I started heavily using Blind about 3 months ago when I started preparing for my job search. Today I received an offer from Google and I owe Blind a huge thank you for my success, from preparing for the interview to negotiating the offer, I probably wouldn't have done as well without this platform. So I wanted to give back to the community what little I could by sharing my experience. Background: BS in CS from a no name public university, 3 YoE at a midsized tech company, Current TC 150k Preparation: 1) Elements of Programming Interviews in Java - I wouldn't have even heard about this book without seeing it mentioned on Blind. I read the subject matter and did the questions recommended by the authors in their 1 month "Term Project" plan. 2) LeetCode: I don't think I would have done as much LC as I did if it wasn't stressed so much on Blind. Some might say I still didn't do enough! I completed 130 questions, with a 30/50/20 easy/medium/hard split. I mainly stuck to the 100 most liked questions list. For each question, I first have it my best try. Sometimes I was able to come up with an acceptable solution, other times I wasn't. Either way, I went to the discussion tab and spent time understanding the approach behind the top voted answers. By the end, I could do most mediums on my own in 20 minutes. Leveling: I found a lot people on Blind finding out their interview loop was for a lower level than they expected after the fact. Having 3YoE at a non-FAANG, I was afraid of being interviewed for L3, so I ensured multiple times with my recruiter that the interview loop would be for an L4. Had I not done this, I may not have ended up with the offer I did. I suggest everyone do this to avoid a nasty surprise. Interviews: I had 6 interviews total, 45 minutes each. 1 phone screen and 5 onsite. One of the onsite interviews was a behavioural one. Nothing much to say about that one. "Tell me about a time where..." type questions. This type of interview is very new at Google for SWE roles. Source: my interviewer. The rest of my interviews were coding. No design interview (I was surprised too!). Practice really paid off and I aced all of the technical rounds. On a couple, I needed a bit of a push from my interviewer, but managed to get the optimal solution. I'm not sure if this is because the bar is lowering as people have mentioned, or because I was well prepared. Negotiation & Compensation: I received 3 competing offers of about 250k, but thanks to Bind I knew Google could pay more and I knew I had to negotiate hard to get it. I felt I deserved it after my interview performance. Ideally, I would have loved to be at the top of the L4 band with TC of over 300, but I wasn't able to pull that off. I ended up with an offer that broke down as: 150k base, 15% bonus, 380k RSUs, 40k sign on TC: 277k So thank you again friends. Your time spent contributing to this platform is appreciated. And sorry about the long post. Edit: All but one of the 15+ technical onsite interviewers allowed me to use a laptop instead of the whiteboard. Please do yourself a favour and USE THIS OPTION unless you have a really strong case not to. Coding on a laptop is much more natural and efficient. For some cases, you'll want to let your recruiter know in advance you want to code on a laptop, in others, you'll be asked beforehand, or on the day of the interview. For Amazon, they didn't have a laptop for me but they let me use my own. For the Google interview, I opted to use the laptop and my interviewers were pleasantly surprised. They said they rarely interviewed someone who used a laptop, and actually preferred it as it's easier for them to read. The whiteboard will still always be there and is great for illustrating your solution before implementing it. Edit 2: Negotiation Strategy. Since I knew I wasn't going to get a competing offer that matched the TC I wanted, I tried the strategy of giving the initial number and told the recruiter I was expecting TC around 330k. I justified this by citing my interview performance, which was stellar. The recruiter told me all the feedback was awesome as well. This didn't prove effective at all... Initial offer from G was 230k :/ I probably shot myself in the foot by giving a number that's too high. Strategy 2 was to use my competing offers. As mentioned, highest one was 250k, but I suspected G would just match this and not go higher. So I quoted my competing offer to be 270k (higher than it actually was but not too high that it wasn't believable). My recruiter did try ask me for proof, but I said it was verbal only, and we moved on without an issue. As expected, Google just matched it (actually, was slightly lower). From there, I had to be persistent, insisting that G had to beat the offer for me to accept, and inch the TC up slowly until it eventually got to 277k. Edit 3: More on Preparation I was working full time while studying, and studied after work and around social and family commitments. This usually ended up being about 2 hours late at night, which was enough time to deep dive into 2 or 3 LC questions per day. I did this for about 2.5 months in total. Edit 4: Interview Scheduling For my phone screens, I used the time difference to my advantage. I'm on the East Coast and all the companies I was interviewing with are on the West. All my phone screens were around 6PM ET. For my onsites, I scheduled them all (4) during a week long "vacation" from work. This way I gave my employer no reason to be suspicious. Some people say scheduling multiple interviews back to back can lead to burnout. I didn't really have that problem. Woke up around 8, interviewed from ~ 10-4, then went back to my hotel room to relax for the rest of the day. Might not be for everyone, but it worked for me.
Congratulations. Location? Team?
I'll be in MTV. Slightly concerned that disclosing my team may risk my anonymity.
Cloud or not?
Congrats, that is a really good offer!
Congratulations and well done:)
Nice
Great stuff! Any tips for leetcode prep? Also how long did you prepare for?
I mainly did the 100 most liked questions list. For every question, I went to the discussion tab and took time to understand the idea behind the approach. Then I implemented it myself.
Nice!
Excellent job!
Did you have any referrals? Did you list anyone when they asked who do you know at Google?
No referrals for any of my applications.
Ok good to know. I am in similar situation. Waiting for result from my phone interview
$150tc -> $277tc.. congrats and well done. Exceptional!
Thank you! Although the increase in TC will be less dramatic since I'm moving from Boston where the state tax and CoL aren't as high. Still super happy though. Working at Google is a dream.
Though Boston is not cheap either. It's more expensive than Seattle
Congratulations!!
Congrats!