I’ve been at the same company for 5 years now. Plenty of recruiters reach out, sometimes I’ll reply, but I never interview. Part of that is that I like my team/work, promos happen, comp is decent, and I’m in the green card process. The other part is fluctuating anxiety over whether I’m actually a good engineer, whether I’d miss my current position, and how difficult interviews would be to level up elsewhere. Sometimes I think “I’d kill interviews, find a great team, and love the work” and sometimes I think “I’m lucky, don’t push it.” In my experience, Adobe has been a great company to work for. I’ve gone from ~60k (USD equivalent, LCOL) to 300k in the Bay (self initiated early career relocation) without much kicking and screaming. I’ve had the pleasure of working on interesting self-driven projects for 4/5 of my time here. Plenty of my teammates and friends have 15+ years here (seniors/principals) and I’m starting to imagine it happening to me. I never imagined I’d have stayed beyond 3 years when I signed. At the 5y mark I’m starting to wonder whether it’s a good thing or not. With my GC coming up next year, I’ve decided it’s time to decide what’s next, prepare for what has now been a long break in interviewing, and getting my head around “abandoning” my friends. I figure at least if I’m prepared then I can make the decision at any moment. So, I’m turning to you fine folks for help. Please give me your anecdotes, comments, and snide remarks on any of these questions: Is a long time at one company generally looked down on by interviewers? I imagine they would assume that you stayed because you had to, what are your thoughts? How have you weighed fulfillment with work vs. compensation vs. prestige? I know this is a personal decision, but interested in stories of how a decision one way or another has worked for or against you. Particularly if you, say, used extra time from good WLB to moonlight; settled down in a less expensive area; postponed personal goals for professional goals. How did you stop yourself from being sentimental about a company/team? Have you boomeranged back to a company/team and did it work in your favor? How did you get over interview anxiety? I’m confident in my skills & accomplishments, but less confident in my presentation of those skills; advice on which companies you used for practice interviews would be helpful, too. How did you decide what level to target at other companies? When choosing roles to apply to/recruiters to reply to, how did you pick? Most roles sound more or less the same to me.. do Meta/Google/Apple/etc all just interview for a generic “SWE” then do team matching? If you pivoted between engineering fields after a long time, how did it go? How did you prepare for interviews in the new field and did you take a step backwards? I’m considering a transition from full stack to ML or embedded; I spent ~1y in each of those early on, but am probably between rusty and terrible for my current level. How did you prepare for interviews after a long time? Particularly for the sr/staff levels and at #faangmula; what specific resources did you use to prepare and learn what to expect? How long did you spend on leet code vs. system design vs. other prep? Blind tax 👽 TC: 370k last year, 300k stable (200k base + 100k yearly refresh) Level 5 YOE: 5
Buddy, Too many questions jammed into 1 post... Try peeling the onion 1 layer at a time. I understand you're anxious to know all the answers in the world but give yourself a breather and what is the 1 big thing you're worried about and start from there
haha I realize that and will split the questions into posts, was hopeful there would be a free psychiatrist lurking
Understand this: anxiety comes from fear. Understand why you’re feared. What’s the worst that can happen? You turn down an offer? You get rejected? Who cares.
I feel like the major thing that a lot of people miss is that generally, your coworkers will be smarter, chiller, and nicer at FAANG. The work environment is night and day, literally. This makes the decision a no-brainer if you're coming from something like big4 consulting where this statement is undoubtedly true. Not sure if it's true coming from adobe, you'll have to form your own opinion about that. Night-and-day work environment and perks and like 100% TC increase minimum. Less doubts and more leetcode bruh.
If I make 370k I wouldn't want to move either
That is one side of it and I appreciate it. Seeing posts about 5,6,700k does make me want some greener grass though lol