From laid off to 6 offers and 2x TC

Sorry this post is late, I know some people were waiting for me to write this TL;DR: Got laid off, was sad, studied hard, did a bunch of interviews, did a bunch of back-to-back onsites, got 6 offers, doubled my previous TC This is my story on how I went from someone that never leetcoded or done a real job search to someone with 6 offers (including a couple FAANG). All of this happened in the span of 1-1.5 months. This isn't meant to be a humblebrag, I just hope this helps someone and offers some guidance to those who may be in a similar situation. Warning: Long post ahead I. Context II. Preparation aka training arc III. Phone interviews IV. Onsite interviews V. Interview tips VI. Offers VII. Conclusion I. Context (you can skip this part) At the beginning of the year, I was laid off after 3 years at my first job. Even though it was company-wide and I was told it was not performance based, I felt like a total failure. After spending a day feeling sorry for myself, the adrenaline kicked in and I started thinking about my next move. I updated my LinkedIn (tbh I don't think your profile matters much, mine's pretty barebones) and started looking at job postings. I used a spreadsheet to keep track of all the companies I applied to (and potential companies). I highly recommend this, it makes a lot easier to stay organized when you're applying to a bunch of companies at once. Despite being highly motivated, the first couple weeks were difficult mentally. There were many nights I would just lie awake and worry for hours. There were times where I felt like my life was over (looking back this wasn't rational, but anxiety just be like that sometimes). Just know that if you ever feel like this - things will get better. "Gotta have opposites, dark and light, light and dark in a painting. It’s like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come." - Bob Ross II. Preparation I had no idea how to prepare or study. This was my first real job search, since I got my previous job by being converted to full-time from an internship. I got the internship from my school's career fair and never had to leetcode. My friend who recently joined Google gave me some really great advice (if you're reading this, thank you) and gave me tips on how to prepare (pretty much told me to read CTCI and Leetcode). He even referred me to Google and helped me prepare for the phone interview (I'll talk about how this went below). Since I was interested in full stack/front-end engineering roles, my preparation methods might be different from what you need. YMMV Here's a breakdown of how I studied: 1. CTCI Only read the Intro to Chapter 10. Skipped Bit Manipulation and Math. Did all the Big O problems. Did 2-4 problems from the end of each chapter and made sure I understood the solution --- 2. Leetcode Sorted by Frequency, started with easys then worked my way up to mediums. I only did a few hards that were high frequency. If you're interviewing for a particular company, it helps to do the high frequency ones from that company before your interview. Over the span of 4 weeks, I solved about 60 total, mostly mediums. ~50 I did on my own, ~10 I read the solutions and re-implemented it. Why only 60? After a certain point, for every solution I learned, it felt like I forgot previous one. In my opinion, really making sure you understand why a solution works is more important than just speedrunning hundreds of problems. After doing enough, you'll start to see the same patterns come up and cramming more Leetcode had diminishing returns for me. I often went back and re-did previously solved problems to make sure I remembered how to do them. Memorizing a solution is like giving a man a fish. Learning how to solve certain types of problems is like teaching a man to fish. --- 3. Javascript/front-end concepts I went through these questions: https://github.com/h5bp/Front-end-Developer-Interview-Questions https://github.com/ganqqwerty/123-Essential-JavaScript-Interview-Questions Made sure I completely understood closures, promises, currying, and other common JS interview topics. For the concepts I didn't fully understand, I watched YouTube videos that explained them. --- 4. Design Didn't study too much for this (since I'm only 3 YOE), but I did watch a few videos and skimmed the system design primer (https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer). Also read the Design chapter in CTCI. --- I had to cram all my studying into a few weeks (while doing phone interviews) which I wouldn't recommend. It felt like I was cramming for finals all over again. But with a lot of caffeine and lofi, it ended up working out. III. Phone interviews/first phase After HR screenings, I set up a technical phone interview almost every weekday (sometimes even 2 in a day) for 2-3 weeks. I did 15 phone interviews total. Out of those, 10 made it to onsite, 3 didn't pass, and 2 I declined the onsite due to time constraints (I was already at the offer stage at that point). (Some companies not listed for the sake of anonymity) Google (no pass): This was my first phone interview in the whole process. I was super nervous and not very prepared. I was asked really basic JS questions and a LC easy, but me, being the idiot I am, spaghettied it. I really wish I didn't do this one first but oh well - it be like that sometimes Uber/Square/Netflix/Dropbox (all pass): All asked 1 front-end coding question with iterations Yelp/Quip (no pass): 1 front-end coding question with iterations. I thought I did well on the Quip one, but I didn't finish the Yelp Facebook (pass): Asked a LC easy (literally, it was one of the Easy problems on LC) that I solved in a few minutes. I was really surprised because I thought FB usually asked 2 LC Mediums Apple (pass): Take-home assignment (full stack web dev and a bit of LC) Amazon (pass): Online assessment. 