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Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

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Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#71

Post by bradleyjg »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #66
bradleyjg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

levels.fyi is currently showing $466k median offer total comp for L6 (staff SWE) at google. Who is paying $395k-$420k to IC hires without FAANG style interviews? The only other companies paying that to IC hires that I know of are in the financial industry and that interview process is even worse.

What is a L6 in real world terms? where would they fit on the GS scale (I may or may not) be applying for a GS15 equivalent in the UK Grade 7 or maybe 6 It would be interesting to see where that fits in a FANG context

It’s above the level that enterprises have historically promoted ICs. Thirty years ago at Oracle or HP the position wouldn’t have existed—-you’d either have to go into management or you’d be stuck at senior engineer.

In government terms the closest thing I’m familiar with is the assistant US attorney chart which does extend reasonably far without needing to hit the supervisory level.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#72

Post by otras »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #46
usaar333 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't expect frontend to get random DP questions at any company (well you never know with Google..) I interviewed a couple of years ago at Lyft (for a backend team) and definitely got FAANG-class systems whiteboard questions.

Google doesn't hire front end software engineers specifically. They hire general-purpose leetcoding machines (e.g, people that can can crank out DP problems), then assign those people to work on front end tasks.

For a data point, when I applied and interviewed for a frontend-focused position at Google ~1 year ago, I had the option of one of my interviews being a front-end specific interview that would focus on FE rather than algorithms.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#73

Post by username90 »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #66
bradleyjg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

levels.fyi is currently showing $466k median offer total comp for L6 (staff SWE) at google. Who is paying $395k-$420k to IC hires without FAANG style interviews? The only other companies paying that to IC hires that I know of are in the financial industry and that interview process is even worse.

What is a L6 in real world terms? where would they fit on the GS scale (I may or may not) be applying for a GS15 equivalent in the UK Grade 7 or maybe 6 It would be interesting to see where that fits in a FANG context

Salary wise GS-15 would be around L3 (junior).

Responsibility wise GS-15 looks to be around L5 based on how many engineers have achieved it (I assume those earning $140k+ are GS-15):

https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/computer-sc...

https://www.federalpay.org/employees/occupations/general-eng...

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#74

Post by username90 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #65
peferron wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's definitely not that hard, and contributing to LLVM/Rust/V8 is not a requirement either (I would still recommend it, but mostly because it sounds interesting and you would likely learn a lot). Source: interviewed with 3 FANGs a few months ago without any significant open-source contributions, got L6 or equivalent offers from all 3. I also don't have a CS degree, for anyone who…

When I interviewed at Google they told me to come back when I had more open source contributions. I already had hundreds of thousands of lines in a prominent open source systems project at the time, so they must really want a lot. The hiring bar at these places is pretty astronomical. Realistically it’s going to be well out of reach for a majority of even the very best programmers in the world.

In my experience the resume screen is a lot tougher if you want to work for them outside the US due to very low supply per demand.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#75

Post by [deleted] »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #4

There are companies that will pay near FANG levels (maybe 10-15% haircut) without subjecting yourself to onerous completion of hundreds of LeetCode problems. There are other options, and we should be aware of them. You'll still need to prove you can code, but the questions we ask have practical application to our codebases: we use recursion and trees, for example, so we ask questions about those. Other companies will…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#76

Post by [deleted] »

6ue7nNMEEbHcM wrote: post #53

If I can suggest something - don't neglect physical training. You will need a lot of endurance (both physical and mental) to go through some of those onsite interviews. Also take breaks if possible. As to resources - as many have said earlier - leetcode.com this is basically the place to go for problems to practice and there is also really great community. When practicing problems and analyzing answers in the beginni…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#77

Post by coldcode »

As a lead engineer at a non-tech company as least as big as many of the FAANG companies I am responsible for things that make 8 and 9 figures annually (mobile), but I never had an interview anything like this here at all, because I was hired based on personal reputation at a previous employer. I bet I would fail miserably at these kinds of interviews because I would not prepare in any way; I know what it takes to ship things in all sorts of ridiculous circumstances, with too few people and enormous continuous changes under challenges that you would never see in a big tech company. I am not sure there is fair way to tell from an interview what I am capable of but my present org knows what I can do and counts on me doing it every time.

I wonder how many people are missed in interviews who would make a big contribution to an employer but are lost in the interview process. Often skills needed for shipping quality applications are likely not visible if people only focus on raw programming ability. Maybe it's simply too hard to identify in interview form so everyone just looks at how you write code.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#78

Post by bump64 »

coldcode wrote: post #77

As a lead engineer at a non-tech company as least as big as many of the FAANG companies I am responsible for things that make 8 and 9 figures annually (mobile), but I never had an interview anything like this here at all, because I was hired based on personal reputation at a previous employer. I bet I would fail miserably at these kinds of interviews because I would not prepare in any way; I know what it takes to shi…

I am in the same boat. Got my current job just by reference by people that know me and I didn't have an interview at all.

On regular basis I am faced with challenging technical problems related to things that I haven't done before and then with careful research, planning and execution I solve them and our product is going forward and the company is growing so I assume we are doing the correct things most of the time.

And then when I hear from friends stories from their interviews I really get scared that if I apply today I would fail...

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#79

Post by notacoward »

username90 wrote: post #74
chrisseaton wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I interviewed at Google they told me to come back when I had more open source contributions. I already had hundreds of thousands of lines in a prominent open source systems project at the time, so they must really want a lot. The hiring bar at these places is pretty astronomical. Realistically it’s going to be well out of reach for a majority of even the very best programmers in the world.

In my experience the resume screen is a lot tougher if you want to work for them outside the US due to very low supply per demand.

It also depends on the level you're interviewing for. If you're shooting for a mid-level or even semi-senior role, that's very different than if you're shooting for a "has industry-wide impact" kind of role. In the latter case claims of prior impact will be carefully scrutinized to weed out poseurs and liars.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#80

Post by chrisseaton »

notacoward wrote: post #79
username90 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience the resume screen is a lot tougher if you want to work for them outside the US due to very low supply per demand.

It also depends on the level you're interviewing for. If you're shooting for a mid-level or even semi-senior role, that's very different than if you're shooting for a "has industry-wide impact" kind of role. In the latter case claims of prior impact will be carefully scrutinized to weed out poseurs and liars.

Yeah, it was only a new-grad, entry-level position, and they still wanted a huge volume of open source contributions. I don't know how most people would achieve it - mine were from internships and they still weren't enough.
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