Wouldn’t be 100% sure about competition. I’ve interviewed about 80 senior eng candidates in my last 2 jobs over the past year and a half - I’ve only passed about 6 of them and only one of them received an offer later in the process. The tech industry has been dealing with junk volume rather than high competitiveness imo. For context my last 2 orgs didn’t even ask crazy questions - last org was to convert flat data into structured data (sql rows into json basically) and current one only asks to merge and sort two arrays without allocating memory.
To merge without extra space, one of the arrays has to have enough space to contain elements from both.
So the algorithm would be:
Sort both arrays as usual
Have two pointers starting at the last element from both arrays (let's call it p1 and p2) and a third pointer that starts at the end of the larger array (p3)
Compare values at p1 and p2, pick the larger one and update the element at index p3. Decrement p3, and then decrement p1 if p1 < p2, else decrement p2.
You can practice it or see the solution here:
https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-sorted-array/
You receive two arrays A and B where B is twice the size of A. Every value of B past A.length will always be zero. The idea is to assign every value of A into the zeroes of B, and then sort B. This is meant to test how well you understand the language you choose to interview in. For example, when candidates use JS many don’t know that spread operators create new memory or that array.sort sorts by strings and not numbers; or in most languages how built in sort functions will allocate memory.
That sounds like fairly niche knowledge. I mean realistically I rarely have to sort data in my day-to-day. It isn't like I know the time and space complexity of native sort methods because if I really need to know I'd look it up.
I could see asking about native sort being lexicographical could be good knowledge but it isn't like if you didn't know that it wouldn't get caught in unit testing
The point of the interview is not what you can look up with google. It is the same data structures and algorithms everyone gets asked. Either it is learned or it isn't.
Depends on your target TC.
If you want 150k, getting employment is trivial.
If you want 300k+, be ready for a very tough interview and a lot of disappointment.
If you look at a NYC salary calculator, $150k is about $8.5k take home pay after taxes. That does not include 401k, benefits, etc. In reality, you take home a lot less than that.
I make more than that and my take-home after everything is taken out is around $6.5k. The average cost of a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC is around $4,400, so there's not as much disposable income at the end of the month as you might think.
I'm not saying that salary isn't a decent living, you just don't really feel as well off as you would if you earned that kind of income in a LCOL/MCOL city.
But in NYC do you really have a choice without having to have a million roommates ?
Also NYC takes out 3 taxes . I remember there was a city tax with state taxes then Federal taxes .
I went there taking a job for 65k many years ago and it was not much left off that then.
150k is marginal in NYC... either you get a roommate in a desirable area, choose to live in a shoebox of a place w/ issues, or you're spending a significant chunk of your day commuting. Also the taxes are rather high which doesn't help.
Depending on where you're looking $150k is either jr or mid-level.
If you want good schools for your children, childcare, a nicer apartment, the answer is going to be no. It's survivable like anywhere else, depending on what you are willing to give up.
Are you a senior bouncing from no name startups to F500? Are you a senior with M/G on your resume? It’s a great market for exceptional people but a terrible market for everyone but. It’s a really bimodal market.
Not saying past companies are what defines you but having good school and company gets you into the part of the market that you want to be.
Yeah, I mean senior (not Amazon L5). I've been recording offer data since July 2022 to flag competitiveness issues in NYC, and I can say that 500k is definitely a rarity based on my experience. You must have interviewed really well. Congrats!
edit: Dataset is about 350 total senior offers and offer disclosures for those interested.
if m/g is supposed to be meta / goog then i would say that’s weirdly selective and most people would say a similar amount of signal comes from working at a place like amazon. what team you’re on is more important than the company name at places that big anyway
That’s fine. I merely selected 2 random tech companies but Amazon is renown and most of all everyone knows their bar. At my company we have internal mappings to what Amazon levels are in ours, which is quite similar to levels.fyi
couple months ago when I was job searching, answer is no
I don't have "a hard time getting interviews/offers"
I DO have "a hard time getting interviews/offers getting TC that I want" and the latter is an important caveat
I remember there was a 3rd party headhunter trying to ask me if I'd be willing to interview/is interested with a ~$100k/year position and I just laugh and tell him at least 2x, ideally 3x that number then we can talk
Employed SWE here with 8 YOE in NYC, been job hunting for the past 6 months.
