14 ms·

Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

• Jecintaworld 3y ago
  [flagged]
• anArbitraryOne 3y ago
  You're not a Society of Women Engineers, sorry
• kingkongjaffa 3y ago
  I am UK based. I also did CS50x and found it was worth doing and fun even if you don’t have a particular goal. It won’t get you very far though it’s an intro, personally I am looking at CS61a/b/c next. https://cs61a.org/ https://cs61a.org/ https://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61b/sp22/ https://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61b/sp22/ More concretely from reading your post the best thing you can do is move companies to a more engineering focused company where you can learn more, before you are ready to shoot for the likes of FANG
  • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    Thank you for the recommendation! I did find CS50 a bit too introductionary. I'll check out CS61a!
• tomcam 3y ago
  Dude I got into a FAANG company with no CS degree (or any other degree). Unless you're going into research, where is PhD is almost required, they'll hire you based on your skills.
  • bsimpson 3y ago
    Same. Self taught as a child (like OP). Offered a job at a FAANG twice, and took it the second time.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
      YMMV. I self taught as a child as well and gave up trying to crack FAANG. I still enjoy my less blingy current role.
      • bsimpson 3y ago
        One nice thing about megacorps is that they're big enough to support specialization. UX Engineering it a good fit for my skillset (and might be for other self taught people too).
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • tomcam 3y ago
      I actually started learning programming at 21. That was in the early 80s ;) Thought it might be too late. As a magazine writer I had interviewed Chris Espinosa of Apple, their first documentation person. He started his employment at Apple when he was 14 years old.
  • ashbee 3y ago
    Same. I still have zero certifications of any kind beyond HS, despite the pressure to start collecting the useless company certs.
  • huehehue 3y ago
    When? I also have a successful career despite not having any degree, but my read is that it's not as easy for newbies as it was 10 years ago. It's anecdotal based on my social circle and their younger friends, but I'm wary of turning into my parents with advice like "you don't need a degree, just a firm handshake and an affinity for hard leetcode problems!"
• nwoli 3y ago
  I remember a time when online certificates was an anti signal. I think it still is in many startups. (Most people just hire on skill.)
  • meneer_oke 3y ago
    I don't remember the time that online certificates from MIT, Berkeley, etc would have been anti signals. https://www.edx.org/learn/computer-programming/massachusetts-institute-of-technology-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-7 https://www.edx.org/learn/computer-programming/massachusetts...
    • saagarjha 3y ago
      Nobody will fault you for learning programming through an online course. They will, however, mark you down for listing that on your resume as your sole programming experience.
      • meneer_oke 3y ago
        Do you that course that I refer to? People within companies are all different, so we can't say. Some hiring managers might, others actually prefer no degree, others might focus more "shipped". It depends
        • saagarjha 3y ago
          To be clear I'm speaking generally, not on an individual basis. Everyone has their own preferences–I personally don't discount it. But in my experience the average hiring manager does, because certifications are often seen as a thing you just pay money for to get a piece of paper. Of course college degrees are like that too, but the quality of "big state school CS degree" is usually somewhat regulated and "big state school 6 month CS certification" is often not.
          • meneer_oke 3y ago
• sakopov 3y ago
  Leetcode will help you get into FAANG not certs.
• rockbruno 3y ago
  I work at FAANG and have no degree. Checking for degrees used to be a thing but I don't think anyone does that anymore. I had the same feeling as you (regretting not doing traditional CS). I ended up studying it on my own and really recommend it as I find that it made me into a much better engineer.
• mrwnmonm 3y ago
  [dead]
• volent 3y ago
  Study leetcode and system design. That's enough.
  • jstx1 3y ago
    It's not enough because studying doesn't give you an interview.
    • weeznerps 3y ago
      That's true. Grind LC/sys design and then apply to every top company (not just FAANG) and get referrals everywhere you can. I got interviews places that had passed on me a few weeks before just by getting a referral.
  • silent_cal 3y ago
    What do you mean by system design?
