Got offer for E4 as a FEE, but in a dilemma
YOE: 6 Current TC: 200K Offer: 161K/330K/50K @ Seattle Getting the TC or GTFO out of the way first. Initially, I just kind of wanted to measure myself with a "FAANG", so I came in with zero expectations and preparation, but I got accepted to Facebook. However, the position was demoted down to E4 due to my performance during behavioral section. Wished I had prepared more, but overall happy with the fact that I got a strong E4 offer on my prospect to become an E5. While on this hiring process (it was taking more than 4 weeks going back and forth with my recruiter), I was already on my way out from my old job (sizable company but will not mention to keep it anonymous), and started a new job at a Series-B start up as a principal engineer from a friend who reached out to me. At the time, I wasn't sure I even got accepted at FB, and I was learning towards wanting to take a risk and a have chance to grow. I was thinking when positioned at a higher position, it would give me chances to test my soft/architecture skills and see how my decisions turns out for the better (or for the worse). I'm now here less than a month in the new job, considering of leaving and possibly burning bridges for the chance to work at Facebook. I like everything about the current startup and folks here are hard-working and welcoming. However, they are very lacking on engineering skills in general, and I kind of feel bad with some of the juniors who has taken the job to see this codebase as their reference for software. If I were to stay, I would probably want to actually work on myself to learn how to be a good teacher and all to show the team the ropes of how to properly perform testing, setting FE standards, etc. I think my biggest thing is my fear now is that relatively speaking, the "me" who takes the FB gig will be a much better engineer than the "me" who would be sticking through and basically accept that I'll be working with less skilled engineers (but works hard), teaching them and balancing how to keep flying the plane fast while trying to put the necessary precautions (like testing, good standards, etc). Should I... #facebook #startup #swe #engineering #frontend
Facebook offers are valid for an year. You don't have to burn bridges.
Thanks for the advice! Quick question on this - so the numbers that were finalized where told to me verbally over the phone, and recruiter didn't send me an actual offer letter yet. Should I request for that in order to have it valid for a year? Or is it still valid regardless of actually getting the offer letter email?
I mean it’s only valid until it’s not valid. Any company can pull an offer at any time. Look at all the posts from March 2020 of people having start dates and being told they aren’t joining anymore.
That’s a low offer for 6 YOE unless the RSUs are over 3 years instead of 4. And I don’t think FB would make you a better engineer compared to getting all juniors to a higher level. It might not be hard work. Sometimes you just have to establish a couple of patterns and they will pick it up from there. You have the opportunity now to do whatever you want with the codebase it seems like.
Yeah it's 4 years. I think if I prepared more I might have gotten the E5, and I also don't have any other offers to leverage as negotiation (I was able to interview because FB recruiter reached out, and I didn't hear anything back from Adobe or Google). I was a senior engineer before, so I kind of accepted as it's just something I'll have to prove my worth if I were to join FB. And yeah I have a pretty high degree of freedom with the codebase, so that is a plus
If you’re going to quit it’s much better to leave ASAP before you actually begin working on a big project and people start depending on you.
Also if you’re not currently in Seattle you could just make the excuse that you need to move to Seattle for personal or family reasons and use that as an excuse.
Thanks for the advice! Yeah If I want to leave I should leave ASAP, but I'm still teetering atm
How was the interview ? Is it LC focusing or FE focused?
For FEE position, all the questions were all centered around FE, with some LC flavor mixed in (like your usual data structure, big-O, etc.). The interview for the most part was really fun for me as I came in with no preparation to see how I measured up to the top league on my "rawest" performance. I was actually taken aback when I heard that behavioral was my weakest. Perhaps I was being too honest? The feedback I got was a bit vague, basically saying that my behavioral skills might not be strong enough to "keep up" with rest of E5s. Aside from behavioral, my code and design portion all met the criteria for E5 apparently. Perhaps this startup position gives me more of the soft skills that's missing from FB's perspective. But again I'm still pondering how much worse off (or better off) I would be as an engineer.
Can I DM you OP about the interview process?
Sure thing!
I’m on the similar boat, can I DM you to talk ?
What was the initial screen like?
"Getting the Tc or GTFO out of the way first" Nice! ❤️