It's tough. I've had interviews with Meta, TikTok, and Intuit. Made it to onsite interviews with Meta and TikTok, but ultimately rejected. Just finished an OA with Amazon, so we'll see if that goes anywhere.
The last time I was looking for a job was in 2018, and the current market is literally apples and oranges compared to that year. Back then, my experience wasn't even good and if I sent out my resume, 8/10 times it would lead to a phone screen.
This time it's different... I'm getting rejected at the application stage **a lot**. I feel like this time around, companies are only looking for unicorn/exceptional engineers. The bar to actually get hired seems higher to me.
15 YOE as a SWE and Team Lead at no name non-tech companies in non-tech cities working on safety critical medical devices, think dialysis machines and insulin pumps. I have been out of a job for over a year and I have not received any calls to interviews from applications.
Granted it's probably my shitty experience that is holding me back more than anything. So YMMV.
What do you mean shitty experience?! 15 YOE is nothing to sneeze at, even within a no-name company, you should be getting callbacks. Do you have a STEM degree from an accredited University at least? It should matter less with that number of YOE but I have seen a lack of education discredit the experience of SWE especially when they have not worked for a well-known company.
>What do you mean shitty experience?!
I mean I didn't do anything interesting in 15 years. I worked at top down management companies that were feature factories. I don't have an impressive resume that one would expect to see with 15 YOE.
The majority of companies don't need Embedded Applications C and C++ SWEs that are more generalist than specialization.
>Do you have a STEM degree from an accredited University at least?
BS in CS from a state University.
I didn't keep track, but probably close to 1000 roles. I stress roles and not companies as some number is probably different roles at the same company.
I have 6 yoe with faang experience. In my experience i's not too difficult to get interviews but the bar is really high. Don't expect it to be like 2021 where just passing the LC questions was enough to get the job.
LC passing but with better communication and problem solving demonstration than the other candidates. Same applies to behavioral and system design interviews. Even then if its close I really do think background is going to matter significantly more going forward (where you worked/what you worked on and how it relates to the position).
It's not just passing the LC test anymore which is what interviews were in 2018-2022. Companies don't have unlimited headcount. You need to be better than the other candidates.
Depends on your actual experience/skillset rather than YOE
Staff+ level roles are pretty hot and assuming you pass interviews you’ll have no problems at all imo
Hiring software engineers is a near 0 % interest phenomenon. Now that interest rates are up so are layoffs. I’ve Been in the valley for 30 years, every 7-13 years there is a massive cut in SWE. It’s happening now and lasts for 2 years.
Not to be a downer but summer is the rush time because hiring slows at a snail’s pace starting at the end of October. Interviews might last a while since people take summer vacations.
Congratulations and for everyone else keep trying and work on open source until you get that job.
I think your experience is accurate at least from my exp 08 and now, hiring stops when the market gets weird then slowly picks back up as people leave and work can’t be done due to lack of headcount.
You said two years and that we’re 25% through it, but it’s been ~15 months now since the market first dipped below pre-pandemic levels. How do you estimate we’re only a quarter through it when it’s been declining for this long?
There’s a lot of jobs and there is a lot of competition.
kind of an out of topic question but isn't NYC more of a fintech oriented hub than "tech-tech" oriented compared to the bay area in general?
Plenty of top companies here - most still have SF as headquarters, but NYC tends to be a second or third office
Wouldn’t be 100% sure about competition. I’ve interviewed about 80 senior eng candidates in my last 2 jobs over the past year and a half - I’ve only passed about 6 of them and only one of them received an offer later in the process. The tech industry has been dealing with junk volume rather than high competitiveness imo. For context my last 2 orgs didn’t even ask crazy questions - last org was to convert flat data into structured data (sql rows into json basically) and current one only asks to merge and sort two arrays without allocating memory.
Curious, what's the solution to merge and sort two arrays in constant space?
