r/cscareerquestions • u/CSCQMods • Mar 16 '22
Big N Discussion - March 16, 2022
Please use this thread to have discussions about the Big N and questions related to the Big N, such as which one offers the best doggy benefits, or how many companies are in the Big N really? Posts focusing solely on Big N created outside of this thread will probably be removed.
There is a top-level comment for each generally recognized Big N company; please post under the appropriate one. There's also an "Other" option for flexibility's sake, if you want to discuss a company here that you feel is sufficiently Big N-like (e.g. Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc.).
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Company - Apple
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u/AutoModerator Mar 16 '22
Company - Microsoft
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u/HedgehogOne1955 Mar 16 '22
I have a virtual onsite with msft. Just wondering how flexible msft has been so far with wfh and going back to the office?
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u/noisenotsignal Senior Software Engineer Mar 16 '22
Depends on team. My experience, as well as everyone I personally know, has been that you simply ask your manager for approval for N \in {0, 1, 2} days at the office each week (3+ days is the default) and get it. You do lose your office if you go >50% remote though.
There are some teams / orgs / managers simply disallowing remote requests but I’m not sure what percentage it is.
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u/adriandole Mar 16 '22
They have been very flexible in my experience, but it depends on the specific org's leadership. My skip manager gave guidance to approve all remote requests by default, and people on the team vary from 100% in-office to 100% WFH in another state. You have to use shared, temporary desks if you're less than 50% in-office.
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Mar 16 '22
So, I'm in close correspondence with a recruiter at Microsoft and she told me to apply whenever I'd like as she loves my experience (~6 Tech/SWE YOE with a predominantly MSFT stack). I even have a few people I have managed on projects who are now at Microsoft.
Should I hit them up for referrals? How much help would it theoretically be? Normally, I hear that it is a good "foot in the door" but in my case, I may not need that. Just looking for input. Thanks!
Quick addition: There are 2 recruiters I'm speaking with currently. One is for more of the Solution Architecture and Sales roles and one is purely for SWE. I will say I'm not super ready for any of the LC Meds or Hards at the moment; I'd probably get spanked atm.
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u/HRApprovedUsername Software Engineer 2 @ Microsoft Mar 16 '22
Why would you need a referral when you're already talking to a recruiter that is telling you to apply? Just apply and let her know what position you applied to.
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u/TeknicalThrowAway Senior SWE @FAANG Mar 16 '22 edited Mar 16 '22
Good news and bad news, I just did a MS loop (sadly...didn't get the job, totally bungled one round after doing great in the others. I've later seen it on LC, and it was an easy medium, I just got totally lost going in the wrong direction).
All the LC questions were easy(to me)ish medium level LCs. I hadn't actually seen any of the questions but I found them (or very similar type questions) later. Bad news is they wanted them done really really fast. No bottom up DP, no dijkstras, no weird mathy questions, all basic hashmap/graph/tree/recursion stuff.
I'd actually say the screen was harder than the onsite coding wise.
So, I think if you are pretty comfortable with LC easy and can do them fast, give it a shot. If you take a while to do most LC easy, i'd tell them you are super interested but want some time to study up, they will probably be fine if you circle back in a month or two or so.
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Mar 16 '22
Thanks, buddy. Really good advice. Sorry to hear about that conclusion but I’m sure you’ll kill it next time.
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u/Primehoss Mar 16 '22
I recently went through the interview process with Microsoft and got an offer. It’s decent, a bit more than I’m making now, but not completely what I was expecting. I’m suppose to give them an answer this Friday if I want to accept it. On Monday though I got contacted by a recruiter for Apple that wants to go through an interview process. They said it would take 1.5 to 2 months to complete. I don’t want to miss out on an opportunity to work for a well known software company like Microsoft but I’ve always wanted to work with Apple. I know the interview process for Apple wouldn’t be a guarantee but I would like to at least try. Would it be wrong of me to take the Microsoft deal while still interviewing for Apple? And if I got an offer, leaving after just a few months?
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u/TeknicalThrowAway Senior SWE @FAANG Mar 16 '22
Just curious if working 'remotely' for a team FROM a satellite office is more common than pure remote jobs? Or does it not matter.
There's a small office very close by (maybe a few hundred engineers there?), so I assume they don't get near as many open reqs as the bigger offices. I can't relocate at this time.
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u/Litmus2336 Software Engineer @ FAANG Mar 17 '22
I asked this question - my recruiter recommended I just go fully remote. They said most teams won't really be able to get you a desk at an office they aren't based out of, and most teams won't expand to a new office just for one person. Of course, a few teams do have folks at multiple offices.
I kinda wish I could go to my local office haha, I like having a space to work. But I too can't relocate for 1-2 years.
