-6 months, and stuff can always happen that might change my mind. Again, not likely, but needs to be said.

The more interesting and likely scenario is where I do go ahead and move in 4-6 months time. Do I accept a new job then? I think the straightforward answer is no and that's for 2 reasons: 1) it can look bad/odd on my resume if I list working at a company for 4 - 6 months prior to moving; 2) starting at a new job is usually stressful and there's a lot to learn. Moving, especially to a new country/continent, is also stressful, so why add to my stress? My current job is comfortable, so it won't stress me.

However, changing jobs also has a compelling reason which is I will learn more at my new job (whichever it is). Probably a lot more. I feel like I've stagnated at my current job and haven't learned the best and latest tools in the DE space: Spark, Airflow, Docker, Cloud. Changing jobs will give me that exposure, and 4-6 months is not nothing! Heck, university co-op terms are only 4 months! Plus, if go to the consultancy, I might get assigned a project that is only 4 months (or fewer), so I might be able to add value before the move. So the "odd-look" on my resume could be totally offset by the learning/growing I do and the tools /projects I'm able to add to my resume as a result.

To answer the question of whether I can take my job with me, I'm pretty skeptical, particularly for the big vendor. They want me in the office 3 days/wk, and on top of that, I will have been there max 6 months by the time I go. Not prime time to ask to relocate. Plus, I'm pretty sure the role is tied to my current location, so it's almost certainly a no. The consultancy has greater chances, but even there, not sure they'll want someone to continue working for them who can never come in and who's in a different timezone.

So that's a wrap! I think I gave a lot of context, but happy to provide more if needed!

Thanks :)

For example: If an organisation does not value quality code but no. of features shipped, I feel it would eventually face difficulty in adding new features. Thoughts?

Large tech companies used to provide a sense of stability and financial security, but with falling stock prices and layoffs everywhere I wonder if joining a hyper growth late-stage startup with a growing business and hefty pre-ipo RSUs is a better choice?

I have been working as a backend engineer for around 6 to 7 years, splitting my time between India and the UAE. Recently, I've come to the realization that I don't derive much enjoyment from software engineering. Also, I don't plan to stick to current startup for long as I don't see much future ahead. Consequently, I am contemplating pursuing an MBA with the aim of transitioning into either product management at major tech companies like FAANG or management consulting at firms such as McKinsey. I don't have a strong preference for either career path; my primary consideration is which one offers higher compensation in Europe.

Question:

1. After obtaining an MBA from a top business school, which role typically commands a higher salary: product manager or management consultant?

2. If I were to continue in software engineering and attempt to transition to a position at a FAANG company in Europe, which role would likely yield the highest income: engineer, product manager, or management consultant?

3. Can I get breakup of salary?

I acknowledge that these questions may seem unconventional, but at this juncture, my main focus is on maximizing my earning potential as I navigate my career path.

I just watched Alex’s ”Level Up Your Code As A Software Engineer“ course. I wanted to ask about the first portion of the “Better Code Strategy” module.

A part that resonated with me is where Alex said he sees many junior devs fall into a trap of full stack when trying to specialize, which hinders them in the long run. It makes total sense that people would rather hire a 9/10 on front end than a 5/10 at front and back. I was in this situation at my previous employer - new grad role with a 4 month ramp up program. I didn't do so well on front end in training, and was told that I’d be placed in a back end role, so it “wouldn’t matter anyway”. Guess who got placed doing front end work? I had barely any support so I had to figure out everything myself. I was the only front end person on that team - the only other dev there was an L6 in back end. I also wasn’t good at communicating back then, so I was hindering the team a lot. 9 months later, I started handling front end. And right when I got good at handling front end tasks myself, I was told the architects wanted the apps my team was working on to make API calls to the backend rather than mid tier… so the team shifted focus to backend. I lost all my gains on backend by then, so that sucked. Another learning curve, within 2 months I gained independence. A week after I was told I was doing really well, I was laid off. Many people at the company outside of my team voiced that they put me in a "bad" position. I also point the finger at myself, because there was a lot that I needed to take accountability for.