• jwestbury 3y ago
  You don't need a CS degree and you don't need certs once you've established yourself. I've been in SRE or SRE-adjacent roles at Amazon, Microsoft, Dropbox, and now a quant hedge fund (the first three in the US, the last in London). My only degree is in English lit. Your hardest step is getting into your first job with good name recognition in the tech industry. For this, your best bet isn't certs, it's networking -- find someone who can refer you, which will get you past the automated resume screening and get your resume in front of a hiring manager, at which point your degree and certs don't matter.
  • hoagsobject 3y ago
    How did you learn stuff for working in such companies? I always assumed you need a lot of math and theory to work in finance.
    • dave1999x 3y ago
      yeh, you do and most will want a degree at at least 2.1 even if you have a decades experience... unless you have the hallmarks of being rich e.g. went to some fancy school OR have a network that extends into a hedge fund
    • philomath_mn 3y ago
      Math and theory would be more important for a dev job, parent commentor is doing SRE.
      • solardev 3y ago
        What exactly does an SRE do (Software Reliability Engineer, right?)? I've heard the title before but don't quite understand it.
        • sspiff 3y ago
          More tooling, infrastructure management, high-availability, ... work. Rather than focusing on making the software do X, it makes software that already does X more resilient to failure.
• wodenokoto 3y ago
  If you are shooting for some sort of cloud technical support / technical sale kind of role, I do think cloud certainly in the relevant cloud provider will help, but they are not necessary. I think the carts mostly exists to satisfy corporate clients
• hnisforfascists 3y ago
  [dead]
• thesimpleone 3y ago
  You have a degree, that’s all that really matters. On average people change careers three times in their lives. your doing great, trust in yourself. Anything you feel you missed can be learned online a no cost. Cheers!
• have_faith 3y ago
  I'm UK based, went to an arts university, I work as a SWE at a company in the US. I think most tech companies, especially startups, would be more impressed by an unfinished but interesting side project than any certs or qualifications.
• rolisz 3y ago
  No, you don't need an online degree. I had a colleague at Google who was hired straight after highschool.
  • VirusNewbie 3y ago
    wow, like straight out of high school, no work experience? I and many other googlers have no college experience, but going straight out of high school is quite exceptional.
• hinoki 3y ago
  Like others are saying, Leetcode is enough to get into a FAANG. The only place where having a CS degree would be important is if you want to move to a different country and the company would have to sponsor your visa. That said, FAANG seems to be pretty tight with headcount these days, hopefully it’s better in a year or two.
• alangibson 3y ago
  In a way it's insanely easy to get a high-end tech job in the US. You don't need to spend 4 years in college. If you're willing to lock yourself in your bedroom and do leetcode for 3-6 months, one of them will hire you.
  • thaumasiotes 3y ago
    Oh? I applied to Google in late 2021 / early 2022. The suggestion was to grind leetcode. The recruiter emailed me after my interviews to say they'd resulted in good news. She set up a phone call shortly afterward in which she told me I'd passed the interviews, I should prepare for a series of "team fit" interviews, I should see a job offer in about 6 weeks ("the end of February", when the call occurred in mid-January), and congratulations! I was never offered, or contacted about, a single "team fit" interview. When the end of February rolled around, she informed me that, because I'd done poorly in the interviews (the same ones mentioned above; my results were good in January, but by February they had apparently spoiled), Google was uninterested in hiring me. No one has really been able to explain why, in Google's eyes, "you did so poorly we're rejecting you" is a message to congratulate the candidate over, or why performing at that level is considered "passing" the interviews.
    • iteria 3y ago
      Honestly, they might have just filled their quota. I've interviewed at companies where it wasn't that I wasn't good, but they found an acceptable candidate before I completed interviewing. A lot of times you're not interviewing for "Google", but a specific team. If that team has all it's members, then well, sucks to be you.
      • P_I_Staker 3y ago
        This is still a disgraceful way to recruit, and they kinda try to pretend that they don't do things like this.
  • hoagsobject 3y ago
    /r/cscareerquestions has different feeling
• jameshush 3y ago
  I worked at a FAANG company. My co-worker hadn't graduated High School. I recommend applying and grinding leetcode if you aim for a SWE role. Two years SWE experience is enough for them to give you an interview with a cold application through their job board in my experience.