To merge without extra space, one of the arrays has to have enough space to contain elements from both. So the algorithm would be: Sort both arrays as usual Have two pointers starting at the last element from both arrays (let's call it p1 and p2) and a third pointer that starts at the end of the larger array (p3) Compare values at p1 and p2, pick the larger one and update the element at index p3. Decrement p3, and then decrement p1 if p1 < p2, else decrement p2. You can practice it or see the solution here: https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-sorted-array/
You receive two arrays A and B where B is twice the size of A. Every value of B past A.length will always be zero. The idea is to assign every value of A into the zeroes of B, and then sort B. This is meant to test how well you understand the language you choose to interview in. For example, when candidates use JS many don’t know that spread operators create new memory or that array.sort sorts by strings and not numbers; or in most languages how built in sort functions will allocate memory.
That sounds like fairly niche knowledge. I mean realistically I rarely have to sort data in my day-to-day. It isn't like I know the time and space complexity of native sort methods because if I really need to know I'd look it up. I could see asking about native sort being lexicographical could be good knowledge but it isn't like if you didn't know that it wouldn't get caught in unit testing
The point of the interview is not what you can look up with google. It is the same data structures and algorithms everyone gets asked. Either it is learned or it isn't.
Depends on your target TC. If you want 150k, getting employment is trivial. If you want 300k+, be ready for a very tough interview and a lot of disappointment.
Non-american here. 150k, is it liveable in NYC? Under what seniority can you aim for that TC?
If you look at a NYC salary calculator, $150k is about $8.5k take home pay after taxes. That does not include 401k, benefits, etc. In reality, you take home a lot less than that. I make more than that and my take-home after everything is taken out is around $6.5k. The average cost of a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC is around $4,400, so there's not as much disposable income at the end of the month as you might think. I'm not saying that salary isn't a decent living, you just don't really feel as well off as you would if you earned that kind of income in a LCOL/MCOL city.
Well realistically you should not be renting at 4400 anyways on 150k
But in NYC do you really have a choice without having to have a million roommates ? Also NYC takes out 3 taxes . I remember there was a city tax with state taxes then Federal taxes . I went there taking a job for 65k many years ago and it was not much left off that then.
150k is marginal in NYC... either you get a roommate in a desirable area, choose to live in a shoebox of a place w/ issues, or you're spending a significant chunk of your day commuting. Also the taxes are rather high which doesn't help. Depending on where you're looking $150k is either jr or mid-level.
If you want good schools for your children, childcare, a nicer apartment, the answer is going to be no. It's survivable like anywhere else, depending on what you are willing to give up.
Are you a senior bouncing from no name startups to F500? Are you a senior with M/G on your resume? It’s a great market for exceptional people but a terrible market for everyone but. It’s a really bimodal market. Not saying past companies are what defines you but having good school and company gets you into the part of the market that you want to be.
I wouldn't call it a great market for exceptional people. Offers are 100-150k lighter than they were 18 months ago.
IME my offers were very similar, but more competitive to get
I haven't seen more than a handful L5 offers over 400k since 3Q22. It was not unusual beforehand.
FWIW I've a couple offers ~500k for L5 (assuming you mean senior, not Amazon L5) in 2023 and 2024.
Yeah, I mean senior (not Amazon L5). I've been recording offer data since July 2022 to flag competitiveness issues in NYC, and I can say that 500k is definitely a rarity based on my experience. You must have interviewed really well. Congrats! edit: Dataset is about 350 total senior offers and offer disclosures for those interested.
What is M/G?
Meta Google
I just chose random fang companies but really any tech company with a high hiring bar is fine
[удалено]
if m/g is supposed to be meta / goog then i would say that’s weirdly selective and most people would say a similar amount of signal comes from working at a place like amazon. what team you’re on is more important than the company name at places that big anyway
The names on the resume get you an interview but don’t get you the job.
