Went to HC without team matching since they were low on head counts. Recruiter mentioned that he got a "soft" approval from a HM. Passed HC last week and they recommended L3. I am now waiting to find a team and had a few questions: 1. What does the team matching stage entail? How should I prepare for this stage? 2. If I can't find a team in Seattle/Kirkland, would the recruiter be able to do a team match at MTV or other offices instead? 3. It looks like they are low on L3 head counts for Seattle/Kirkland. Does anyone work in or know of a team that is looking for L3 SWEs? Any good teams to look out for in the Seattle/Kirkland area? Thank you YOE: ~3.5 (smaller startups) TC: $100K
1. Team matching is not interview. Ask questions you care about, e.g. scope, tech area, team composition, work dynamics, etc. 2. Yes. Alternatively you can choose to wait longer (a few months) and see what comes up in those locations, if you’re not in a hurry. 3. Define good team first.
Thank you for your reply @relus. I will keep 1. and 2. in mind. For 3., I am looking for a high impact, collaborative team with good learning opportunities. I know this is quite generic but I currently work on a product that my family and friends (and a lot of other people) use and enjoy and that gives me great satisfaction. I would prefer a customer facing product but not a huge deal if it's not. From reading some of the posts on here, it seems like promotion at Google is in some way tied to your performance and your team's impact and hence, I put impact as #1.
Looks like only 1 team in Google Cloud is interested for now and the recruiter is pushing for that. What would be the risk of waiting a couple months? Is it expected that headcounts will get replenished by then? Also does your interview performance determine which teams would be interested or is it mostly based on experience for industry hires?
It’s your impact on the project and the project’s impact for the company. For entry levels it’s mainly the former. If you’re driven, you may have more advantage on small/boring projects because others aren’t as passionate and you can deliver some features all by yourself. Velocity is the key metric for L3, independence for L4. User/revenue impact isn’t much relevant until L5->6 promo. Having said that, if you’re motivated by consumer facing product, consider chrome or android. Big money figures, ads. Large scale systems, cloud infra. And there’s always cloud AI that 9 out of 10 new hires express strong desire to join.
Duo
Thank you. Will ask my recruiter about that team. Do you know if they have any openings?
@ruhsooje. Do you mind sharing why did you suggest Duo ? I think Duo/meet org has gone under re-org for couple of times. Honestly just want to know your thoughts regarding Duo/meets