Eventually, I got another job, doing database work. When I look at SQL, I see consistency in SQL and other coding languages. APIs, cloud, data, it all needs databases! To understand the world of code, it’s like everything draws back to databases. In my current role, as long as I pass the onboarding phase, then I can achieve excellence anywhere I go in my career with incredibly transferrable skills. Although I feel like I found where I’d like to dedicate time to specializing to get to the upper echelon of software engineering, I noticed I’m somebody who doesn’t mind what I do because I like everything I’ve seen so far. That’s why I figured to go for the niche that is “best” for all around career growth. With this in mind, what do you think the best fields to specialize in are?

I'm in the team matching process for an E4 position at Meta. I've reached out to numerous friends at Meta for team recommendations, but responses have been limited, possibly because most of them are at the E4/E5 level and not really connected to hiring decisions. If someone asks me about if there's any good teams hiring in my current company, I'd have a hard time answering it.

I’ve started cold-messaging managers on LinkedIn but haven’t had much success yet. My intuition says it might not be too fruitful because 1) people don't check LinkedIn very often, 2) they might be hiring previously but not hiring now, 3) they are hiring for specialist positions but I'm generalist.

Then, are there benefits of reaching on my own? Are there any success stories from contacting managers versus going through recruiters? I'm not too worried about not having a match, but I'm just trying to optimize to get a best outcome.

edit: got some responses from my friends. I think I'll wait to see if any leads from my personal network can result in something :))

What aspects/criteria should I consider when it comes to staying in a company vs switching companies vs switching teams internally? (Keeping in mind of How often is switching companies healthy?

Follow up: How hard/easy it becomes as and when we grow further in career (keeping in mind about senior roles in next company/family etc.)

I switched jobs ~4 months ago and switched teams (not voluntarily) after ~1 month. My eventual goal is to (voluntarily) internally transfer into the AI org once I'm eligible.

During a 1:1 with my skip manager, I mentioned that my current team didn’t have much opportunity for impact. He floated a meaty project in a different org and asked if I was interested. Previous question . Let’s call this option 1. Afterward, I spoke to my direct manager, who presented opportunities in the other team that he directly manages. Let’s call this option 2.

Now I'm trying to decide between these options.

Pros of option 1:

• More technically interesting
• Platform/infra play that will eventually integrate with every single product => project has large scope

Cons of option 1:

• Not sure whom I'll work with
• Not sure how much support I'd get. (Good thing if lots of scope; bad thing if I'm flailing alone)
• Org structure tbd: although my skip asked if I want to work on this, he’s loaning engineers to another org to fund the initiative.
• Uncertainty re: how well defined the work is

Pros of option 2:

• I know there are things that I can start working on tomorrow that are time-sensitive and needed for an upcoming product launch.
• My EM manages this team and is responsible for the overall delivery. He seems to care more about this new project/team than my current team.
  • It sounds like my EM would rather that I work on option 2 than option 1
• Product surface is high-visibility and therefore affords opportunity for impact

Cons of option 2:

• I'm less interested in product / user-facing work, even though it's high-visibility

With all this in mind, does anyone have advice on which option I should pick or things to keep in mind?

Thanks for reading this far!

I just started my first job out of college as a Data Scientist over a month ago. The team I got assigned to was formed just recently after a reorg and is somewhat of a mess. I feel like our team is responsible for a lot of the repetitive, low-value, and uninteresting work (i.e a lot of boilerplate SQL with inefficient cross-functional processes) that other teams don't want. Also all the ICs on our team are either new to the company or new to this product line so the team has been struggling trying to ramp up. We also have to deliver projects to our internal clients under very tight deadlines so the stress level is always high. However I do love the company and my internship on another team last year was great, so I would like to stay in this company for at least the next 2-3 years. I know the best thing for me right now is probably to keep my head down and become good at my job. However, it would be great if I can get some perspective on how to navigate this situation and stand out under this kind of circumstance. What would be the best for me both in terms of short and long-term growth?

Thanks so much for taking the time!

Hi, I have joined Goldman Sachs recently (4 months back) and almost close to deliver my first major project (end of week). My main work is in creating data pipelines or using in house sql tools to gather data in various lakes and warehouse for other tools to use them. The Tech part of the whole firm seems super unorganised (they never use agile or change management in past 6 years for tracking work) having so many in house legacy tools, never having generic view of the problem to create generic solution and half the time doing manual reconciliation or data search for expected data fields with super high learning curve.

