Hi everyone, I’m curious the entry level at Twitter for a fresh PhD grad. I am not fresh grad. I graduated 3 years ago and have been working at Adobe for 3 years and my current level is senior ML engineer. I had a good interview process with Twitter, but surprisingly they gave me SWE2 offer, although I expected senior level. I have to wait for receiving the TC and offer details. But that made me wonder about fresh phd entry level at twitter, as It feels like down-leveling... Could you give me comments by answering my question above and whether SWE2 at twitter is worth it considering my experiences or you think it is down-leveling? Thanks a ton!
What’s your h-index
I think it's not reasonable to expect to be a senior because you have a phd
It’s not about having Phd, it’s about 3 years of experience on real business impact projects and building pipelines end to end.
Swe2 offers can go up to 270-280tc. Pretty good dataset for an ML engineer. That experience should qualify you as senior. Interview may not gone as well as you believe
PhD grads usually come in at SWE2. You were probably targeted for Senior but didn't meet the hiring bar - some interviewers will continue to make you feel good so that you walk away with a positive impression even if you've bombed pretty hard.
Gotcha. Thanks for comment. I personally have interviewed many people and know the difference between doing well and bombing sth. I communicated consistently during the interview to make sure I’m in the right track or not, and based on the discussions they acknowledged the responses. Making someone feel good when you see she’s moving towards a wrong direction and specially when she’s communicating and asking clarification questions is misleading.
Yeah, if you've tried during the interview to ensure you're meeting the interviewer's expectations and they just straight up misled you, then that sucks. I'd imagine it would be more likely to happen during the behavioral interview though - I've seen a few candidates interview at Sr level whose technical skills were great but then you go to the hiring huddle and turns out the behavioral portion didn't go as well. 🤷 Don't know your scenario OP and don't intend to make any assumptions, but I've seen a few technically strong candidates get downleveled for soft skills before. Or maybe you just got interviewers who sucked, which can also happen but depending on team is rarer. Whatever the case, better luck next time.
Do you mind sharing which org or team you're interviewing with? The difficulty of climbing the ladder vary greatly between teams, some teams are straight up 🚀 and some will drag you for years on end. Like others have pointed out you're likely on the high swe2-sr range, a good team with a little nudge will get you to the next level quickly.
Why moving from Adobe to Twitter?
Different reasons: most important one is our team director is so incompetent both technically and behaviorally (long story short!), Also would like to get a raise in my salary and try new projects.