I've had reasonably successful careers at some of the old top companies like Cisco, HP, etc. Given where I am I'd like to think I am doing better than average. But try as I might I've just not been able to make it to FAANG. I got called by one of A's and got dinged on the on-site with some reason like not being aligned to one of the leadership principles WTF 😀. Ok, what about the other principles that I aligned with? anyway I am looking for tips on how crack into one those companies. I am hands on guy with experience managing large multi-tier teams. I participated in hacker rank and top coder comptetions, I can answer most if not all the questions in career cup and blah blah blah. I don't even get called by the others or get dinged after the first or max second phone interview. is it just me or the success ratio for senior roles are low? looking for tips, any advice.
Leadership Principals? Sound like Amazon. Welcome to the cult.
Yeah, LP is a dead giveaway
I'd say it's mostly the leadership roles are just harder to snag. It's in your best interest to network around and build some relationships so they can help you nudge your way into that role. From the sound of it, you are probably a Director level etc. I'd say the higher up you go, the more it's about who you know then your resume.
you may be right. at G I never got called and suddenly when one guy referred me I got a call the next day. Of course, I took 25 mins for the knapsack problem and got dinged; was a director role.
I dont thing eng director gets regular interviews like that.
Surprisingly it wasn't young kids interviewing in most of the cases. only in one case, at FB, the guy asked something about one random Linux command. okaaaaay
yeah sorry to hear that. everynow and then you have the insecure types amongst the "old" guys every too trying to prove something!
20 years at the bigs. That is awesome! Come to Valve. It's gaming company with a lot of tech. Mix of old and new tech. Hardware and software. We look for folks with depth and breadth of experience. Basically trust your experience to guide you to do what's right for the customer. Give you space to choose your own project. Best of luck no matter what you decide :)
What is compensation for senior engineers in Valve. It seems I eventually will have to get hired by Valve to finish Half-Life 3 myself. ;)
You decide how much you want your salary to be. We expect folks to make good decisions. Valve is different.
success ratio for high level roles is not lower than you would expect - HR is measured on the ratio and will only bring in people when there is reasonable chance they can measure up. Speaking specifically to amzn, leadership principles are the main mechanism for hiring, so if you didn't find yourself someone already working there to coach you for the interview, you didn't prepare well enough. Wait a year and try again, and actually prepare. Being smart and competent is not enough, you have to meet the standard for every single one of the leadership principles on the Amazon website (search "leadership principles Amazon"). This is true of the others on your list too, each in their own way. Basically, you are failing their culture fit checks if you're not getting past the first call. Get a coach who has interviewed/hired people at one of those companies, and figure out how to better align your answers and mindset with the company culture before you talk to them.
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let me guess. a bunch of kids running the interviews in these companies who think experience is useless? welcome to being an "old guy" in the valley!
It ain't just the valley. :-(
I dunno finance didn't seem this bad. they were honest about wanting to make money and that was it. No hiding behind "wanting to make the world a better place" and instead having kids raise funding on a half baked prototype and then get "old" guys to clean up the mess!