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How did you get in without a coding interview? How long was your tenure there, and why were you paid so little compared to new grads? I have a lot of questions

How did you get in without a coding interview? How long was your tenure there, and why were you paid so little compared to new grads? I have a lot of questions sorry.

scarface_74 3y ago
The position wasn’t a “software development” position. It was for someone who specialized in “application modernization” which means a combination of cloud architecture, enterprise development and building enterprise apps using AWS services and someone with customer facing experience who could lead implementations. My specialty is I don’t have a specialty. I can talk to and work with developers and teach them just as easily as I can work with the database folks, operations, etc They assume you can program at the simple level required by enterprise apps. The questions they have are have you demonstrated being able to do at scale and know how to think on a systems level - security, availability, disaster recover, throughput, etc. I had to walk through my previous system design work. They also want to know whether you can navigate the complexities of large organizations and you should be just as comfortable talking to CxOs or “the business” as developers. My interview was all behavioral. I didn’t say I was paid little compared to new grads. I said new grads five years out of school, I was a mid level consultant. Which was fair. I had only opened the AWS console two years prior and the startups and small IT companies I had been an architect with before had about the overall revenue of one “work stream” in a large enterprise implementation. I was still making 10% less than an equivalent SDE. I was also working remotely. Now, after leaving, I’m doing what would be considered L6 level work at my current job (without the L6 level compensation). There is also a clear road for me to get back to Amazon level pay either at my current company, by changing jobs or if I really wanted to deal with the hassle, going out on my own.
claptrapper 3y ago
Because ProServe is its own job family that has a very different technical bar (and pay band) compared to the software development engineer job family.

How did you get in without a coding interview? How long was your tenure there, and why were you paid so little compared to new grads? I have a lot of questions sorry.

scarface_74 3y ago

The position wasn’t a “software development” position. It was for someone who specialized in “application modernization” which means a combination of cloud architecture, enterprise development and building enterprise apps using AWS services and someone with customer facing experience who could lead implementations. My specialty is I don’t have a specialty. I can talk to and work with developers and teach them just as easily as I can work with the database folks, operations, etc They assume you can program at the simple level required by enterprise apps. The questions they have are have you demonstrated being able to do at scale and know how to think on a systems level - security, availability, disaster recover, throughput, etc. I had to walk through my previous system design work. They also want to know whether you can navigate the complexities of large organizations and you should be just as comfortable talking to CxOs or “the business” as developers. My interview was all behavioral. I didn’t say I was paid little compared to new grads. I said new grads five years out of school, I was a mid level consultant. Which was fair. I had only opened the AWS console two years prior and the startups and small IT companies I had been an architect with before had about the overall revenue of one “work stream” in a large enterprise implementation. I was still making 10% less than an equivalent SDE. I was also working remotely. Now, after leaving, I’m doing what would be considered L6 level work at my current job (without the L6 level compensation). There is also a clear road for me to get back to Amazon level pay either at my current company, by changing jobs or if I really wanted to deal with the hassle, going out on my own.

claptrapper 3y ago

Because ProServe is its own job family that has a very different technical bar (and pay band) compared to the software development engineer job family.