Hi. Wrapping up final phase of team placement at google. My TC at Amazon is 300k 23’ and 330 24’. Any chance of google matching this? What factors are needed to get these numbers? I see it’s possible based on levels fyi. Is it worth passing my pcs to the recruiter to give to the hiring committee? Thanks TC: 300k. 5 YOE. #google #amazon #engineering #software #swe
I’d advise against doing that at this point. Focus on matching with a team you love and when you get your initial offer from Google recruiter, if it’s not at $350K year one TC, focus you negotiation w/words rather than numbers. You can simply say you are really excited about the team and am leaning towards accepting but have concerns around making essentially a lateral move or taking a pay cut (depending on where the initial offer lands). They will likely ask you where you need to be and then share what it would take for you to accept the role but still leave room to accept at wherever your threshold is. Make sense? Legally they can’t demand this info from you anyway.
Solid advice. Really hit home that I found the team which I like. I want to accept it, but I am hesitant about a lateral move/pay cut, and then go from there to reach a TC we both like for me to accept the role. Thanks. I feel lucky. I found a team which I am a good fit in and it’s in a difficult domain too. Just need the numbers to align. Cheers
Great news!!! Congrats on the team match! You will get there! You may not get an offer that matches ‘24 TC but somewhere between ‘23 and ‘24TC. If so, see if you can get the recruiter to bridge the gap with a larger cash sign-on bonus. In this market, it’s a strong offer and you wouldn’t be taking a lateral move. Good luck and congratulations on the team match you wanted-that is the most important thing in the long-term 😊
Also, the hiring committee doesn’t typically decide on comp. They land on hire versus no hire and estimated leveling. This is where you may have some issues. If they level you lower than an L4 Amazon equivalent (based on your interview performance), the comp conversation could be much more difficult
Well google beat my amazon salary by 40% (First Year). L5 at Amazon L4 at Google.
Are u sr sde at amazon? Tc seems to be really low for that.
I was SDE2 at Amazon. Last year my manager executed a dive and save and then I got TT. Laid off in the end. Such is life.
So I guess google is the only option rn right? I will say try interviewing with Databricks or get other competing offer. Google tc might shot up to 400k based on competing offer
They can beat this TC. But in this market should they? My guess is they may not.
Yeah, this part is tough. What I have going for me is that it’s a niche and hardcore team. I also have relevant experience and have clicked with what they need from a personality perspective. I also have competing offers. I dunno how Google works overall though. I know from a holistic perspective no individual IC matters. Any idea how they make these decisions? Does manager give their input?
Manager wont has much say in your negotiations at least in times like these.
You are wise OP to feel this way. Do not sit on the Google offer too long. There are likely other candidates coming through the pipeline that are having match meetings with the team you matched with as a backup should you take another offer. If you want Google and the numbers add up for you, lock that in by the end of this upcoming week and respectfully decline the other offers with a verbal phone call and keeping the door open for future opportunities for yourself. Most candidates don’t do this (unfortunately) and your respect will set you apart from so many (and keep you on radar for amazing roles for your next move after Google!). Once the recruiter gets you the comp you need, lock it in otherwise you risk losing the opportunity & team match.
Do candidates at Google actually lose the team match just because they decide to negotiate? How likely is that?
Yes. Especially if they are on the line of hire versus no hire and/or if there is limited HC open at the moment.
Congrats! Do you mind sharing how you prepared for these interviews?
Sure! 1. Figure out your self narrative. Think about the problems you’ve solved over the last 2 years and what was the common themes. Both for problem domains and how you solved the problem. (E.g. I worked on distributed systems and solved really ambiguous problems assigned from management and was able to make magic happen when others couldn’t OR I worked on front end and worked really closely with a large group of customers and built consensus and delivered something ppl loved). Every engineer has different tools to problem solve. Try to figure out what that was for you. This will help you with team matching. 2. Write a script for “tell me about yourself”. I watched ~5 YouTube videos on this. Practice practice practice it until you can say it in your sleep. (Dan Lok did a good video on this) 3. For behavior interviews: Make a grid of the projects you worked on and then figure out how you’d answer questions about: Impact? challenges? Mistakes? Leadership? Conflicts? Lessons learned? Think hard about the underlying difficulty and make sure to hit home on that during the interview. (Also figure a 1 line intro for each project. Should use format. “I accomplished X, as measured by Y, by doing Z” ) 4. Grind on LinkedIn and get your profile looking great. Finding recruiters is the best ways to get interviews right now. Search for stuff like “hiring engineers” and message hiring managers directly. Cold applying is brutal right now as so many places have done layoffs so manager are hiring friends of friends and known connections. 5. Get a good resume too. Ask all of your friends to review it. And then review it again. Include a section like “key words” near the top. This will make it easy for recruiters and algorithms to figure it out. 6. Grind on leet code for every category. First 2 weeks do easy, next 4 weeks do medium, and next 2-3 months do hard. Focus on questions that are ambiguous.Try to guess the constraints before scrolling down and seeing them. For the hard questions, avoid the ones that require tricks. I don’t think they are great. The best hard ones are those that require combining 2 medium level algorithms. Pay for the premium so you can see the answers quicker. If you cannot figure out the solution in 10 mins go to the answer and come back to the question later. 7. Check out Blind 75. It’s a collections of leetcode questions. Grind through them. See if you can do them all in 2-4 weeks. 8. Make sure to take some time for yourself. Make sure to spend time with girlfriend/boyfriend/yourself. Interviewing is stressful and time consuming. Make sure that your personal life is still in order and to take care of those you love. 9. reach acceptance that you cannot know every leet code question. It’s a numbers game. 10. Then get back to grinding leet code. Seriously. 11. For categories I struggled in I either abandoned it or double down. I’ve abandoned matrix problems. I just accept I’ll bomb the interview if they want me to rotate it or something like that. 12. Do some mock interviews with friends. Right now the market is tough. But, there is still positions out there, you just gotta grind harder and smarter than others to get it.
Unlikely in this market
May I ask what location this is for?
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Yes Google can beat your '23 nums. Not sure about your '24 nums.
Thanks for sharing. If you don’t mind me asking, do you know what factors into the TC offer? Which individual decides it? Thank you!
Several factors, all of which I am not aware of: 1. Salary range for the position you are leveled at 2. Your performance in interviews, experience, profile, etc 3. Competitive packages + current salaries that the candidate is willing to share as part of negotiation 4. Probably, the number of open positions and how easy it is in market to find people... 5. Probably, salary of existing employees performing at similar level. My guess is that L4 band has max $330K... Your recruiter should be able to confirm exact numbers for the range. But, even if you are hired at higher end of a band, unless you get promo in 1 year (which is super hard at Google, onboarding itself takes about a year), your annual hike will be accordingly adjusted and not be raised as much... Gradually bringing you down to similar salary as being offered right now (unless you continually perform at super star levels - and for that Google pays you well).