I feel I should go for switch. What are some of the points I should use to analyse the team and the firm for switching so early? My team is supportive to help me but they are always under pump. In my last company, we were about to be laid off, so I didn't need to evaluate company for switch.

My company recently changed my remote role to in-person and I have to move cross-country.

I started interviewing for the few remote companies that are left and got an offer.

My problem is that I really like my company and my team. It's a midsize company with about 500 engineers or so. I'm wondering if people have any suggestions / tips on how to make a decision in a case like this. For me, being remote is important since it enables me to live near my family right now, but my career progression is also important at this moment and I can always go back to remote later in my life. Thoughts on this?

I also wonder if I can leverage this offer and ask my company for an exception. My team really needs me since I'm the team lead with deep knowledge about a lot of our new services and it can kill some of our projects completely, at least for 6-12 months.

Put on an exciting Staff level project for the last 6 months. Now, asked to make a tough choice - move out of Org or stay in current Org and give up scope.

Pros of moving:

• Scope: getting multiple jr level engineers to carry out the scope I created.
• Exciting product.

Cons of moving:

• Current manager turned down the scope expansion.
• Have built relationships within current team. Enjoy working with them (more familiar)
• Less depth AI/ML work but more product heavy (which is high impact as well but slightly less interesting from ML standpoint)
• Lots of unknowns with new team - unknowns beyond staff scope IMO

TLDR; What would others in the same situation recommend? From taro courses, Option 1 seems better. But there are unknowns especially with current manager refusing the offer.

How can I avoid being assigned a manager who is managing people for the first time? This happened to me and my colleagues multiple times and it was always extremely stressful and unpleasant to work with someone who is managing people for the first time.

I know this would never happen to a staff engineer or a tech lead, but I'm mid-level.

Should I ask to move to another team? What reason should I give for wanting to switch teams?

I work as a contractor for a big fintech in the USA. This fintech does not allow contractors to lead new feature development regardless of seniority (not explicitly, FTEs have separate sprint planning and meetings).

We (contractors) only work on research tickets and bugs.

This is frustrating. Should I change company?

Considering that multiple candidates are under consideration, when speaking to a Hiring Manager during team match at Meta, is there something one can do to maximize their chances of getting picked during the Team Match call? It feels like a lost cause otherwise if you have put in all the effort to clear the interviews, but do not successfully match with a team. Apart from showing the excitement, and being inquisitive during the call, what are some qualities in a candidate that could stand out?

Can you please share some overview about the company, benefits, projects. I have an offer with the company.

I got offers from 2 companies. Company A is a unicorn while company B is a well-funded series B startup.

I need to go back to my country to serve in the army for a year. Company A doesn’t have an internship program and has essentially asked me to either pick the army or the company (also in-person). On the other hand, company B has an internship program and can do remote work. My goal is to be able to return to the US and work full-time after serving in the army. I might be able to get a 1-year deferral from my home country, though that would take a lot of effort and chances of success are low. I’m a dual citizen with Canada so managing TN visa is easier compared to H1-B.

My military duties start in late Aug 2025. I have several options I’ve come up with:

1. Give up entirely on company A. Intern at company B for summer ‘25 and hope for an RO for ‘26 new grad while going to the army.
2. Work at company A for 3 months. Work remotely at company B while I’m in the military and use company B to get back into the US. The workload would be extremely high and I doubt that it’d be sustainable. Hopefully crush it at company A such that they’ll want me back (not sure how likely this’ll be). Worst case at least company A would be a brand name on my resume and my work experience at A would be more like an internship (would this be a viable argument?).
3. Defer my military duties to Aug ‘26, work at company A from Jun ‘25 - Aug ‘26. When I come back, hope that I do well enough to return to company A.
4. Defer military duties to Aug ‘26. Intern at company B for the summer ‘25, then work for company A from Aug 2025 - Aug 2026 (so barely hitting the 1-year vest). Start military duties in Sep 2026. By then I (hopefully) would’ve gotten an RO from company B, and I can start working remotely for company B. The workload would be extremely high and I doubt that it’d be sustainable.