  • grubbs 3y ago
    I remember watching that Freakonomics documentary on Netflix a decade ago. One of the authors mentions "not getting a HS degree is an economic death sentence". I guess times have changed.
    • lordnacho 3y ago
      It's still generally true though, isn't it? Football (soccer) players sometimes don't have their high school degrees, but they have training in a high paying profession. Same goes with people who can code.
      • saagarjha 3y ago
        It's true for software engineers, too. There are a lot that get by without college degrees and do well, but for many others it can limit their initial job prospects (most roles at FAANG with have a CS degree as a soft requirement, with some relenting with "equivalent experience").
      • FFP999 3y ago
        [dead]
    • nopcodex90 3y ago
      Depends on how hard you can grind, and the amount of knowledge you can soak up. I never graduated high school, but I have been asking for programming books for my birthday and Christmas since I was 9.I do very well for myself Making over 6 figures.
    • mywittyname 3y ago
• JKCalhoun 3y ago
  Having been an engineer interviewing other engineers applying to work for Apple (for 26 years) I can tell you that the best resume was one where the engineer shipped code. Degree became a non-issue if that box was checked.
  • intelVISA 3y ago
    So any SWE with >0 YOE?
    • milesvp 3y ago
      you’d be surprised. I was just talking with a former coworker said that their team has essentially shipped nothing for 9 months due to changing priorities. Code was written, and merge requests were merged, but feature flags meant that no one ever saw the effects of the changes.
  • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    Thank you for your insight. Apple is one of the few FAANG companies with a decent number of open vacancies in the UK at the moment. Can you tell me what you mean by shipped code? I've shipped plenty of code in my current job (none of it is that exciting, though). I probably don't emphasise it enough on my current CV, now I think about it.
    • JKCalhoun 3y ago
      Ideally you have a product you worked on on the App Store or equivalent. Excellent if you have some of the code with you (to the degree you are allowed to). Both of these things lead to natural points of conversations with your interviewer. "Have any problems with concurrency with you approach?" "Any user feedback that caused you to make changes to the app?" etc....
      • hnfong 3y ago
        A portfolio of shipped code might work for Apple but most other FAANGs probably gravitate towards standard programming puzzles.
• trumbitta2 3y ago
  FAANG != "or other tech companies" Choose one side of the coin and prepare accordingly. To simplify: - FAANG (and FAANG wannabes): leet code, algo, CS stuff - other tech companies: getting things done, Open Source contributions
  • trumbitta2 3y ago
    First rule of FAANG club is you never simplify how things work at FAANG club. Members will come at you.
• iamnotsure 3y ago
  Why do you want to work for FAANG?
  • jstx1 3y ago
    I would personally like it for the money, and the name recognition which can provide other opportunities to make more money in the future.
• antigirl 3y ago
  I have a BSc and an MSc and I don't ever want to work for FAANG. I work as a contractor and work only few months a year if it allows it. Rest of the time I work on my own side projects - the dream for me is for them to get successful. UK based but relocated to Asia. FAANG might seem like the successful endpoint but theres many exciting companies/startups out there that might make you feel more accomplished than working in a massive ORG.
  • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    That's true. When I say FAANG, I just mean big tech in general. I've been looking at startups too! Do you work remotely in Asia? I would like to relocate too one day.
    • antigirl 3y ago
      Yes remote - all my clients are mostly clients from back home and companies i have worked with before. But i'm not getting much work as time difference is +7 hours and they sometimes want devs to be on during business hours. But cost of living here is cheap so i'm okay with it for now.
• lowbloodsugar 3y ago
  I don’t have a CS degree either and I’m at a FAANG. If you’ve got a resume with “senior developer” on it, no good employer will care.
  • midasz 3y ago
    Not a dig at OP but putting "senior developer" on your resume after only 2 years of experience really sets expectations.
    • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
      This is exactly my concern! I have a senior on there, and I really worked hard to earn it. But now I worry that it will set too high expectations and make getting into a big firm much more difficult.
      • hnfong 3y ago
        My impression is that it's never beneath FAANG HR to make junior level offers to "senior engineers" from non-FAANG companies if they think they can get away with a low ball offer. So I guess that's "good news" for you, but then if you actually tell them you don't really have "high expectations" then be prepared to get a low ball offer..
