TikTok

I made it through 3 technical rounds at TikTok (2 Coding, 1 System Design) and had my HR round recently. The HR round was a negotiation round. I don't know if I handled it well. I am hoping that Taro can give me some insights or advice. For leveling, I have a little under 2 YOE at Amazon but I got laid off in April.

Here is a summary of the HR meeting:

Question: What level are you expecting?

Answer: I am expecting mid-level because I have good experience at Amazon and I did well in the interviews. HR made some comments about why I am not a good fit for mid-level said but said that the leveling will be set after this meeting.

Question: What other interviews do you have?

Answer: I have 2 early stage interviews lined up next week at Big Tech. I declined to reveal the companies. I said that I would cancel the other interviews if I got a strong offer from TikTok. I mentioned one of the reasons that I want to work at TikTok was the scale. HR said that if the other companies are Big Tech they would have similar scale. I didn't know what to say to that. I have other reasons for wanting to join TikTok but I didn't mention them in the meeting.

Question: What compensation are you expecting?

Answer: I dodged the question and said "I will consider any strong offer from TikTok." The compensation discussion went on for a good 10 minutes and I kept dodging the question. HR got upset after a while because I didn't give any numbers. I said that maybe we can have the compensation discussion after the level is set and then we stopped talking about it.

Question: Asked about RTO, Visa status and when I can start.

HR said they will get back to me early next week.

Given the market conditions, I bet they have several other candidates lined up for this role. Maybe some of them made it to the HR round and they negotiated less than me (level, low-numbers) so maybe they will take them instead.

Hi all, I am going to transfer to Tiktok as a lead MLE next month.

I have 2 months notice period and I was wondering if anyone has any checklists on what I should do during transition so that I can start fresh and ramp up quickly.

I come from FAANG background and going to a startup-ish culture is an exciting but scary prospect for me (especially with the reduced work life balance).

Tips and checklists of links to Taro videos or other resources are welcome. Thank you

I received offer from Bytedance where the HR asked if garden leave will be applied since I am working at their competitor (a FAANG company).

I am keen to this contract as it is for a higher seniority and the job scope seems to be more impactful than what I am currently working in.

I checked my employment contract and there seems to be no mention of garden leave or anything similar to .

But at the same time, I am hesitant to confirm with HR at the risk of revealing my intent to leave before signing Bytedance contract.

Any thoughts on moving jobs from FAANG companies to competitors?

I am based in Singapore. But would like to get your perspective on this.

I joined Tiktok coming from not such a big company & fast culture. I had two projects where I needed to read massive code bases for tasks. The code base is in C++. A language I haven't used in years. How should I go about it?

Should I spend time learning the language before diving into the code or otherwise? I feel under-confident; other engineers scan & understand code even when they don't know the language too well.

I've been struggling with onboarding at my new job.

I'm part of a new team; my only other teammate recently joined. Many related docs are not in English & the translation is weird & confusing often. This makes revamping up independently super hard for me. I try to find that concept in an English doc from any other team, and that's my way of understanding something. But it puts a lot of overhead because I basically now try to understand the work of a lot of related teams too. And often it is much more time for me.

My manager has a lot of people report to her. I had a 1-on-1, and I explained the situation. She asked me to ping her for help. I often have stupid questions, and I feel weird asking her directly. So I asked her to assign me an onboarding buddy from the related team. But from her reply, it seemed like I should talk to everyone on the team & figure it out. I think she wants me to be more independent.

Now I ping people in my team or close teams to ask for help. I have found most or nearly all people to be super-helpful, and they relate to being in the same situation once. But I feel guilty about asking people for help. I feel it doesn't do much for them. As with most, I don't have a team meeting where I could thank them & their/our manager would notice it.

How should I better navigate this situation?

I just started working at a new company. I am still going over the general onboarding process for all employees.

How should I go about introducing myself to the team & manager? Should I ping them on chat to say Hi & asking them to add me to the meetings? My whole team has about 16 members.

Thanks in advance!

Let’s say 2 companies give you different levels, but the compensation is the same. Is it better to have the lower level to have lower expectations? Zooming out, how should I think about level and its overall importance across my career.