Hi, Joined Amazon recently. But not liking it. So going to jump off this ASAP. Currently, L5 MLE/SDE, TC 330k. Does any one has insights on how is day to day life for Staff MLE at Spotify or Sr MLE at twitter. Do they have daily stand ups, sprints, on calls etc? Spotify: TC: 315k. Twitter: TC: 385k. I am getting real good vibes from Spotify that I don't want to ignore. How does Twitter remote works? During interview, they did checked where my location is and if I would be ok with commute (when things return to normalcy). Is twitter open to 100% remote work? #spotify #spotifycareers #twitter #twitteroffer #tech #offer
How's MLE at Amazon?
Ahh.. Where do I start. For starters, officially there is no MLE position. Its all SDE. That was my first red flag when the Job Recs said MLE but then offer letter said SDE. Its not good. Applied Scientists gets to be more creative whereas MLE/SDE are expected to implement their suggestions. I would go for AS role if you are interested in Machine Learning.
YOE at Amazon?
lol.. bit embarrassed.. but 2 months..
It would be a mistake to join Twitter over Spotify. Many of my colleagues will agree.
How long has it been since you joined Amazon?
:D 2 months.. :D
I've heard really bad things about Spotify Data/ML. Things might have improved a bit since attrition was so bad, but it's a very design driven company and the data infra is all over the place. For a while, much of the tech office was also split between nyc and stockholm. I live in nyc and have been to multiple talks by Spotify MLE and DS who talk shit about the company and how bad things are. But again, things seem to be changing recently so idk! Update: looked up an acquaintance who joined Spotify as Sr MLE last year and he left at 1 year on the dot LOL. Proceed with caution.
most teams do daily standups but it’s up to the team to decide what works best for them as far as how they organize. similarly most teams will work in two week sprints, but not all. i think it would be unexpected for a MLE to be oncall
I have a question.. What's the difference between an MLE and Research Engineer at Spotify. I want to go into the role where I am not just adding one feature here and one feature there. I want to work in product but then also "own" that piece of product where I have freedom to implement new algorithms as well. When I interviewed at Spotify, what I understood was that both RE and MLE are similar where RE are mostly not embedded in product and MLE is more product focused. But if someone is working on a product, then the nature of work is pretty similar?
can I pm you?
Spotify is the opposite of Amazon with regards to company culture and WLB. I was super impressed with their data and ML infrastructure when I joined. Data/ML is a huge focus and they are investing big in ML. I see a lot of job posts of MLEs. I think there’s a lot opportunity for ownership and growth especially as a senior or staff engineer. As for sprints, on call, and stand ups that is team or squad specific. But also as a staff engineer you should be able to have some say in shaping how your squad operates.
How’d you get two offers so quickly. Did you start interviewing right after you joined amazon?
I had offer from Spotify before. So reached out to them. They asked me to have a follow up interview with the team but skipped the phone screen and directly to onsite. With Twitter, I interviewed with their Health ML team earlier but right before the offer, they had a hiring freeze or like.. hire only critical role. So, things were paused. Now, reached out to recruiter again they shortened the interview to like two rounds.. Coding and ML design. So, basically.. leveraged the interviews from earlier this year.
@OP can you please provide high-level insights on interview rounds ?
Which team at twtr?
Cortex team. I want to chat with the Recommendations Platform team as well. How are these two teams at Twitter?
Pmed you