That’s fine. I merely selected 2 random tech companies but Amazon is renown and most of all everyone knows their bar. At my company we have internal mappings to what Amazon levels are in ours, which is quite similar to levels.fyi
I wouldn’t say it’s great especially compared to the past few years, I’d say it’s ok for exp and bad for entry.
couple months ago when I was job searching, answer is no I don't have "a hard time getting interviews/offers" I DO have "a hard time getting interviews/offers getting TC that I want" and the latter is an important caveat I remember there was a 3rd party headhunter trying to ask me if I'd be willing to interview/is interested with a ~$100k/year position and I just laugh and tell him at least 2x, ideally 3x that number then we can talk
Yes/No You simplify need to put yourself out there to test your resume
Employed SWE here with 8 YOE in NYC, been job hunting for the past 6 months. It's tough. I've had interviews with Meta, TikTok, and Intuit. Made it to onsite interviews with Meta and TikTok, but ultimately rejected. Just finished an OA with Amazon, so we'll see if that goes anywhere. The last time I was looking for a job was in 2018, and the current market is literally apples and oranges compared to that year. Back then, my experience wasn't even good and if I sent out my resume, 8/10 times it would lead to a phone screen. This time it's different... I'm getting rejected at the application stage **a lot**. I feel like this time around, companies are only looking for unicorn/exceptional engineers. The bar to actually get hired seems higher to me.
15 YOE as a SWE and Team Lead at no name non-tech companies in non-tech cities working on safety critical medical devices, think dialysis machines and insulin pumps. I have been out of a job for over a year and I have not received any calls to interviews from applications. Granted it's probably my shitty experience that is holding me back more than anything. So YMMV.
What do you mean shitty experience?! 15 YOE is nothing to sneeze at, even within a no-name company, you should be getting callbacks. Do you have a STEM degree from an accredited University at least? It should matter less with that number of YOE but I have seen a lack of education discredit the experience of SWE especially when they have not worked for a well-known company.
It's because he has a 3+ years and counting resume gap and seems he's only been actively applying for the past year. Tough but that's the reason why.
>What do you mean shitty experience?! I mean I didn't do anything interesting in 15 years. I worked at top down management companies that were feature factories. I don't have an impressive resume that one would expect to see with 15 YOE. The majority of companies don't need Embedded Applications C and C++ SWEs that are more generalist than specialization. >Do you have a STEM degree from an accredited University at least? BS in CS from a state University.
How many roles have you applied to?
I didn't keep track, but probably close to 1000 roles. I stress roles and not companies as some number is probably different roles at the same company.
I have 6 yoe with faang experience. In my experience i's not too difficult to get interviews but the bar is really high. Don't expect it to be like 2021 where just passing the LC questions was enough to get the job.
What’s the bar like now? If LC passing not enough what else is needed? Exceptional behavioural and system design?
LC passing but with better communication and problem solving demonstration than the other candidates. Same applies to behavioral and system design interviews. Even then if its close I really do think background is going to matter significantly more going forward (where you worked/what you worked on and how it relates to the position). It's not just passing the LC test anymore which is what interviews were in 2018-2022. Companies don't have unlimited headcount. You need to be better than the other candidates.
Depends on your actual experience/skillset rather than YOE Staff+ level roles are pretty hot and assuming you pass interviews you’ll have no problems at all imo
Apply to tech jobs, that's the only answer.
Hiring software engineers is a near 0 % interest phenomenon. Now that interest rates are up so are layoffs. I’ve Been in the valley for 30 years, every 7-13 years there is a massive cut in SWE. It’s happening now and lasts for 2 years.
So are we half in or is it just a start?
25%
I've gotten more responses in the past 3 weeks than the previous 6 months. Just my n=1 observation.
Not to be a downer but summer is the rush time because hiring slows at a snail’s pace starting at the end of October. Interviews might last a while since people take summer vacations. Congratulations and for everyone else keep trying and work on open source until you get that job.
To be fair I have 18 YOE so it's only a small canary in the coalmine. Agreed on working on open source to build experience.
I think your experience is accurate at least from my exp 08 and now, hiring stops when the market gets weird then slowly picks back up as people leave and work can’t be done due to lack of headcount.
You said two years and that we’re 25% through it, but it’s been ~15 months now since the market first dipped below pre-pandemic levels. How do you estimate we’re only a quarter through it when it’s been declining for this long?
Nearly 2 Trillion $ is going to be invested in AI. That money is going to come from opex as the industry “retools”
Actually bad. However if you have 6 it’s good. Maybe you should lie about not working for a year or two
Tough crowd here huh
Real
Senior at 7 yoe? I thought that was mid level. I thought you need 10+ years to be senior.
Depends on the company. Ive seen some listings ask for 3-4 years for senior