Finally finished my job hunt after 4 months, and wanted to share my thoughts on the state of the job market. For some background I had quit my last job without a new role lined up and went traveling for several weeks. I mainly focused my search on early stage (seed to series C) startups as they are the main places hiring currently and was looking for a remote role. This was my first time interviewing at a senior level: Applied: 200 Recruiter Screens: 70 Technical or Hiring Manager Screens: 50 On Sites: 20 Offers: 2 Prep: - Coding: blind 75, and most of neetcode 150 (mostly neglected DP and bit manipulation) - System Design: alex xu, grokking the system design interview, and all the youtube mock interviews I could find - Behavioral: Used the STAR method to craft a response to every behavioral question I could find Findings: - applying directly through linkedin, indeed or company websites mostly just ended up in a blackhole and was a general waste of time - Direct reach outs by recruiters over email, linkedin, wellfound, and Work at a Startup were significantly more likely to result in a interview - recruiting agencies; even if the original job they reached out about isn't a good fit, they usually have a portfolio of companies they are recruiting for that might interest you. They also helped me find a lot of places that were not publicly advertising; or helped get me cut to the front of the line for interviews. Note a lot of agencies have been created this year due to recruiters getting laid off, so don't expect too much from most of them. - most open role were for in-person or hybrid in the Bay area. - your experience needs to closely mirror the job description more than in the past. There's a lot more competition out there so companies can afford to be more picky. - you have to perform PERFECTLY on every single interview to have a shot and even that might not be enough. Unless you are marked as a strong hire at every round, someone else well. - non-leetcode coding interviews were harder than leetcode interviews - The technical interviews are the easiest stage to clear, system design was the hardest to clear at a senior level - for behavioral interviews, you need to make sure to give the interviewer a greater idea of what it's like to work with you and preempt any doubts that they would have for a new member on their team. - Some engineers just suck at running interviews and there's nothing you can do about it. - interviewing is a full time job between prep and interviews. Conclusion: As toxic as Blind can be be, I appreciated seeing that I wasn't the only one having difficulty, and it was highly motivating to see other people persevere. I learned a lot about interviewing, and feel much more confident about it now. No matter how many rejections you get; you just need one yes. Wishing everyone that's looking for a job good luck and excited to see you nab some massive offers and brag about it on blind. YOE: 5+ Prev: $150k + startup equity (remote) New: $195k + startup equity (remote) Note: Many of the 300k+ offers you see are for private startups so the only right valuation for equity lottery tickets is $0
🎉🎉🎉
Congratulations 👏🏼
Thanks for giving it back to the community
Congratulations 🎉
Would like to know about recruiting agencies. How did you find them and how did you know which to trust cause everyone reaching out to me are based overseas and can’t seem to trust Bdw Congratulations OP!
They all reached out via LinkedIn. Just took every call and chatted them. Didn’t run into any overseas ones
Congrats, op. As far as interviewing goes, I accept and participate in interviews even when I’m not looking for a job. It’s like a muscle and the more you exercise it the stronger it becomes. Doesn’t hurt to keep it at least a little strong.
I also find system design to be the hardest interviews. I'm currently going through Alex Xu, can you link the most useful youtube resources in your experience?
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1562
Horrible Netflix ML interview experience
Tech Industry
Yesterday
708
East Asian Men don’t talk to me bc I’m Vietnamese
India
Yesterday
988
What do vegetarian Indians eat for protein?
Work Visa
Yesterday
625
How many of you in EB-2 India category think of going back to school for PhD and getting a bunch of publications?
Tech Industry
Yesterday
1575
I do tech screens at Google. AMA
Would you help me do a mock system design interview
Sorry
Check out system design mock interviews at meetapro, prepfully, interviewingio, pramp. Consider it as investment. The reward would be offers and bigger packages.