1 LC Easy, then 1 LC Medium. Only passed 75% of the test cases for the medium. The rest of the companies pretty much all asked front-end coding questions and/or LC mediums. I had interviews with all of the FAANG companies and from my experience they weren't necessarily harder than non-FAANG. IV. On-site interviews (Some companies not listed for the sake of anonymity) Amazon (pass): Frontend component building (JS+HTML+CSS), 2 design questions, LC hard (bar raiser, didn't finish but was close to the solution), frontend coding, HM round. All on whiteboard. Some interviews felt a bit dry but the hiring manager was great and I enjoyed talking to him. The LC hard made me panic a bit but after realizing it was the bar raiser I was relieved lol --- Apple (pass): Frontend coding, JS questions, LC hard (didn't finish but was close to the solution), design, LC medium, LC medium again. All on whiteboard. Design portion of the interview was my favorite part and felt like we were collaborating more than me being questioned. The rest was pretty standard and coding/LC style questions --- Dropbox (pass): Behavioral round, frontend coding, frontend debugging, frontend component building (JS+HTML+CSS), HM round. All on laptop. One of my favorite interview experiences, every was very kind and easy to talk to. The questions were interesting, relevant, and not just cookie-cutter LC problems --- Netflix (no pass): Part 1 was frontend design, JS questions, frontend coding, HM round. After passing part 1, there was 4 more behavioral rounds. Netflix seemed to be much more behavior heavy than other companies. Some whiteboard, some laptop. Feedback was that I did good technically but didn't have the experience they were looking for. --- Square (no pass): 3 pair programming rounds (these were fun), fullstack system design, behavioral questions, HM round Enjoyable interview process with friendly people. Feedback was that my technical performance wasn't consistent (did great in some problems, just OK in others). They gave me a cute candle in my goodie bag which I thought was nice :) --- Facebook: Was going to schedule an onsite, but told them about the offers I had and they couldn't match so we didn't proceed --- I wanted my offers to all come in around the same time, so I did about 10 on-sites over the span of 3 weeks. There was a week where I had 4 onsites (would not recommend). The day before, I would look at the Glassdoor questions for that particular company and go over some of their LC tagged questions. The night of, I mostly tried to sleep (most of the time I couldn't). I highly recommend you relax and get a good night's rest instead of trying to cram more. Meditate, melatonin, whatever it takes. V. Interview tips I'm going to try to avoid repeating the ones that are commonly said (ask questions, communicate, etc.) 1. Be calm The best thing you can do for yourself is to stay calm. Being anxious makes everything so much harder, whether its problem-solving or communicating. --- 2. Be personable I always try to be friendly and lighthearted so the interview doesn't feel so tense. The best interviewers I've had are the ones that stay positive and encouraging throughout the whole process, so I try to be optimistic and happy as well. I find that it helps to match your interviewer's tone - not necessarily copy their personality, but if they're more of a quiet person I don't usually try to be overly excited or talkative. Likewise, if they have a stronger personality, I try to match that and be more outgoing. Basically my advice is to try to be on the same wavelength as your interviewer :) --- 3. Ask questions at the end Prepare at least 3 interesting questions to ask during those 10 minutes at the end of the interview. Try to pick open-ended ones that give the interviewer a chance to talk a lot, so you can avoid that awkward silence where neither of you has anything to say. Personally, I feel that it's better to ask positive questions ("what makes X unique?", "what do you like most about Y?") rather than negative ones ("what do you hate about Z?", "why do we exist just to suffer?") Edit: if you're rusty on interviewing I'd advise not doing your top choice companies first. from my experience the first is the most nerve wracking but by the 15th phone screen and 10th onsite it just felt business as usual to me. VI. Offers In the end, I had 6 offers after 10 onsites. Here are the notable ones: Amazon 155/25/85 (surprisingly this was the lowest out of all 6 offers…) Apple 185/35/300 + annual bonus @ manager's discretion Dropbox 170/45/300 + 10% annual bonus Base/signon/stock (in $) over 4 years 3 YOE, so these were all for junior/mid-level positions. Both Apple and Dropbox totaled to around 300k TC (Dropbox about 5k lower but they have a higher target bonus) I don't really have much negotiation advice because all I did was stay transparent and let them know if a competing company had a higher offer. The companies wanted to beat the others' offers so we went back and forth a few times before settling on a final offer. I ended up going with Dropbox because I really liked the company and the people. I felt that I meshed well with their culture and I really enjoyed my interview there as well. VII. Conclusion I went into the job hunt with really low expectations but I ended up doubling my TC. If you were to tell me that a few months ago I wouldn't have believed you. No matter what your circumstances may be, just know that you're not alone. There are a lot of people out there in the same boat as you. Even if it's stressful and the future is uncertain, keep pushing and don't give up. One day you'll look back and thank yourself because it was all worth it. Good luck! :)