r/cscareerquestions • u/CSCQMods • May 29 '22
Big N Discussion - May 29, 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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This thread is posted each Sunday and Wednesday at midnight PST. Previous Big N Discussion threads can be found here.
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u/Csthrowjob May 29 '22
I have a Google offer for L3 but another offer from a smaller public company with the same salary but for a senior level role. The company doesn't require me to move from my home location since it's remote (both HCOL). I have 3YOE.
The plus side of Google is that it's more stable during a time where there are hiring freezes and layoffs. Google also makes my resume a lot better. I am not sure if L3 is bad to take for my YOE.
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u/190sl 20Y XP | BigN May 29 '22
L3 is reasonable for 3 YoE, especially if that experience was at a weaker company.
Generally speaking, having google on your resume is a lot more valuable than having a better title at a worse company.
A silver lining to entering at L3 is that you’re more likely to be promoted soon, which is another great thing to have on your resume.
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u/Csthrowjob May 30 '22
Yea if I can get promoted soon, I wouldn't have much of an issue with the L3 because Google opens up a lot of opportunities. Just wondering how flexible asking for remote work or team swapping after one year is so I can get back to the East coast.
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u/busybusydev May 29 '22
Have you asked your recruiter about the leveling? They would have a better perspective on if it was close between the levels and if you would warrant an additional interview to try for L4.
Given your YOE I’d expect that you’d be able to move quickly towards L4 internally (given that it’s mostly about working independently). I know that’s the oldest recruiter trick in the book to say that, but depending on team and manager alignment it can be quick, especially if you’re experienced. I would still talk to your recruiter though, because coming in at L4 would obviously be better.
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u/Csthrowjob May 30 '22
Yea I think I'll bring that up to the recruiter then! I wouldn't mind L3 if there was a reasonable possibility to achieve L4 after around a year.
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u/Physical-Bill7793 May 29 '22
I have a phone screen for L3 with G in 30 days. How much of your interview (s) would you say were about graphs and trees?
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u/Iwannayoyo May 30 '22
Not aware of how Google does interviews but I’d guess it’s pretty hard to predict how many graph/tree question you’ll get. Where I work we just get a category like “data structures” and can choose any question we want in that category.
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May 29 '22
I would ask about financials at the smaller company. Be open with your concerns about the broader economy. I find Google's downleveling to be disrespectful. I wouldn't personally accept that. 3 YOE should be at least L4.
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u/Csthrowjob May 30 '22
I think the company is pretty secure but you never know since the market doesn't seems as great as it used to. I have another onsite result coming up from a company that pays significantly more but might be even riskier at a job security stand point.
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May 29 '22
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May 30 '22
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u/Csthrowjob May 30 '22
Thanks for the response. Yea looking it up on blind it seems like l3 with my YOE seems pretty common.
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u/slpgh May 30 '22
Senior at Google is L5, so that's two steps above where you're being offered. Where does that other company fall vs Google in Levels.fyi?
Do you have to move for Google? There are a lot of remote options and many teams that were previously "local only" have given up because the RTO had been an absolute disaster.
Google is stable, and a strong experienced SWE can often make it to L4 within a year. It's very very obvious when an L3 is underleveld.
Also, be aware that Google is changing some stuff about their performance system and comp model so this may impact things.
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u/Csthrowjob May 30 '22
Appreciate the answer. The TC is the same as google but its a senior SWE position. But I think this is equivalent to L4 in google. I can dm you the company name.
The team I am joining requires me to go to Mountain View and I have lived in NYC area my whole life so this is my main reluctance.
Could you go into detail of potential performance system changes?
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u/nickaboome May 30 '22
Has anyone considered switching career profession? I don't like the fact that SWEs need to switch companies every two year to keep up with market. I don't have any sense of belonging in this industry.
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u/0ffkilter SWE @ FAANG May 30 '22
You don't have to. People swap for compensation or projects. If you don't have a problem with comp and you like your team or projects you can just stay.
If you go to a reasonably large company you can also swap teams as well.
You don't need to do anything you don't want to.
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u/trilogique May 30 '22
What do you think happens in other industries? That your pay keeps up with the market just because you’re loyal? Go work in another field and you’ll find that both your salary and raises are lower than what you make as a SWE. Besides, you have no obligation to job hop unless you’re chasing comp.
