How companies decide about seniority in swe
I only have 4 yoe, but all at FAANG. When I went to interview with other companies, their first try was to offer me E4 ( above new grad, below senior). Then when I asked for senior, they all said ok let's have another round and I agreed. What upsets me is that that extra round was basically an LC hard. This is a joke. Even a new grad can solve LC hard if he had enough practice and good level of comprehension. This has nothing to do with being senior. Seniority comes from hands on experience. Felt sorry for those companies and obviously rejected their senior offer (MS, Oracle, Lyft, Uber). Is this really where we're going to? TC: 330k, ICT4 (senior)
Sounds about right. Curious if it'll last though
Sounds about right even at G?
Yep. However you gotta ask for an attempt at higher level. I believe l6+ at Google isn't determine solely by leetcode
It usually has to do with things like maturity, leadership, the scope and breadth of projects you have worked on, being a team lead, etc. Very strange to see them base it on LC hard.
All of that can be fungible for interviews, yeah I was a team lead, yeah I did this hard thing, etc. it’s about storytelling and selling an impressive narrative about your prior work
Four years of experience is hardly senior. Companies are all over the map with their title inflation.
If you've worked on big projects it's actually possible. Fb and Amazon have really fast pace and the learning over there is invaluable (a lot over a short period).
Big companies have folks specialized into specific roles. They don’t learn much beyond their narrow area.
Why aren't senior interviews almost entirely design and code quality based? (Kinda hard to test for the latter) I'm not anti LC but for seniors, shouldn't all your knowledge be in software architecture
Yea, LC being part of the process, sure. But being the ONLY factor is stupid.
Yeah it’s a joke. Can solve LC Hard but can’t write software that won’t be rewritten in 1 year
Sounds like we’re all gonna have to leetcode forever even in our 40s
Nice TC dude. Sound right for MS
It's upsetting. How can they not see the problem? I honestly didn't expect it from MS. They asked an LC hard, offered me L63, then I asked for more money, they asked another LC hard, offered me L64. I was shocked! I was like ok so if I solve another LC hard I'll be a principal?!
Lol. That's weird. But MS is engineer quality is not that high that's a fact and also MS's senior is not an equvilliant to Google's. Your experience basically explains why. But not all MS is like that. Just try to find the right team.