Has anyone hired an interview coach before? Is this a thing? I prepped my ass off for these onsites. None FAANG, btw. Didn't get a single offer. Did 200 or so LC, read Designing data-intensive applications, designing distributed systems, and Grokking the system design interview. I honestly cannot see in any of my 20 interviews (4 onsites, 5 per) what would have killed an offer. I answered all questions and all follow-ups, and in one case my background was an absolute perfect match for the team. I think outloud, I write out basic chunks of the algorithm before actually coding, I am comparing options, all that shit. I need to understand what the fuck I'm doing that's killing my offers. yoe 5+, TC 180 :(
Is it 4 on sites or 20? Cant understand your post and title. That aside, get feedback from the recruiter. Then decide next steps.
5 interviews each dude
4 onsites, 5 per on-site. I added clarification. Recruiters don't give feedback, unfortunately. Or at least, not one has responded to me asking for it.
Did you get any feedback from recruiters? I always follow up with recruiter after result to get feedback and tips for improvement.
Nobody is responding toy request for feedback. I thought as a rule they don't do that because it opens them up to possible liability for discrimination law suits, or something.
A lot of companies do share feedback. They may not delve into specifics. But they do let you know areas of improvement. For instance, I got feedback from an interview that my system design skills didn't meet their expectations.
Maybe your soft skills? It’s common to have a strong tech background, but lack soft skills like communication, enthusiasm, etc. Not sure if this is your case.
It could be the way I answered why I want to leave. I mentioned my desire for higher comp, wanting to try a new company, and also...I did mention some drama around TC in the last few years. Like, how at Amazon if you get promoted in the same quarter as performance reviews, you lose your typical 2% raise. I hate that.
Bingo! Never bad mouth your current employer. Though this reasoning is honest, that's not what they are looking for. It makes the employer assume that you would easily jump ship for better comp in future.
Most likely the soft skills. Your posture, attitude. Did you remember to sit up straight and smile? Did you wear appropriately casual yet still nice / new clothes that fit properly? Did you look up your interviewers ahead of time and prepare specific questions for them that demonstrate a real interest in the business and domain expertise? Keep it positive and don’t trash talk previous employees or colleagues
This is great feedback, thank you! I probably had bad posture. I did smile. But I also mentioned one of the reasons for leaving as essentially, "I have come to dislike Amazon as a company". Need to stay away from the negatives and focus more on why I want to work for that team instead of why do I want to leave AWS. I'll probably try again next year. Doesn't hurt to have another year of AWS experience under my belt. This place is great except for shit comp.
You should reframe your reason for leaving. You could come across as not being a team player or as toxic. In an interview setting, it may be a bit too direct even if true.
Never knew I will be leaving in a world where someone making $180k with 5 YOE will be unhappy with their salary.
With 5 YOE you could easily expect 250K in today's market.
$250k is what Googlers make with < 1 year experience. If I made that much as an sde2 I’d be real fucking depressed lmao
“at Amazon if you get promoted in the same quarter as performance reviews, you lose your typical 2% raise. I hate that.” That’s petty and would turn off any hiring manager. You’re not interviewing for a salary, you are being interviewed for an opportunity to contribute your skills to their company. And in return you will be rewarded. An interview is a dating process. Don’t talk about how crazy your ex was and certainly don’t suggest I’m leaving him because I want a bigger engagement ring! Instead focus on how you can contribute to the relationship and hopefully fall in love and do great things together. And know that they will make a fair offer. I’d recommend not even talking about money until they propose. Then negotiate - focus on stock and benefits first, then ask for a higher base.
I'll have to do better at this question. I was trying to be honest. I guess I should have left that out.
You can be honest but you have to always spin your story to make it sound positive. Focus on the positive things that the new company/team can offer and the specific things that sound exciting to you. “My manager sucks and never promoted me” - NO “I love what Stripe is doing in X and I’ve read a blog by one of their engineers from X about technology A and B. I have a background in A and I am excited about learning B because of reasons b’, b’’, and ... etc” - YES Note that the above answer only focuses on the positives of Stripe and never about the negatives of Amazon. Additionally, the above answer lets the interviewer know about your background in A (from your Amazon exp), which can steer the conversation towards one of your strengths as a candidate. Mentioning the technology B also gives the interviewer another possible talking point and also shows you are an active and enthusiastic learner of different technologies. It is important to craft your answers in a way that you are actually guiding the conversation towards the positive.
200 LC isn't enough, try actually doing and not looking at solutions for 500+.
200 was enough for where I was interviewing.
Apparently not if you didn't get any offers. Maybe you didn't finish the questions fast enough and see a followup question?
Onsite passing rate is low. Don’t base the statistics on Blind comments. From what I have seen from my friends, the passing rate is 30% at best for someone who had gone through interviewing spree at least twice (one first joining, second moving to another company). You are competing against people who prepared twice in the last 2-3 years. I would expect your passing rate will be around 20%. Tech is hard to crack unlike a few lucky people are claiming. Don’t believe in Blind folks saying tech has so many jobs blah blah. It is hard. The salary and supply are artificially controlled by picky interviewers and ridiculous leetcode bar. It will get worse so just try hard now. Here are some companies you can try in Seattle area: UIpath, Cruise automation, Teradata, Uber.
Thanks so much, I appreciate that. I've heard of cruise automation! It sounds interesting. I may take a bit more time trying to crack harder questions. I had something like a 40/40/20 split of easy, medium, hard. There are a lot of great resources out there. If I spend a little bit of time every day for a year, I'll get better results than 3-4 hours a day for 2 months. This year is my first time interviewing externally. Been at Amazon the whole time. I didn't get any hard questions...but I might also read some algo books, too. My major wasn't CS, so it may be worth it to really buckle down on algo.
Got feedback from some of these places. One said code cleanliness (come on, it's a whiteboard and I have 45 minutes). But yeah, major reason was that shit I said about HR. I'm actually very relieved to know that I had great feedback on algorithms/coding, and decent on design, but my naive attempt to be (too) honest was what really did me in. Going to try again early next year because I want to aim for Google this time. I'll take more time to prep with LC hards, and take my prep at a slower this time as opposed to 3-4 hours a day for 2 months. This time, an hour or so a day for 6-9 months. Probably go for Google/Microsoft/Salesforce.
Well there you go. Feedback is precious and most companies won’t give it but when they do it saves you so much angst and time b/c you’ll know what to focus on. As for code cleanliness, I would read that as setting up a structure for whiteboarding.
For sure. It was a huge relief. I made sure to let the recruiters know how grateful I was for the feedback. Yeah, I think I'll have to better separate out my psuedo code from real code. I definitely recall one interview or two where I struggled to make it all fit together. Lots of arrows, caveats, etc. I'm sure it made it look difficult to read, even IF the actual code was succinct.
Im on the same boat with you, I guess the tech market is cooling down a bit, head count become less, competetion become fierce.
What are your stats?
lots of failures no offer