~20 SWE Onsite Rejections In A Row In 1.5 Yrs, then G, MSFT, Unicorn Offers !
TLDR: Making this post for others in a similar boat to hang in there. Just when I thought I saw light at the end of the tunnel and thought I'd get an offer I was rejected and the tunnel got extended by a few hundred miles. At the end however I saw success and so can you.
Motivation:
I got in the interviewing game after seeing how offers for my position at my then company were 50-100K higher than what I was making, Blind's TC culture was also a big inspiration.
Prep:
1. LC: Started LeetCoding in Feb 2019. At the end I had solved around 450 problems.
2. Interviewing.io: 1 free session
3. Pramp: 10 practice sessions
4. System Design: The standard materials + lots of YT lectures and SD videos.
Onsite Timeline (keep in mind that I got rejected after the phone screen stage from plenty of companies as well)
1. DocuSign - 1/2020 - Rejected
2. Box - 2/2020 - Rejected
3. Twitter - 2/2020 - Rejected
4. Atlassian (Front-end role) - 2/2020 - Rejected
5. Atlassian (Full-stack role) - 5/2020 - Rejected
6. eBay - 7/2020 - Rejected
7. Apple - 9/2020 - Rejected
8. Doordash - 10/2020 - Rejected
9. Square - 10/2020 - Rejected
10. Verily - 12/2020 - Rejected
11. Affirm - 1/2021 - Rejected
12. Adobe - 1/2021 - Rejected
13. Rubrik - 2/2021 - Rejected
14. Confluent - 2/2021 - Rejected
15. MongoDB - 2/2021 - Rejected
16. LinkedIn - 3/2021 - Rejected
17. FB - 3/2021 - Rejected
18. MS - 4/2021 - Offer - Declined
19. Uber - 4/2021 - Rejected
20. Asana - 4/2021 - Rejected
21. Pre-IPO Unicorn - 5/2021 - Offer - Declined
22. Splunk - 5/2021 - Rejected
23. Google - 6/2021 - Offer - Accepted
24. Square - 6/2021 - Rejected
25. Roblox - 6/2021 - Rejected
Location: Bay Area
Demographic: Caucasian male
YoE: 6
Old TC: 220K (at a company that gives π₯ refreshers)
New TC: 300K L4 at G
I see people switching jobs after a couple months of prep on here. I was a big outlier as I started LeetCoding all the way back in 2019. I didn't sleep well the night before my G interview and ended up getting in. For those that are getting rejected, the secret is to just keep grinding and not give up. Best of luck!
comments
What are the YT lectures and SD videos???
Then talks from places like Netflix and others.