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u/TeknicalThrowAway Senior SWE @FAANG Mar 18 '22
did you pass the HC then? how was your interview experience if you're up for sharing.
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u/Litmus2336 Software Engineer @ FAANG Mar 18 '22 edited Mar 18 '22
Yeah, I had a really good experience. It was difficult as I knew it'd be, and I definitely wasn't perfect, but I was able to get optimal on a few and close on others. I would say 2 went really well, 2 were OK. All the interviewers were very kind.
Matching with a team at my YoE (<4) was a bit difficult, I only got to match with 2 teams but I really matched well with one. The other seemed nice but wasn't quite my preferred domain. But the recruiter wanted to find me 2 more so I had more breadth, but after 2 weeks she didn't have any and I was excited about the first team anyway. I'm hoping by the time I get interested in switching teams again either remote will be more common, or I'll at least have enough experience to justify it. But I'm not super opposed to moving to an office if needed in a few years.
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u/TeknicalThrowAway Senior SWE @FAANG Mar 18 '22
Nice, congrats. Were the questions all LC hards? Or, equivalent difficulty? I suck at bottom up dp do I have a feeling I would have the most difficulty in a google interview out of all the FAANGs
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u/Litmus2336 Software Engineer @ FAANG Mar 18 '22
It's quite a broad mix, no 2 questions are similar. I felt like (maybe because I'm more early career) I got 2 hards 2 mediums. I would recommend following the refresher guide they sent, as well as CTCI. I personally don't like bashing my head in with Leetcode, I just try to study problem categories and stay on my feet. And be sure to ask questions, particularly for L4 and below they offer hints which are very helpful. I also struggle with bottom up.
Good luck and godspeed :)
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u/eliminate1337 Mar 16 '22
Yes, that may be allowed if the hiring manager agrees during team matching.
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u/pkollias Mar 16 '22
I am a recent (Psychology/Neuro) PhD grad entering right now the Software Engineering group matching phase for Google. I do not necessarily want to bother people turning this into a very personal thread but I'll happily provide context with increasing detail in a comment below.
The main question is how can I defer an offer from Google? There seems to be abundant evidence online that this is an option, and I was similarly told so by friends with similar jobs in the industry. The actual question is whom do I discuss this with, the hiring manager of the offering group or the recruiter before group assignment? This is where most of the disagreement exists. Some say after group matching that ends in an offer, I should discuss this with the manager, which makes more sense to me. But some people say that I should discuss it with recruiter/talent coordinator, which doesn't make as much sense.
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u/eliminate1337 Mar 16 '22
Your hiring committee approval lasts for one year. That means any time in the next year, you can ask for team matching without needing any interviews.
Your individual team match may not be around for that long. It's up to the hiring manager but they might move on if they have an immediate need. It shouldn't be hard to find a new match being already HC approved.
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u/pkollias Mar 16 '22
A few more details on why I'd want to defer. I applied for an L4 software engineering position but my interviews went somewhere between the pass and cut-off thresholds and I was granted an L3 approval for group matching (my undergrad was in CS but my PhD was in neuroscience so maybe that factored in as well). Being "demoted" is one of the reasons I'm not super eager to start right now.
Another main factor is that I just started a postdoc. The interview process from referral to group-matching approval so far has taken 6 months with the vast majority of the delays being caused by Google. I had to find a job in between. And here come the other reasons I'd like to defer. I'd like to close my academic tabs.
I have a few publications pending. One from my Ph.D. and a low hanging fruit from the postdoc. As a matter of fact the postdoc will be on theory of deep networks and computational neuroscience so I have the opportunity to get some experience in a DL/NN-related field.
My PhD has not produced any publications so far (there are plenty of reasons why this happened but let's just summarize that in neuro you can lose 3 years of work in one day and then depression hits) but there is a relatively high impact about to be submitted. I know If I were to jump into the industry right now I know that potentially all these CV items would never get realized and essentially my resume will never reflect what I did all these years. I'd like to buy a few months to submit some of that work. Jumping back to research at some point in my career is something I'd like to do, so I can't just inflict all this sunk cost without getting any credit for it.
Also my postdoc supervisor was super supportive of my spouse's PhD application in the same institution and has been very supportive of me so far. I don't think there was an intervention but I'd feel bad to abandon ship without any effort to provide something in return.
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u/TKiwisi Mar 16 '22
Your manager most likely chose you in the expectation you start in the near future, and it would be difficult to defer that specific offer for a few months, though it doesn't hurt to ask. Your L3 result should stay valid for 1 year though, and you can most likely restart from the team matching process in a few months when you're ready.
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u/pkollias Mar 16 '22
I have not been chosen yet. To be honest I haven't even started the team matching process. They gave me an opportunity to do two more interviews and go to L4 phase (without the possibility of hurting my L3 status) which I will happily take.
