Team Selection Q&A and Videos

I'm not from a strong coding background, learning Java (just to know a JVM language first) for the first time. Worked in IT industry for 4 years now in Infrastructure.

What path can I follow to land a job in a big tech (I'm also from a foreigner country) in the role that I aim to, even if it's to become a Junior or entry-level SWE?

Don't really care about decrease in pay.

As I think about my career a few years from now, I wonder if I will continue to learn and grow at Amazon or if it would make sense for me to switch to a startup. I do care about compensation as well so that may be a limiting factor in jumping to a startup. What advice do you have for someone who may be interested in working at a startup vs. Big Tech? How many years of experience should I rack up at Amazon / in Big Tech before moving to a startup?

I'm optimizing for compensation over the next 3-5 years.

What makes the most sense to target next?

Context:

Currently a senior software engineer at Big Tech in the US.

I joined this new company, and since the beginning things were little off for me. i.e.

• the manager when interviewed me I got a gut feeling that he is not a nice guy, I checked with my friend and got convinced that it's okay
• While onboarding, I talked to couple of my team-mates and they were either disinterested or complete rude to me, I ignored it thinking I might be the most stupid and inefficient one..
• While getting some sessions from senior engineer, the guy always made me feel bad about myself, about how I lacked necessary knowledge and how I should just get things.. I ignored that too thinking it's just me who is not smart enough

Since last couple of days, I talked some of other engineers and found that all my team-mates are pretty toxic and, when he shared some of the past experiences, I got now convinced that it's pretty toxic environment especially for my team. Now my question is that all this time I thought I am the problem.. but it turned out that it was not me.. I am still pretty new here and I am seriously searching for another job now, but what did I miss here..? What could I have done here such that I would have known this earlier? (I know, I could have talked to the other guys earlier but I was not so sure because I had no idea how they would react to that.. I shared my concerns only when it became unavoidable)

Given the current economic volatility and uncertainty as well as the hard-to-measure business value of cost centre teams (like infrastructure or platform), would it be sensible to join such a team?

Definitions:

Backend: Distributed Systems, scalable applications, fault tolerant systems, control plane applications, API development, uses higher-level languages like Java/Python.

Low-Level: Database Internals (Query Optimization, Transaction processing, Data/Storage engines), Compilers, GPUs, latency sensitive software, accelerators. Usually C/C++.

Which is better for long-term career growth and compensation?

I'm currently a mid-level engineer, and I've already made a good amount of progress towards senior. However, I'm looking to change teams as I don't like the work too much on my current team, and I want to minimize the progress "loss" as much as possible in my new team by finding one that sets me up well for the mid-level -> senior promotion.

What’s a good team composition for this? Do you just want a good mix of all levels? What other factors besides team composition should I look for when it comes to evaluating a team on this axis?

I’ve been feeling burnt out at my job in the sense of having barely any passion or motivation left for the work. After taking some time off on multiple occasions, I find that I fall back into the same place a couple of weeks into working again. Has anyone experienced this consistent state of feeling burnt out and were you able to overcome it? If so, how did you do it?

Hey all, I'm a new grad Data Scientist and I've been working for my current employer for about 6 months now. It's a mid-sized company so I didn't get the chance to pick the team when I first joined. I realized not that long into the job that I don't want to stay on this team for the long term, and today I just heard the news about another team actively hiring for Data Scientists. But I'm not sure if I should pursue this opportunity for a few reasons:

1. I've only been at this company for 6 months and haven't gone through a formal perf cycle yet. This means that I would be evaluated on a "case-by-case basis" and would need approval from the HRBP and my manager.
2. They are hiring for one level above my current role, although someone on that team told me it's flexible.
3. My current team is understaffed and is currently hiring as well, so there is a risk of my manager not approving this transfer. This also means I won't have enough time to prepare for the interview.
4. This is not currently listed on the internal job board (although supposedly this position was only released externally today so the internal job board might have been updated yet)

Here are a few reasons why I want to transfer to the new team:

1. Due to the scope of the work on my current team, I feel that I'm not learning as much as I'd like to. It's not very technical and relies heavily on specific business contexts. I'm more interested in improving my technical ability in writing code and building products over learning business contexts, at least for now.
2. A lot of my current work involves writing ad-hoc SQL queries to support other functions. I don't find a lot of value in this kind of work and want to invest my time in building stuff from which I can learn new skills.
3. I interned on the team I want to transfer to and really enjoyed it. I keep good relationships with many of the team members and am familiar with their work. Also, I genuinely think the work they are doing on that team is very interesting.
4. I don't see a clear way of progression on my current team. My current team was only established two months before I joined due to a reorg. Every IC on my team is brand new and my manager is brand new to being a manager as well. There are no senior engineers to learn from and I can't see what senior engineer scope looks like on our team.
5. Our team supports the sales team in client communications, which means we have very unpredictable workloads and deadlines. Sometimes I have to work very long hours and take on-call requests which can be very stressful.

I really want to switch to a new environment but I feel like my chances aren't great. It would be great if folks could share their thoughts on:

1. Should I reach out to the prospective team's manager to express my interest in this role right now?
2. Since manager approval is required before starting the interview process, it's possible that I would have to stay on my current team with my manager knowing I want to transfer out. I think it is a situation I want to avoid but also don't want to miss the opportunity because of this.
3. In general, what would be a good approach to this? And is there any specific advice?

Thanks in advance!

Hey all,

I’ve been in my team for over a year now and I’d like to change teams. In my previous companies it took a lot (of luck) to change teams (typically would only happen when orgs restructured). I’ve heard the process in google, and tech in general, is really straight forward and I’d like to get out of my org and try a different team. Would anyone be able to provide tips or guidance on how to change teams?

Thanks!

I'm currently employed at a startup where we're building bookkeeping tools. My work mainly involves Python, some database work, and a lot of business logic wrangling. Due to the small size of our app and engineering org, I don't have many opportunities to gain the necessary experience in distributed systems. I'm seeking advice on how to transition to distributed systems. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

For new grads, do you recommend starting career and living in California, despite the high living costs and high taxes?