I got laid off last November from Meta with 4 YOE (with PhD). Meta was my first job and since I got this job from PhD internship that's converted to a full time offer, I didn't have experience on the full onsite interview loops, which took me longer to land a new job. After all, I'm glad that I went through this and wanted to share my last 8 months of job search journey. I'm joining Pinterest this month. A list of companies that I interviewed with (at least a technical screen): Apple AI/ML org team, Apple Camera org team, Google, Etsy, Pinterest, Snap, Instacart, Grammarly, Wayfair, Netflix, Two TikTok teams, Cruise, a few mid-size (500-1000) AI start-ups I did a total of 10 onsites among those companies, and it started getting very frustrated after getting repeated rejections especially like 5 rounds of interviews, and total 7 rounds of interviews including the screen during the onsite. At least coding rounds were manageable because I just need to grind the LC, but the ML system design and ML theory rounds were more unpredictable to me. Sometimes I was asked to explain some old school ML concepts (e.g., what's the hyperparameter of GBDT model) and sometimes asked to explain more recent concepts (e.g., explain how LLM works) and often was challenged to stretch-think on the ML knowledge. Anyway, from the last 8 months, I caught up with many papers and brushed up my ML knowledge and system design, and my success rate and confidence gradually got better. I also found that it's extremely helpful to read all of their engineering blogs and papers if there is any before the ML interview. There are at least more than twice that the interviewer asked me about the ML design, focusing on the component that they recently wrote a paper with. Also, a lot of times they tend to ask “design search/ranking/recommendation” of their product, so doing the homework always helped. I've always wanted a new change while working at Meta and remember that thought that I kind of wanted to get laid off the day before the lay off announcement. Finding a new job and going through all these interviews were painful enough that I always found an excuse to settle down and at some point. So I started this job search with fresh mind, however, I started getting very anxious when I got my 5th or 6th rejection after onsite. During my early interview loops, I could at least pick one round of interview that I know that it didn't go well, but during my later interview loops, I still got rejected even though none of the rounds were particularly bad. Then I got an offer when I thought all rounds went really well. So I realized that that was the bar (at least in this market). Among these, the most difficult coding round was from a company named "Generally Intelligent" (take-home coding for 2-3 hours or so) and from Grammarly (75 min coding interview). The most unpleasant experience was from Apple, for both times. They both kind of ghosted me after the onsite. For one team, at least they got back to me after a while with short rejection when I followed up, and for the other team, they ghosted me forever with my numerous follow-ups.
Congrats. Was your Meta job in AI/ML, or you self studied? Crazy that Meta would layoff ML/AI talents. I would think they are considered one of the most valuable assets within the company.
My meta job was in AI/ML.
Dang, crazy
31 applications in 8 m that’s chad move
Cause it’s too little or too many? 😂
based on your post and my one shot observation I’d say too many
Congrats OP!!! QQ, what tool did you use to make that chart?
http://sankeymatic.com I also learned about this tool from someone else on blind
Thank you OP, I will pass the knowledge in the future 🥹
how’s your TC? congrats
Love the Sankey chart. Thanks op for such an informative post.
Thanks for mentioning the name, I was trying to find out what it's called! Congrats op!
Congrats. Meta brand name likely helped to even get this many interviews.
Definitely think so. Plus they're PhD with ML background so strong resume
Yep, without PhD and brand name right now, few to no call backs.
Congrats! Thanks for the write up.
Wow. Congrats
Congrats 🫡
Congratulations