• nindalf 3y ago
  I’m a UK based software developer without a CS degree. I wrote about my experience interviewing at various software companies (including Google) in 2021 - https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/tech-interview/ https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/tech-interview/. I also talk about how I prepared for the interview, so that may be useful. If you want to talk to someone about this don’t hesitate to reach out over email!
  • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    Thank you! That is a very useful resource, I will read through it later!
  • jstx1 3y ago
    You had already worked at Meta at that point, getting interviews from other similar companies as hard as it would be for someone in OP's position.
    • nindalf 3y ago
      I’m up front about that. Regardless, my experience here was similar to my previous round of interviews where I successfully interviewed at Meta. That went well despite not having a CS degree or a well known company on my resume.
• smcl 3y ago
  Genuine question: why are you focused on just those five companies?
  • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    Apologies for being unclear. I really just mean the big tech sector. I'm looking at jobs outside of FAANG. I am just used to using the term FAANG to refer to big tech as a whole.
    • smcl 3y ago
      No worries, just wanted to check because I wanted to advise you to broaden your horizons a bit because that’s a fairly narrow collection of countries. But all good.
• hoagsobject 3y ago
  As someone who decided to get BSc degree in Math & Stats after 5 years in industry this thread makes me questioning my decision. Everyone says you don't need degree, but in my experience if you want to do advanced stuff (machine learning, cryptography, algorithms) you probably need one, unless you are extremely talented and can pick up everything on your own. You probably don't need degree if you want to work as SWE in mid-tier companies, once you have experience there are no problems with finding jobs.
  • lordnacho 3y ago
    > unless you are extremely talented and can pick up everything on your own The question is more whether anyone will look at your CV if you didn't do these advanced topics at uni. Most things people can and do learn on their own. If you look at how uni works, what did you do? You went there and found out what you needed to learn, and then spent a bunch of time studying it on your own. There was never enough time in a class to learn things just by watching.
    • hoagsobject 3y ago
      It depends on the subject. You can get feedback from tutors/professors, and evaluation of your work. If you study proofs, you can't verify by yourself if they are good/correct. Apart from that, if you go in a traditional uni (which is not my case, I do online degree at Open University of UK), you also have great networking opportunities. Not saying about other subjects, like medicine, physics, biology where you need access to a lab to learn something.
  • silent_cal 3y ago
    No, I think you're right. It's easy to think you've understood these concepts when you really haven't. Sometimes formal training is really necessary I think, or at least is the fastest way to true comprehension. Especially with rigorous subjects like linear algebra and calculus.
• lordnacho 3y ago
  I can't say I know much about it, but it seems to me the good thing about the FAANG companies is that anyone can give it a go with the Leetcode gauntlet.
• lowbloodsugar 3y ago
  There a lot of talk about just doing leetcode and getting into a FAANG. I have done many interviews (as interviewer) at FAANGs and leetcode is good for an intern or straight out of college gig. For more senior roles, yes, we expect you to demonstrate that you can program by writing code, but the yes/no decision will be based on your experience and your ability to describe it in detail and have insights about it. On the other side of the leetcode discussion, I’ve worked at a company that managed to hire someone with zero ability to program based on their ability to bullshit. I personally loathe doing leetcode myself, but I won’t hire someone who can’t take a stab at it, and I don’t want to work somewhere where my colleagues might be bullshit artists. Now this doesn’t apply so much at startups, because founders generally don’t tolerate hiring decisions that would kill their company. So for example our first engineer at one place had a six hour interview where they broke down this game engine that they themselves had written. So, “it depends”.
• barrkel 3y ago
  For certification, I don't think it's important for FAANG - a referral or other way of getting a recruiter to get you to an interview, and passing the interview, is all that really matters. The only part of a degree course that really matters in an interview context is algorithm analysis. You need to understand how the cost, in space and time, of code you write scales with the size of inputs. Degrees and certificates from reputable organizations may be important for getting a H-1B visa though, should you want to emigrate in the future.
  • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    I have a degree from a good university, it's just not in CS. So hopefully that won't be a problem down the line. Referrals seem to be important. I lack the connections at the moment. Need to try and find ways to network with people in the industry.
