A long rant, so apologies in advance. I worked in algo trading for couple of years and made some good moolah, but hated the Fucking culture there. Life is too short to put up with opaque, unfriendly, back-stabbing, toxic culture. I wanted to try my hands in tech, and applied to Google and Facebook; made it to Onsites for both but none converted, although Facebook was pretty close based on feedback. I feel a little dejected at this stage since in some of those interviews I made the silliest of mistakes but some were with messed up by the interviewer; and of course like a normal human I feel Fucking terrible about the ones that esp the interviewers messed up. I have some other Onsites lined up but I feel so dejected and unmotivated to appear. Anyone in the same boat! Trollers, for trolling I'll create another post, so kindly spare this one!
In my Noogler orientation group, several of us had only been accepted after our second attempt at the interview. Please try again in the future!
This is extremely common at Google.
Interesting, does Google weigh that in for results in some way?
So you messed up two interviews...there are a lot of great companies out there. If you got close at FB you must be pretty good. Go work another big tech company for a year, stay if you like it, and if not you have plenty of time to prep for another G or FB round.
What kind of good money have you made in algo trading ? Would you recommend it for somebody who wants to make great money for a couple of years ?
In other words, TC?
Would never recommend that industry in my 7 lives. Of course depends if you are a brutal person urself who values money over morality, a Fucking yes!
I think people underestimate how random and subjective the interview process is. Interviewers are just people, same as you.
This isn't baseball where you need to bat 300 to be good. All you need is 1 hit and you win the game. Try again in a year. Eventually, you will win.
Unfortunately, tick tock on the age clock!
Yeah but the good things in life are worth waiting for. Don't rush your career. Mind sharing what you were asked at Facebook and how much leetcode you did? I'm in a similar boat : wasted many years, now in finance, going to interview at FB soon. And going to fail. But I will try again in a year.
Thanks for posting. I can relate, was front office quant with a highly profitable book. But the backstabbing!! Ughhh. I wasnt coding too much before and only focused on the deal structure, so when I wanted to switch, I had little skills to offer. It took me 4 years to finally learn the skills and get my foot in the door. Make half the money I used to but happier. Also seems like making big money is possible in SV so would keep trying to progress. One feedback about interview experiences... If you think interviewers ducked up... Then you have a blind spot my friend... You don't know what you need to improve and why.
Interesting, thanks for your perspective. In your experience, how would you find what to improve in such cases. Defy willing to put in efforts!
Best is to keep interviewing and keep reading about others interviewing experiences. If you can do mock interviews with feedback with friends it's even better. Then there are a few services which help you do mock interviews, some of them are expensive but probably worth it. (like soham Mehta)
In your own line of words. Life is too short to think too much. Keep giving interviews. If you don't like backstabbing culture, don't come to Amazon
Lol, I have an Amazon london onsite lined up! Any words of advice?
And don’t go to Uber - backstabbing at Amazon is lesser than what happens at Uber - worked at both companies
It depends on level. I assume it L5. You will have to excel well in Technical skills(Problem Solving, Data Structure and Algorithm, System Design) plus need to good at Leadership questions as well. For L6, expectation will be equally good in Leadership Questions.
So there are only 2 companies in the world - I can give you the suicide hotline
Are u feeling bad I didn't appear for MS? :D Actually I did, passed the phone screen about 6 weeks ago and still waiting to hear back from the recruiter! Why are recruiters sooo shitty at MS?
Best of luck - you will get a better job , keep trying and don’t let failure get you down
It is not the end of the world. Apply elsewhere . Once you prepared for FB, you will get other jobs.