MLE at MS YOE 2.666 TC 166K Last November when I was 2 YOE I interviewed for Apple, Pinterest, Robinhood, Snap, Twitter, Square, Roblox all for MLE. Rejections from all of them, I thought the questions were not difficult and I did well. I thought it was probably my YOE or experience mismatch. Last month, I got pinged by Tesla, Uber, Discord recruiters. Discord hm ended up not wanting to give me interview after reviewing resume. Tesla ghosted without even a phone chat after scheduling phone chat. I finished onsite with Uber for senior MLE position in maps personalization team, and they just gave rejection after onsite. Uber interview was really not difficult either. I could have been faster with the coding sections, but that was about it. ML system design was straightforward. Was originally planning on interviewing for (Apple, Google, Tesla, Linkedin, the remaining companies that are not dying) in August/Sept 2022. But I just can't shake this feeling that the MLE industry demand for 2.7 YOE is not good. My thought process is that I'm doing the interview part, but when I just get to the HM interview, the HM's all look aloof like I am not their first choice candidate. For context I have some relevant experience, I work in recommender systems in Bing and Edge, so my experience is relevant. What should I do? Should I trying applying for big tech MLE at the above companies in August 2022? Or is it not worth trying because I couldn't get MLE offer a month ago when the job market was hot and the MLE market is only getting worse right now for 2.7 YOE. #faang #apple #google #linkedin #tesla #machinelearning #machinelearningengineer
Job market for MLEs has never been hotter than it is now. Generalist SWEs are more vulnerable in this market. I got an E4 MLE offer from Meta last month and joining in July. If you are getting rejected in the final round, means you're either missing behavioral/coding bar for them, your experience seems relevant. Keep applying to companies and good luck.
How do you prepare for interviews?
honestly this hasn't been the case with me, i feel like my interviews are going well but still not getting offers. would you be willing to help with some mock interview or resume review? Thanks
focus on your behavioral interviews more
Microsoft >>>> Tesla. The tech at Tesla is cool but it has horrible wlb and pay
Discord does that, I was in the same situation with discord
It's about experience but also about your likeliness factor. If you aren't striking the HM as the person who they and their team would like to work with, it will be way harder to find the ones that will push for you. Can you see anything that could lead to the observation that you often are not their first choice? Are you showing some excitement? Being positive etc? Chit chat?
Could this be a potential factor: saying that your new model has not been put into production yet?
If you gave the context then I don't see anything concerning with the fact that you say this. Often models need extra time before going to production. Take this as an opportunity to talk about why that happened. For example, extra safety precautions, need more validation about the impact, etc. Turn this into a success story.