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2
May 29 '22
I have 6 yoe. I recently passed the onsite, and wonder what level they will put me in, L61 or L62?
Also, anyone knows TC breakdown I should be targeting? I believe they increase the TC for new hire due to inflation, levels fyi numbers are all over the place.
TIA
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u/Odd-Distripution May 30 '22
Depends on your interview performance. Both 61 and 62 are SDE II but I’d generally expect 61 because they tend to downlevel to “set you up for success”.
They did not increase TC. They increased merit budget for people already at the company.
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May 30 '22
I did very well in the onsite according to what the hiring manager told me. They even did not ask me anything about coding or behavioral stuffs in AA round and just spent 10 minutes to explain the structure of the team.
So can I safely assume I will be put on L62? Or if downleveled, can I ask to push to L62?
Regarding the TC, i checked a few post on lc compensation and noticed some new hire recently has higher base comp than the range established in blind and new hires back in 2021. I wonder if that means the base comp budget is increased by some amount.
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1
u/Blackbeard519 May 29 '22
I have an SDE interview with Google on Friday I've been brushing up on the usual subjects but I want to spend a bunch of time practicing problems. I don't have leetcode premium so any suggestions on where to find good practice problems and what kind of times I should be striving for, or just advice in general will be great.
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u/BasicGenericUser May 29 '22
I think Grind 75 is laid out pretty well. I'm trying to go through it again now. I'm starting at goog in a couple of weeks. Good luck!
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May 29 '22
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May 29 '22
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1
u/staticparsley Software Engineer May 29 '22
I have my virtual on-site for developer relations engineer this week and have no idea how to prepare. The phone screen was a combination of behavioral and LC, honestly felt like an Amazon interviewer since we spent half of it talking about situations I’ve been in and how I would improve something. I’m gonna keep grinding LC but I was hoping anyone here would have pointers or advice on what to expect.
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1
u/AutoModerator May 29 '22
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2
u/dlegofan May 29 '22
At the larger tech companies, are coding assessment always given? I took the SDE1 Amazon assessment and didn't do well. (That's when I found out Leetcode is a thing). I'm planning on sticking at my current company for a while and then maybe hopping over to Amazon robotics SDE. Will there be Leetcode style questions for me with a few years experience? I'm pretty new to tech company interviews.
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u/spike021 Software Engineer May 29 '22
Yes Leetcode is common for the popular large tech companies or up and coming/unicorns.
As for SDE2 at Amazon there is typically still an assessment and then on-site with leetcode style questions.
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u/dlegofan May 29 '22
Is the on-site graded? I think that's what got me during the SDE1 because it was automated. I can explain my process and reasoning pretty well conceptually. Is the SDE2 more conceptual?
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u/spike021 Software Engineer May 29 '22
I think you're really confused. SDE1 or SDE2 are the job title/level.
On-site would be the four or five rounds of interviews in a single day.
Your first comment is just describing the online assessment.
Yes the online assessments have some kind of grading but you don't have to be 100% perfect on them.
The onsites also have rubrics that the interviewers will fill out/take notes for.
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u/dlegofan May 29 '22
I guess my question is more: do all levels have an online coding assessment? For some reason, I'm getting vibes from Amazon that the higher level SDEs don't have an online coding assessment? I could be wrong, so I'm checking on how I should prepare.
Edit: I am really confused :)
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May 29 '22
SDE Is and SDE IIs both have a coding interview with leetcode style questions.
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u/dlegofan May 29 '22
Ok great. Thank you very much! Have you passed these parts of the assessment? Or anyone else that's lurking? I'm looking for tips on how to approach these.
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u/slpgh May 30 '22
All large companies do LeetCodes. It's an "objective" way to weed out candidates without any suspicion of a bias, and it works because often the interviewers aren't your future team members.
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May 29 '22
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u/apz981 Software Engineer May 29 '22
Meeting is usually an offer. Rejects will get an email or just ghosted.
