Post-Freeze Interview Outcome

Started looking around back in early Feb (right before the worst of the META stock drop) after feeling stalled career-wise on my team. Wanted to share the outcome of talking to 10+ companies, spanning from before the market drop (everyone's hiring!) to the recent hiring freezes and reductions. TC 1.2m (when I started looking) -> 770k (current stock price) 16 YoE, E7 Was aiming for 1.2-1.5m TC, E8-equivalent, full-time remote. No LC or other prep - looking for specialist roles in a particular area, prefer to practice via throwaway companies. Goal was to get ~3 offers close to that range for leverage and pick the job I was most excited about. NVIDIA: IC6 (too low, but they don't like hiring externals above this). Original verbal was 1.2-1.3m via out-of-band RSU exception, then the soft hiring freeze hit, which removed the out-of-band option and limited it to 750k. Their recruiting is a mess and they're mostly hiring for grind teams like AV. Unity: passed interview loop, in discussion for 1.2m TC, then hiring freeze after stock tanked. Maybe later this year. Roblox: talked a big game about no problem hitting comp during interviews. In the end, they didn't want to hire an IC at that seniority level and capped offer one level down (900-ish). I guess they were hoping I'd bite at a management role, or are reigning things in after their stock drop? Apple: had a ton of teams interested. Interviewed for two teams and passed. They got cold feet once they realized I was serious about the remote work thing, and ghosted me after originally saying we'd make it work. Kind of lame, since the HM was someone I knew and couldn't be bothered to tell me. Cruise: recruiter wanted to set up a loop, then ghosted me. Tesla: First place I talked to. Passed interviews. Comp was within range for that group. Then they re-org'd and the new director/VP said no remote work (prior to the Elon email). Dodged a bullet, but good practice run. HRT: failed their initial coding test. Not enough LC prep? I thought I did OK, but I honestly don't know what OK looks like for these crazy graph problems. Google: best shot for hiring in at 8 was a team with a director/VP I have bad blood with, so nope. Also not a fan of their interview process (can't guarantee the role or put relevant people on the loop). Magic Leap / Niantic / Samsung / Matterport: pay for a given level maxed out at about half of the above companies. Good practice, at least. Gonna stay put for now, play the promo game, and see if any of those frozen companies open up later this year. Thankfully it was all over VC - less time invested - otherwise I'd feel more pressure to have something to show for all that. Roblox came the closest, with a TC bump and the possibility their stock could rebound, but I'd be resetting the clock on a possible Meta promo and going to an unknown.