Figure I should do some sharing in case it helps others. Everything is in Canada. YOE: 7 Current TC at Amazon (SDE2): 180-190 Got contacted by a couple companies in late August. With quite a few of my current projects wrapping up, I decided to do a round of interviewing. So I also contacted recruiters from some companies who reached out to me in the past and lined everything up. Coinbase and Twitter Interviewed both for Senior role. Wasn't well prepared for the screening interviewing format. The interviewer asked a class to be designed to perform certain functions while talking about trade-off, optimization, and some related design patterns. While I had no problem implementing working solution, I probably could have covered other areas better. Rejected at Round One. I certainly could have passed with better preparation. (see below) Dropbox Also interviewed for Senior role, with screening in the same format as above. I was better prepared and passed without issue. On-site had 5 rounds: design, deep dive past project, behavior, and two coding rounds. Coding rounds were similar to screening. Was able to implement working solutions but with a few issues along the way. The format of the other rounds were a bit unfamiliar to me but was able to express my ideas mostly. My performance was perhaps a bit affected by fatigue due to having another full-day on-site the day before. End up getting rejected but had no complaint about their interviewing process. Facebook or Meta (remote) Screening went through with a bit hiccup. Two question were easy and medium LC. Got somehow distracted with easy question and made stupid mistakes. Fortunately I blew through the medium question without issues. On-site was 3 coding rounds, 1 design and 1 behavior. According to feedback, I did well in all of them except some questions about behavior round (which is ironic because that's normally my best one). All in all, fairly good interview experience. E5 offer: TC ~390 in first year Google Recruiter contacted me pretty late so they let me skip screening. On-site was 4 coding rounds and 1 behavior. According to feedback, I did really well in behavior and 2 of the coding rounds. There were minor coding style issues with the other two coding rounds. Everyone from recruiters and interviewers were polite and professional. L4 offer: TC ~400 in the first year (to match Meta offer) but decreasing significantly in year 2-4 Wish Honestly speak they weren't very high in my priority list but I wanted to at least find out a bit. Unfortunately, screening wasn't conducted very professionally. There seems to be a bit disconnect between recruiter and the interviewing process. The interviewer was asking me about my past experience but didn't seem to have looked through my resume ahead of time. While I conducted myself politely and professionally, my lack of enthusiasm was probably showing when the interview moved on to coding. Rejected. No hard feelings but I wish they improve on that a bit. Faire They use code signal for screening. I practiced their sample test a couples time and got level 10 on the real assessment. It was for a senior role but to my surprise, there were only 2 coding rounds and 1 behavior (no design interview). Everything went quite smoothly. Every interviewer was professional. Two of them were quite nice throughout the whole interviews. One coding interviewer kept a poker face for most of the process, but turned quite chill once we got to Q&A time. Senior position offer: TC ~400 in first year (based on estimation of private share option) Wayfair They use Karat interview for screening. This was pretty late my interview cycle so I didn't specifically prepare for it, but passed anyway. The recruiters were professional and friendly, but they took a bit longer to schedule the on-sites. With the other offers already on the table, I may cancel it to avoid wasting their time. Preparation: - Did the 75 must-do LC questions - Read through Grokking the System Design Interview - I was quite busy with both family life and Amazon (I still like my team and the work) throughout the interviewing period. After the initial 75, I think I had time to go through 2-3 LC questions per day. In total, I did probably 60-80 medium questions and about 20 hard questions. - I specifically practiced doing LC questions while talking out loud my train of thought as if during an interview. I did something similar with a few system design questions. For interview: - Relax and do your best. I actually did a bit exercising or outdoor activities before most of the interviews to keep myself chill - Be yourself and build a good rapport with your interviewer. During one coding interview with a senior engineer, I finished both questions early and spent a solid 20 minutes talking about topics we were both highly interested in - Don't be afraid to demonstrate something you feel strongly about, a design pattern for a specific set of problems, or certain method to lead a team, etc. And be prepared to defend it or incorporate new ideas from interviewer - Show confident by willing to stand by your solution (while acknowledging possible bugs) and being able to take criticism without flinching. Even if you don't know stuff, you can still confidently express your willingness and ability to learn - This shouldn't need reminding, but be nice, polite and if you so choose, transparent with your recruiters. Their jobs are to get people hired and less about saving their company money. Try to make their job easier and they may help you getting better TC (helps if you have multiple offers). Best of luck #interview #google #facebook #meta #faire #dropbox #wish #coinbase #wayfair #twitter
Nice thanks. How did you end up getting so many calls in a very short period of time?
Like I mentioned. For most of the companies, their recruiters already contacted me earlier in the year. I just needed to tell them "I am ready to go now".
Thanks for sharing! Can you give numbers for the offers? It's hard to find numbers for Canada
What did you choose as final destination.. Congrats
How long did you prepare before you were ready?
Spent 1-2 hours a day (not ever day though) over about a month before first interview, then a bit more over the interviewing period.
Please share offer numbers too! Side note, Got kicked out of shitty immigration in the US. So heading to Canada. How’s the tech scene there ? Also, how’s Vancouver ?
Updated numbers. Tech scene in Canada is on the rise. But don't expect TC to be even close to that of US. Tax is pretty high too. But at least good opportunities all around.
Thanks for sharing, I have a few questions please: 1- How was the difficulty of the system design interview in FB and dropbox? How are they compared to the Amazon L5 system design one? 2- In general what they are focusing on? Should I be a threading master to tackle dropbox interviews? 3- Can you share the questions, please? Edit: 4- Any of the above companies asked you for references?
1. They are around the same level of difficulty. Facebook and Amazon are a bit more normal in the question format. Dropbox is a bit more "free form". 2. Dropbox didn't ask me about threading. But they might for you. Good idea to know how to tackle a range of topics 3. First I honestly don't remember them already, second they are generic enough that doing LC world just be fine 4. Only Facebook asked if I have any in-company reference, but it didn't seem to matter all that much
@hm-dnr Thanks a lot for the details! Regarding 3), sorry I was not clear, I was curious about the design problem, and for dropbox specifically. If you do remember the question for the dropbox system design round that would be great!
Please share your FB tc break down. Thanks
180 base, 500 equity, 30 sign-on, plus bonus and fresher
Hi OP: May I dm you? I have upcoming interviews scheduled with G.
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Super useful. Thanks and congrats OP