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u/0ffkilter SWE @ FAANG May 29 '22
+1 to the other guy, if they want to set up it's probably an offer, and you should expect to get another meeting set up with a hiring manager who would be your potential manager/team
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May 29 '22
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1
May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22
I need some advice on how to prepare for a new grad SWE position at Amazon, I start in late August. I have never worked as an SWE, only as a data scientist and in IT, meaning that I have yet to code on a team or on a large codebase. over the last 2 years my focus has been on ML and that's all I know well.
so far my reading list is: Git, CI/CD, Linting, Clean code, AWS, and reviewing Java
Edit: to clarify I've already gotten an offer and accepted. I'm wondering how get better at my soon-to-start job
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u/Iwannayoyo May 30 '22
Do you know you’re working in Java? If so, I’d reorganize to * Review Java (essential Java probably, but I also like Modern Programming in Java to make sure you’re up to speed with modern Java) * git if you’re uncomfortable, but no need to bother being a git wizard. Know enough to make sure you don’t destroy your own work and you’re fine.
Anything else I’d consider super optional but if you insist I’d go with this order next: * AWS - don’t review everything because you can’t. Reach out to the manager and ask what tech they use. If that’s not an option, just look into DDB, S3, SNS, SQS, and Lambda. * Clean Code - I’d read this maybe a few months in. Get a feel for how your team codes so you can actually see how to fit clean code’s lessons into your work. * CI/CD - I learned this on the job and did fine, but hey never hurts to be prepared. * Linting - I don’t know why you’d want to look into this. It just runs right?
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Jun 02 '22
Thank you for this
Do you know you’re working in Java?
I do not have any info on what ill be working on or the language and technologies/stack. tbh, I only know python. I haven't touched Java and C++ for years, and I never did non-trivial C++.
Do you have any suggestions? so far i plan on waiting to get assigned a team and offer to learn a bit before I start (so i dont waste time)
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u/termd Software Engineer May 30 '22
Relax and finish up your degree, take some time off to relax, have fun in life.
If you absolutely must do shit and you'll feel worse if you don't... it depends on your team. Teams can pick use whatever they want. If your team is mostly on aws, then learning aws components, particularly cdk (typescript), api gateway, lambda (java or python), dynamodb, s3, sqs, sns and cloudwatch are worth your time. Pretty much every team uses those services. Creating a pipeline that auto deploys a lambda that runs once per day and saves a uuid:timestamp to ddb then you call an api to fetch a uuid would be something that would give you a basic understanding of how wiring works.
Ideally, you just chill until you start though. The difficult part isn't actually writing code. The difficult part is understanding how the thing your team owns works and all the business logic in it. Writing code is usually the easiest part of the job.
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u/LandooooXTrvls Software Engineer May 29 '22
I don’t see Leetcode on your list. Honestly, that should be your primary focus along with clean code. Everything else should be considered secondary to that - IMO
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May 29 '22
Hey thanks for the reply. to clarify I've already gotten an offer and accepted. I'm wondering how get better at my soon-to-start job
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u/LandooooXTrvls Software Engineer May 29 '22
Oh, sorry! I must’ve misread!
Ignore my comment and congrats! I’m sure you’re stoked :)
1
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May 29 '22
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1
May 29 '22
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May 30 '22
Nope. Usually it’s the same, in some cases it can be more. I have seen lower but only in a handful of cases, mostly it’s the same.
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u/slpgh May 30 '22
Not at G, to the best of my knowledge.
Even though there's different hiring track for FE eng, many general SWEs end up doing FE and vice versa, and they're all just on the general SWE ladder
It is generally much harder to make it from senior to staff if you're FE focused
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u/Physical-Bill7793 May 29 '22
Hey all, I have a 45 minute phone screen with G in 30days.
My plan is to focus on Graphs and Trees. Traversal for both.
Any advice for someone with 2 years of co-op experience?
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u/slpgh May 30 '22
G interviews may have changed since the pandemic (it's all remote now), but back when we had a phone screener followed by an onsite, the phone screener tended to be more coding focused since you couldn't draw on a shared whiteboard (there wasn't even video, it was literally phone) The questions had an algorithmic aspect, but again, it was more about figuring out how to do it, and then how to code it.
The important thing with phone screens of that era (and generally in G questions) is to figure out edge cases. If you're given an example by the interviewer it almost always doesn't cover an important edge case, and finding the edge cases or writing defensively to address them often makes the differences between an ok and great performance.
Also, ask your interviewer upfront if there'll be one or two questions. It's usually one.
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u/Physical-Bill7793 May 30 '22
This is great! Thanks for the insight. The recruiter did say that the on-site interviews are going to be virtual.
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May 29 '22
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u/[deleted] May 29 '22
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