    • hnfong 3y ago
      Networking will help. Referrals gives you higher chance of getting an interview. As long as the interview goes well, the degree (or lack thereof) doesn't matter. You probably want to go to play with a couple problems from leetcode though. I'm not for the grind, but there's a high likelihood at some point you'll be asked questions like those. The last thing you want is to be surprised by a "standard" interview question like those. There are other resources (books, etc.) that supposedly help you prepare for the interview. Make sure you spend some time preparing for the interview if you get one. Also, I don't think past industry experience makes much of a difference unless it's in a firm of a similar "tier". Staying in a public sector org as a software engineer doesn't really do you much good if your aim is to enter a big tech firm. It might even be considered an anti-signal by some. FWIW, if I'm involved in the hiring process and see a candidate who's worked in the public sector for years, I'd be slightly concerned with them picking up "bad" habits that don't meld well with tech companies (and will adjust my interview questions to try to tease out details on that front). I can't stress this enough -- don't expect that more years in your current job will increase your chances, it's equally likely that it will count against you.
• saagarjha 3y ago
  If you have 2 years of SWE experience, your lack of degree is not likely to be a significant barrier, assuming you can pass the interview. If you had none it might have been since it can be difficult to get past the resume screen without one. In my experience online certifications are basically useless. Feel free to take classes you like to learn things you want to learn, but listing them will probably not help.
  • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    With enough preparations, I think I'll do OK on a technical interview, having looked at examples online. I have 2 years of experience. I'm mainly concerned that my experience isn't really impressive having only worked in the finance and education sectors. I also got promoted to a senior role very quickly, which was genuinely on merit, but I worry will make moving to tech firm harder.
• poisonborz 3y ago
  Do you have specific industry areas you want to get into? I was hiring for 5 year for some EU companies (startups to 1k) as an engineer, I _never ever_ looked at the applicant's degree - if you have any university degree, it's a plus ("you are willing to learn") but not much more. CV/past (own) projects will get you all the way. If you are targeting fintech, ML or "rockstar" corps that might be different.
  • jdjdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    Thank you! No specific industries in mind. I am keen to move to a tech company like FAANG or similar not just because of their prestige but also because I want to work with the best engineers. In the jobs I've had outside tech (especially in the public sector), I've had pretty limited exposure to engineers who are passionate, and I feel I can learn from.
    • poisonborz 3y ago
      > I want to work with the best engineers Sorry but wrong mindset. You will not learn the most when you are surrounded and mentored by "yoda class" devs. The sad reality of the tech sector that this happens very rarely - not many teams have this growth attitude, everyone just wants to hire seniors who instantly have the best answers. You can learn just as well by surrounded by and inspiring juniors when solving problems. With any luck they will rightfully question many things you take for granted.
      • P_I_Staker 3y ago
        This is a huge problem in our society. Corporations line up to throw money at unicorn mega experts that largely don't exist (ie. are quite scarce compared with the demand). The interesting thing is IME these engineers only have so much to bring to the table, and often have to push through the same technical hurdles. A passionate, hard working junior may get more done, if they have experience at the company. Among even competent senior engineers, these mega-performers are unicorns. For every one that will save any project, or at least greatly improve it, there's 5-10 that are just okay.
• treprinum 3y ago
  You can do a master in CS even without a CS bachelor online at the University of Colorado Boulder via Coursera. You just need to take 2 classes and get at least B in each. https://www.colorado.edu/cs/academics/online-programs/mscs-coursera https://www.colorado.edu/cs/academics/online-programs/mscs-c... But as they say, this will only put you on the radar, but then it's all about LeetCode-Hard and -Medium and system design.
  • mindcrime 3y ago
    Oh man... This is exactly what I need. I dropped out without finishing my Bachelors ages ago and have been thinking about looking for something like this that would allow me to pursue a Masters without having to go back through the grind of finishing a Bachelors first. Thank you for posting this. I'm going to give this a serious look.
