I'm starting soon at a non-FAANG with (hopefully) pretty good WLB and pay around Amazon SDE III/Google L4 in my country (yes, they are similar here). The actual level is more comparable to low Google L4, but pay is good so I'm not complaining. Allegedly I did great in the Google Tech Screen (they may tell that to everyone) but was planning on cancelling the onsite as I'm not really prepared for some parts of the interview. And I don't feel like continuing to LC a lot for more months... More specifically, the Google onsite will also have a typical SysDes interview which is pretty far from my current domain. This is not specifically for only Google L5 but more for L3-L5 according to the recruiter, and everyone (in Munich at least) gets to do one since a while. Recruiter is asking me to consider doing the interviews anyway but would also be alright with doing everything again in 12+ months. I suppose the hive mind will decide "Interview anyway, what's there to lose". Worst case would be that I continue to prep with LC and SysDes for a few more months, lose lots of leisure time during that, and then suck at the interview anyway. I think even then you'll only be blocked for 12 months, right, or might they consider just not interviewing again if you were really bad? New TC 175k USD (not Google), 3 YoE, Google Munich Google L4 TC probably cannot be higher than this and L5 is not realistic. RSU of new company has extremely high P/E ratio though, even much more so than tech in general.
L4 often has no system design, so don't worry about that. Why not go for it? If you do ok in onsite interview next time you can skip phone screen.
Thanks! Recruiter said that there will definitely be a SysDes interview and L3-L4-L5 will be decided by the results. This is pretty different from the US I'm aware.
OP did u get the offer at Google?
donāt overthink it, just prep as best you can and give it a swing. There will always be next time