Hi guys, I am working at IBM as a security engineer with 5 YoE. The WLB is good but, the TC is a way lower than the equivalent roles in the similar companies. The day to day responsibilities do not require any serious skill here. I feel like I am losing my progress and knowledge. Because of the all reasons, I decided to change the job. In 2023, I applied so many roles, and took the interviews below. At some point, I am not able to chosen. Generally, out of 5 loop interviews, at one interview I stuck or going wrong direction, and the most disturbing thing is, generally I already know the thing very well normally. I started to believe that all the things are for nothing, because after each interview, I carefully focused on the weaknesses, but whenever I got a new interview, at some point another thing arises and I fail or downleveled. I am losing my hope and it is so depressing and demotivating to get so many failures. I put very serious effort for preparing the each onsite interview and it is very stressful. I am in EU and applyig for the positions for EU, UK and USA. I have no parmanent residency in EU and USA, I only hold work permit sponsored via my current company. I interviewed for various roles in the security domain below ( Pentest, Threat hunting, SOC, Appsec, Reverse Engineering etc.) The interviews have no standard like SWE roles. Each role or company has their own method. For example for Amazon, each of the interviews were different for different roles. Even if the LPs are common. Generally they open 1 person headcount for the corresponding role. Apple - All rounds went good. After the onsite, they closed the position and gave no positive or negative feedback. Amazon - Applied for L5, Downlevel L4 was offered. I rejected the offer. Apple - Could not pass the phone screen. Box - Could not pass the onsite. Uber - Could not pass the phone screen. Amazon - Could not pass the onsite Tiktok - Cleared all rounds, they offered very low TC ~ 75k £ + Bonus (Around 15k £) for London. Amazon - Could not pass the onsite. Amazon - Could not pass the phone screen. Atlassian - Passed the phone screen but the position was more likely a frontend SWE . Decided to not proceed to onsite. Meta - Failed the onsite ( They asked 300+ lines of x64 assembly as a code review and also a similar C code besides the coding rounds). Google - After the onsite, they downleveled me. Since the position is only for L5, recruiter did not send my interview results to HC. Recruiter told me that the result is not fail and still waiting for L4 position for exactly the same role. Microsoft - Finished all rounds in December, HM did not decide yet. Nvidia - Could not pass the onsite. TC: 120K YoE: 5 Field: Security Engineering #interview #security
Atleast you got interviews
Should not have rejected the Amazon l5
Sounds like you are doing fine, you got some offers (the L5 offer honestly looked like a good option not sure why you declined, external L6 offer at 4 YOE is a huge stretch). Market is pretty bad so might have to stick it out for a year or two. Is there any reason why ibm won’t sponsor a blue card?
As most of them mentioned, you're doing fine. The market is bad so it's gonna take time. If you don't mind can I DM you about the Atlassian interview experience?
Ofc sure thing
Good salary for EU. Greedy man
Wtf with that meta code review
Tech Industry
Yesterday
2476
Job market is brutal for SWEs 🥲
Software Engineering Career
Yesterday
390
Ideal TC to coast peacefully
Tech Industry
Yesterday
890
Meta E6 offer.
Tech Industry
Yesterday
2221
Lots of layoffs this week!
Personal Finance
Yesterday
846
Here are three stats about how your money is increasingly useless after the most recent inflation report
Don’t give up! Try and reflect and identify areas you could work on. The job market is surely tough right now, which could be a factor. Notwithstanding, keep going, you will get there!
Thanks a lot!