Current TC: $145K (midwest) Google TC: Base $206K, Bonus 20%, Sign on Bonus: $20K, GSU $580K/4 years YOE: 20 years Working in Chase as an EM, was at a dead end due to re-org/teamification (should put a bounty on whomever coined that word with my bonus money). I was frazzled, having to manage delivery in addition to 15+ direct reports. Got approached by a recruiter in Feb for FB simultaneously getting a referral for a TPM role at Google. I leetcoded for 2 months and brushed up my DS/Algo fundamentals using Robert Sedgwick's book. For Systems Design my goto was "Grokking the Systems Design Interview" from educative. "designing data-intensive applications" by Robert Kleppman was invaluable to my preparation as well. For behavioral aspects I used Amazon's LP questions as starters and dug deep into my experience. Quizzing myself on those topics and speaking aloud my responses was quite helpful. I had 3 rounds of phone interviews with Google and one round with FB. Having cleared both I was set for virtual onsite in the first week of May for both. For Google I had 2 Systems Design (Tech. Judgment), Leadership & Googlyness, Cognitive ability, and PM fundamentals rounds. I found all of questions to be pretty straight -forward. For the Cognitive ability round there were estimation questions for which I found the methods prescribed in "Decode & Conquer" book by Lewis Lin to be of particular use. My FB virtual onsite was more bumpy. I was freaked out before the interview about the coding round. Ironically I aced the coding interview (leetcode medium) along with the behavioral rounds but fell short on Systems Design where I could not keep up after certain extent. IMHO the grokking course gives you a broad overview of how to approach a certain class of problems beyond which you need to have real-world experience to answer them in an informed manner. I got a reject from FB in a few days (strongly encouraged to reapply) while Google took more than two weeks to respond (the recruiter was still waiting on feedback). Onsite feedback for Google was very good across the board. The recruiter felt that it would be an easier sail for the HC if a team match occurs before their approval. My recruiter was exemplary in this aspect. She lined up two interviews for me in June (one for a position in NYC and other in MV). I rejected the NYC one and chose to interview with the MV hiring manager. Even though the team-match is supposed to be informal I took it rather seriously and did my background research. I spoke to the hiring manager and further with the Engineering and Product Managers in the team. Everything went smooth beyond that point and I landed an offer ten days ago. I did not haggle much with my offer. I asked for an increase in the GSU and they promptly increased it from $526K to $580K. My background check took less than two days and I am set to join Google in September. Overall experience was pretty pleasant in spite of the slowness that crept up. My recruiter was just phenomenal in advocating my case. Icing on the cake for me is that there is no immediate need for me to relocate to MV and I get to enjoy MV level salary in midwest for a while :-) #tech #google
Congrats, TPM > Project manager or product manager?
tech. program manager
TPMs are project managers with expectation of they being a bit more technical than typical Agile evangelicals. Product managers are eng ladder while TPM are not.
You think it is too low or too high? No reason for me to lie here.
OP, most of blind is junior to mid-level devs who don't understand the value of other roles in an organization. Many people don't get that a good PM is worth their weight in gold. Imo you're being fairly compensated, ignore the devs who think otherwise. Congrats on the offer! PS: what was your base + bonus split at chase? Did you often get 100% bonus?
Thanks for the kind words! My base at Chase was awfully low - $130K and bonus was usually between 12%-15%
Thanks for sharing and I'm glad you got a chance to go to a place where you're valued appropriately! Life at G should be rewarding if you get to work on interesting problems.
OP, congrats! What team will you join? When did you start the google process? Did you do all the prep work prior to phone interviews? Any reason why you did not apply M1 (EM) roles with 20 YOE? Do you think it Is a downgrade in your responsibilities and impact? (Compared to Chase)?
- Started the phone interviews in Feb. - Only prep work I did for phone interviews was to go through my System Design preparation and some amount of behavioral/leadership topics. I introspected my experience and this was helpful in in succeeding with the phone rounds. - TBH I found the TPM route to be an easier sail. I tried for EM position with FB but clearly I was out of depth and I needed to have prepared more. - It is an IC role at Google. Frankly I needed the respite after having managed people for ~10 years. L6 I heard is a big jump from where L5 is at Google. Besides in spite of the impact and responsibilities (wit strong ratings YOY) I wasn't getting anywhere due to const org changes. Hence my move.
Thanks. Wishing you best for your move and new job.
Nice write up and appreciate the effort in detailing all the info/steps. Your 20years of professional maturity shows in the post. Goes without saying but I’ll say it for the other mid-career-level Blinders, OP stayed at Chase for way too long. Don’t undervalue yourself.
To clarify, 5 years at chase was too long?
So you are the sole EM and the sole PM for a team of 15+? Holy shit. What kind of hours do you work?
Ungodly hours!
Congrats! This is a very good offer. Which TPM group are you joining? Software/Infra or?
Software
Thanks bro!
Congrats! I think it is a below median offer. That said it is a nice jump for you to google !! Is it GCP?
What's the median offer for a TPM at G?
It is with a software product team. Also, reading horror stories about people waiting for a team match for several months made me more averse to taking any chances.
That is a good pay jump as long as your not moving to California. Then it's a push. The cost of living combined with the taxes is insane here. You need to plan on paying almost 50% of your income in taxes here. I have the 42% of my GSU taken out but I still end up owing money at tax time
That is insane! I told them outright that I have no plans on moving until next summer at the earliest. The recruiter mentioned that the HM is fairly flexible on this aspect. So counting on that, thought I’m hedging a bet.
That is awesome, bank that stock while you wait and max out the 401k and after tax contribution
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YOE? All of that with Chase?
Sorry. 20 years. 5 years with Chase.
Wonderful , but how does your banking experience translate to Tech?