    • Projectiboga 3y ago
      [edit] My below post is for a typical MS program, but you're in luck this school will take you after completing a three course set. From their site "No application, ever―just start learning and show us you are ready Simply pass a three-course pathway with a B or better in each course to earn admission. No bachelor’s degree or extensive work experience required." /[edit] Typically having a Bachelors is the basic entry requirement for a Master's program, with that program you can pass the three classes with B-s or better. There are adult edu divisions that will try and help you finish your degree with credits for life experience, but they usually require a certain amount of credits at their school, Rutgers was like 30 or 1/4 of the required 120 credits.
  • hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
    Looks interesting, but unfortunately the courses are mostly towards big data and data science AFAIS, with one robotics pathway as exception. Would love to see something that sticks to malware and reverse engineering. Say something starts with low level programming, proceeds to os internals and then exploitations and such.
  • 3minus1 3y ago
• 28304283409234 3y ago
  If you want to have interesting cs challenges, go for smaller fish. Don't FAANG.
• P_I_Staker 3y ago
  If you want a good set of fangs, I recommend looking for a surgeon with experience helping people transform into a vampire.
• M_bara 3y ago
  Yes, I worked in FANG and one of my pals didn’t have a degree yet was highly regarded in the company. What really matters is what you know and whether you can execute…
• lakomen 3y ago
  Troll much
• hahamrfunnyguy 3y ago
  Not FAANG, but I've hired and worked a number of people over the years without CS or related degrees. I have no problem with it. I don't think that the degree will help you get the job, as long as you can get an interview.
• amir734jj 3y ago
  I have a PhD in computer science and I work in FAANG. My boss and his boss don't have CS degrees.
• hisnameisjimmy 3y ago
  I had a buddy with multiple felonies for selling drugs when he was younger get a job at Facebook as a SWE. He was promoted to Senior while he was there. He had no college degree, and his completion of high school was the GED. If you can prove you can do the job, you will get the job.
• flashgordon 3y ago
  For getting into faangs - get a referral, leetcode like crazy (and system designs if you are senior). For staying in FAANGs learn to embrace and exhibit "leadership principles". It is all about impact and likeability during perf. FAANGs arent (especially) immune to politics and all things that come with humans at the helm.
• logicalmonster 3y ago
  Just curious. Why are you so motivated by getting into a FAANG company?
  • gorjusborg 3y ago
    This was my reaction as well. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
  • moralestapia 3y ago
    Big salary and a CV boost? Come on monster, be a bit more logical ...
    • logicalmonster 3y ago
      My question is very logical. We can all hypothesize plenty of reasons, a couple of which you mentioned, but knowing specifically why OP values employment with FAANG might help provide better life advice.
      • moralestapia 3y ago
        Oh ok ... yeah sure, it's probably something else.
• weeznerps 3y ago
  I wrote this FAANG interview guide a while ago after doing the LC grind and interviewing a bunch of places. I email it to people when they ask me about getting into FAANG. Note that Blind, while useful, is very toxic: 0. Total Compensation (TC) Salary comparison site: https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/ Anonymous posting with verified employees: https://www.teamblind.com/ https://www.teamblind.com/ These are the best tools for finding out what compensation actually is at these places. I know enough people in these companies to know these numbers are accurate. Keep in mind these numbers often include stock appreciation. You can filter to new offers to get numbers that exclude stock appreciation. 1. Leetcode (LC) FAANG+ interviews always involve solving programming problems in real time. The best place to practice is Leetcode. Buy a yearlong Leetcode premium subscription and do all the modules listed here, in no particular order, but skip decision trees and machine learning: https://leetcode.com/explore/learn/ https://leetcode.com/explore/learn/ When you are done with that, do all the problems on this list: https://www.teamblind.com/post/New-Year-Gift---Curated-List-of-Top-75-LeetCode-Questions-to-Save-Your-Time-OaM1orEU https://www.teamblind.com/post/New-Year-Gift---Curated-List-... A lot of these problems are on the modules linked previously, so you will only have 30-40 new problems here Next, do random problems until you "see through the matrix." Focus on medium level problems. Try to do something like 35% easy, 50% medium, 15% hard. If you can't find the optimal solution to a problem, "upsolve" by reading a bit of the solution and trying again. If you still can't get it, copy the code