My main concern is that the job market is so hard right now that it’s not like I can wake up and get a job when I want one. Company A is also my top choices during this job search. My fear is that going to the army will close the US door for good. Would like some advice on ranking these options.

I've been a software engineer in India for 8 years, working with reputed companies. My previous company (A) was an Indian startup that grew significantly during my 5-year tenure there. I learned quickly as a junior and mid-level engineer, often handling urgent issues. Despite frequent deployment failures, it never hindered our release pace. However, after 5 years, I felt burned out due to poor work-life balance, especially after getting married, and the pay wasn't competitive.

I moved to my current company (B) about 2.5 years ago, drawn by a 100% salary hike, better work-life balance, and excellent perks. But I soon noticed a strong cultural shift. The engineering quality at B is not on par with A, and their systems are less mature despite being in the same domain. I saw this as a chance to improve B's systems using my experience, but progress was slow. The company seemed more focused on appearing as tech leaders rather than actual tech innovation.

Initially, I had a supportive manager, but my feedback on engineering practices and processes led to tension. Over time, my manager avoided interactions with me. Now, the team dynamics are strained. Juniors respect me, but peers and seniors, even recent joiners, view me negatively, questioning my teamwork. Bureaucratic politics from new tech leads and senior managers, who came from the same previous team, add to the problem. My manager, caught in this new dynamic, no longer supports me and avoids our 1:1s due to their negative nature, although she now wants to rebuild our relationship as she claims that she has reflected over it after she got a break from everything after few weeks' of leaves.

The toxic environment has pushed me to prepare for other opportunities, though it's made me wary of company cultures. I don't want to join startups due to their poor work-life balance, but I seek a role where I can spend 60% of my day learning valuable tech skills without unnecessary politics. The office environment has turned very hostile for me where anything I try to say gets taken in negative light. This is affecting my mental health, but I'm trying to stay here until July for my stock vesting.

I'm struggling to stay hopeful about the software industry and would appreciate any encouragement. Thanks!

Background : Been working at a Big tech company for the 1.5 years. But recently made a sub-team switch within the larger team, 6-months ago. We're currently working on a greenfield project.

Question : How do you go about finding / brainstorming work with high leverage, or that increases the team's productivity ? I often find myself in a state where work is mostly passed down by manager / TL. I'm looking to make a mindset shift where I can start coming up with ideas, and proposing things myself.

I just received a team matching survey for my upcoming Meta internship and had a few questions.

• What is the main difference between "Product Infra" and "Infra Platform"? Both seem to relate to backend API development, but is there anything specific I should be aware of?
• Is "Web Product" mainly frontend development, or is there also some backend work with APIs?
• Are there any specific orgs you would recommend I indicate preference (or avoid) as an intern?

I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

I have spent 5 years at my current company with this break down of time:

• 2023-2024 manager for 4-8 people doing web development for internal tools. Some backend platform work in node.js.
• 2020-2022 Android native development, junior to senior IC, product focus. Some backend node.js work.

As an IC I spend tons of time coding, writing design docs, and learning and practicing Android native development. As a manager I have spent 25% time max on learning web development and have been primarily people managing or tinkering with the backend.

As an Android engineer I got a big tech offer for a mid level position, but declined. I love Kotlin and feel like I could pick up where I left off with Android at a big tech company mid level, or senior at a start up.

Would you agree that is the best approach for my next role? How would you put this on your resume? 4 different roles broken down by level and focus - or if I want to do android next could I have my tag line be "Engineering Manager, Senior Android Engineer"

And then in the bullet points under that I could include the fact that I also did some web and backend work, so they can see that wasn't my 100% focus. Also I will say to the recruiter that I've done the most with Android but most recently was not working with it.

How would you approach this?

I was a former startup founder and companies like FAANGMULA (Meta, Google, Apple in particular) have reached out to interview me for senior SWE positions, how should I chose any one company (these options or others), that I think might want me to recreate the type of IP that was in my startup paying me a salary instead of acquiring me (if I were to do my company again), which they can cheap out on? If my goal is to have my own company again someday, should I work somewhere else less related to my expertise (just need it to pay the bills for a few years before trying again)? Or do I go somewhere, think I can learn, won’t necessarily get promoted or get paid more and sacrifice my IP that these companies (or other smaller startups), could actually end up owning?

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