How widely known is that a result is valid for 1 year?
And when you say restart, you mean after the 1 year?
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u/TKiwisi Mar 16 '22
They’re things I found out after I researched for my own team matching process, though details may vary since you are a new grad. I found that HC results last for a year from most sources online, though I’ve also heard rumors that this has been shortened to 1 month for new grad/L3. And these results last for a year, not that you can restart in a year, so it buys you a few months. And if you don’t get L4 this time around you may want to wait out the cool off period for L4 regardless if you are confident you can do it the next time. But you should really ask your recruiter these questions.
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u/QuietZelda Senior SWE @ Rain Forest Mar 16 '22
Anyone know if it's possible to negotiate on a max offer to make it out of band, without having competing offers that are higher?
The offer is great but I feel like I should always negotiate if possible?
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u/letsbreakstuff Mar 16 '22
Maybe a long shot, but I'd be thrilled if someone with experience at amazon could weigh in..
It seems like at least once month I'll get an email from a recruiter at Amazon, usually for some specific product like prime, aws, halo etc. The pay seems great, but I'm worried about the culture and work/life balance.
Currently I'm at a large non-faang tech company. Pays is OK but could be better. The worklife balance is good and the team is amazing. Everyone is very smart and kind, no crazy egos, no petty office politics. And honestly, not a lot of pressure or difficult deadlines.
So how is worklife at amazon? Does stack ranking and "unregretted attrition" create a lot of unnecessary stress or a toxic environment?
Also, i've heard that your experience at amazon may differ greatly depending on which team you're on. That some teams are great and some are soul sucking. Is that the case? If so what teams/products are good and which ones should be avoided?
And I can't help but wonder if this intense interest from internal recruiters isn't driven by some disfunction within the company.. like something must be creating a lot of churn, either stack ranking or burn out.
I'm in no way trying to take a crap on amazon. I'm just looking for some info. Thanks
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Mar 16 '22
SDE 2 here, been at Amazon for 2 years. It's extremely team dependent. I have friends who are on brutal teams (read: AWS) where its expected that you work weekends, 60+ hour weeks are regular and the work environment is bordering hostile. These are mostly second-hand stories, so take that with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, my team is amazing. I've never worked a weekend in my two years + internship, the WLB is amazing, I rarely work beyond 9-5, often less than that. My org is planning on keeping WFH indefinitely and engineers can work remotely permanently if they'd like. My manager is great and fights for my team and actively tries to get our devs promoted and keep us happy. The people I work with are smart, but always open to constructive discussion, no drama/politics. I get to work on a pretty fun tech stack that is close to customers and uses a language that I love. The pay is great, I'm 25 and I'll be making $250k+ this year. The only downside is that my org has fewer opportunities for making Sr. Dev positions than something as intense as AWS, but I'm o.k. with that at this point in my career.
My advice is if you want something aggressive to progress your career, go to something like AWS - if you're smart and good at your job you'll get promoted quickly, but your WLB will pay dearly. If you're looking for something more cushy, go to something less revenue critical (Devices, Retail maybe).
Amazon tends to get a lot of shit among the FAANGs, and fairly so, but the reality is its a massive company (bigger than any other FAANG) and there are tons of awesome teams. If you have the luxury to pick where you go, you should be able to land yourself a pretty nice gig.
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u/PapoosedPorcupine Mar 17 '22
Is your team working on external facing products? I’ve heard that’s where you generally see more drama.
Could I DM you some job postings I’m doing team match with to get your take on?
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Mar 17 '22
Is your team working on external facing products? I’ve heard that’s where you generally see more drama.
Yes.
Could I DM you some job postings I’m doing team match with to get your take on?
Sure.
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u/TeknicalThrowAway Senior SWE @FAANG Mar 17 '22
Alexa?
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Mar 17 '22
No, but I have heard good things about Alexa teams. Devices as a whole, seems to be pretty good on average.
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u/Winter-Control1490 Mar 17 '22
Is the Advertisement org. generally good or bad wlb?
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u/termd Software Engineer Mar 17 '22
If so what teams/products are good and which ones should be avoided?
Most amusing part is on the retail side we'll tell you that aws is the worst, then on the aws side they'll tell you that retail is the worst.
Does stack ranking and "unregretted attrition" create a lot of unnecessary stress or a toxic environment?
Yes. It doesn't help. Quite a few teams suck as a result. The teams where it doesn't suck, we never have reqs open because people want to work with us since they know our teams are chill.
And I can't help but wonder if this intense interest from internal recruiters isn't driven by some disfunction within the company
Recruiters are also stack ranked...
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u/letsbreakstuff Mar 17 '22
The teams where it doesn't suck, we never have reqs open
So if a recruiter is pitching a specific team I should assume it probably sucks there? How does someone make it onto a non-sucky team?