of the solution and study it. Then erase it and try to solve it from memory. Periodically go back over solved problems and re-solve them while taking notes. Your goal should be to solve two random LC mediums in ~35 minutes. Solve problems out loud to simulate communicating your thoughts to an interviewer. Consider using Python as your interview language if you are comfortable enough with it. It's faster than Java for writing. Some places will have you run the code, others it will be a glorified whiteboard, so don't use the run button as a crutch. Around two weeks before your interview, start doing company tagged problems like: https://leetcode.com/company/doordash/ https://leetcode.com/company/doordash/ Start doing this part first and grind it hard. It might take 3 months, it might take a year. It takes as long as it takes until you think you can crush it. 2. System Design The system design interview tests your ability to piece together components to build an entire product or feature. A typical question is something like "design a URL shortener that serves 1B requests per day." You will need to choose database/pubsub/caching technologies appropriate to the problem, describe DB schemas, caching strategies, partitioning/replication schemes, design APIs, etc. For senior level roles, this will be the most important part of your interview as far as leveling. If you are shaky, they will downlevel. Buy DDIA: https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications-Reliable-Maintainable/dp/1449373321/ https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications... Read it more than once. These courses on educative.io are useful: https://www.educative.io/courses/grokking-the-system-design-interviewhttps://www.educative.io/courses/grokking-adv-system-design-intvw https://www.educative.io/courses/grokking-the-system-design-... These videos are also really good: https://www.codekarle.com/ https://www.codekarle.com/ Also FAANG level engineering blogs. Uber/Doordash/Netflix/Facebook. Tech talks on Cassandra/Kafka and stuff like that. Videos are the best last minute prep before interviews for design. 3. Applying Get referrals wherever you can. Most places will ignore you unless you have them. I applied to probably 25+ companies and got rejects or ignored for all but Uber, AirBnB and LinkedIn. Places I had referrals to I scored onsites for 100% of the time, including places that rejected me before a referral. You can get them referrals off of Blind, but you probably also have people in your network in FANG and top tier companies. People will be motivated to refer since referral bonuses are usually large. 4. Interviewing The process is recruiter call -> "phone screen" (do an LC problem on Hackerrank on a zoom call) -> "onsite" which is 5 hours of zoom...usually 2 coding, 1 behavioral (maybe a small coding question as well), 1 design. Do mock interviews with friends/colleagues for LC problems. I would totally be willing to do mocks with you when you are ready. I had 3 different people give me a total of 6 mock interviews. You can also pay for this with different companies like interviewing.io or randoms off Blind. I can give you the contact info of the guy from Uber who did the system design mock with me as well. He is super super good. It's much harder to find mock interviewers for system design. Also for interviews you can interview over 2-3 days after 3pm PST to avoid taking time off work. Recruiters will let you push back interviews for any reason multiple times, especially if it's for more interview prep, so if you aren't where you want to be before one, it's totally fine to ask for more time. 5. Negotiating You should try to get all your interviews lined up very close together to get competing offers, which can increase your offer by a lot.
• grozmovoi 3y ago
  I'm an alumni of https://bradfieldcs.com/ https://bradfieldcs.com/, and it enabled plenty of us to prepare to work at FAANGs. The courses aren't really for that though, but if you were to take one (I strongly recommend CSI), you will find yourself surrounded by people who crave knowledge and betterment of their craft and are very driven about their careers. The CSI course itself isn't a FAANG prep nor will you take interviewing or leetcode classes. Here's a free version (and larger in volume of knowledge) of what CSI offers to enable you to understand and interact with: teachyourselfcs.com/
• potbelly83 3y ago
  Not unless you're trying to get a job in Australia :)
• ekabod 3y ago
  You are a programmer, not a SWE. To be a SWE, you need an engineer diploma obtained after 5 years of studying.
• tonfreed 3y ago
  The FAANG interviews I've done have all been algorithm and OS internal heavy. I'd say buy yourself a copy of the algorithms textbook and work through that. I didn't get an offer, though, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
• callumw13 3y ago
  I work at AWS in the UK and also do interviews in a Software Engineering role. I have no CS degree and at least where I am we do not look at degrees. We are hiring btw.