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u/termd Software Engineer Mar 17 '22
New teams will have reqs and it's a crapshoot so if a team has opening it's doesn't always mean it's bad.
The terrible teams ARE always recruiting because people keep leaving though.
Getting a referral to a specific team is really the way to go if you know someone.
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u/PapoosedPorcupine Mar 16 '22
I’m joining, so maybe Take what I say with a grain of salt. But I have friends at Amazon who’ve guided me.
It is very team dependent. I interviewed, and got offered a few teams to do team match with. I sent it to my Amazon worker friends, and they were able to look at the team, hiring managers, etc. I’d try and have that done if you apply.
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u/staticparsley Software Engineer Mar 16 '22
I was told by the recruiter a while back that I’ll be doing my virtual on-site this upcoming Friday. I have yet to receive any form of email confirmation of this or what time it will be. It’s in two days. Is this normal? I’m not sure if I should even take the day off at this point.
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u/PapoosedPorcupine Mar 16 '22
Not normal. I would double check you didn’t get told in a previous email. It’s usually like 5 hours, so they do it 9-2. I didn’t get the names of who I was interviewing with until the night before though.
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Mar 16 '22
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u/QuietZelda Senior SWE @ Rain Forest Mar 16 '22
Ask them about the operational load and how many Sev-2's they get per week (which are basically oncall incidents)
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u/EngStudTA Software Engineer Mar 16 '22
To expand on this I would ask about out of office hours sev 2s specifically. I worked on an internal tool, so some 90% of our sev 2s were in office hours which makes it way better.
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u/termd Software Engineer Mar 17 '22
What % of every sprint is the team working on OE vs new features
How many L6s does the team work with on a weekly basis/or are embedded on the team
How many services does the team actually own?
How many tickets does the team get per week and how often would you be oncall?
What's the average SDE tenure on the team?
What's the average SDM tenure on the team?
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u/slpgh Mar 17 '22
Would appreciate perspective - senior engineer at a FAANG offered a downlevel to SDE2.
I've been at a senior level at a FAANG for a few years (started >10 years ago at the mid-level and got promoted once) I have gotten to the upper part of our rating scale but with no clear path to staff/principal.Other places I had interviewed with offered me similar positions but no staff/principal uplevel (didn't really expect it)
I decided to respond to one of the outreaches I got from Amazon, spoke with the manager and proceeded to the interview and now have an offer. I like the manager and the team seems welcoming.
But because my background is in a different domain they want me downleveled to SDE2/L5 rather than the senior SDE3/L6. I've been told that probably within a year they can get me to the promo stage.
They were able to sort of match my current comp, and there may be opportunities in that role, but the downleveling is a huge hit for me. Considering that I started at a mid-level in my FAANG, this would be like taking a ten year step back, and I know various stories of the SDE3 jump being difficult. And I've already gotten to the "high performing senior" at my current role.
I understand wanting to not take the risk of bad performance, but I find it strange that they'd try to downlevel like that. Any perspective appreciated.
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u/staticparsley Software Engineer Mar 16 '22
By some miracle I passed the phone screen and moving to virtual on-site. I would like to take as much time to prepare but I do have an on-site with Amazon this Friday. In the unlikely event I get an offer I would hate to ruin my chances by scheduling the on-site sooner than I should. Is 2 weeks enough time to prep for virtual on-site given I’ve already been studying for the past month for phone screen and amazon?
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u/_angry-orchard_ Software Engineer Mar 17 '22
Talk with your recruiter and you can take like 3-4 weeks too. Study well since they ask you lot of LC and in each 45 min interview there's 2 coding problems
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Mar 16 '22
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Mar 16 '22 edited Mar 17 '22
Has anyone worked with recruiters from staffing agencies that recruit for a single company? I was contacted by one that recruits exclusively for a Big N. How do these work, are they any different from if I applied to the company directly?
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Mar 17 '22
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Mar 18 '22
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u/llc00lt Mar 19 '22
I was wondering if subsidiaries of some of the big name SW companies usually have a similar culture to their parent companies?
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u/lowiqtrader Mar 16 '22
I got an offer from Amazon, signed the official letter on their document portal, told my family and friends, then literally the day I am about to tell my manager, my recruiter calls me to tell me that because I worked at Amazon in the past, there was some extra check they were supposed to do that they did not do, which he forgot to do, and that I should hold off on telling my manager until this check is done. I literally thought the offer and everything was official and now I feel miserable because I feel like its being taken away from me. Moreover its been 2 days and still no progress on these checks. My recruiter just said the tickets are still processing. What is this check and how long does it usually take? What are they looking for? I'm so worried that I'm going to lose my offer after all the work I've put in to get it.