FuzzyRaccoon

Google L5 @ 5 YOE

5 years of grind, and finally made it to Google L5! 💼

Offer details : Base - 60L Target bonus - 15% JB - 10L Stocks - 220k$

Total TC for first year -> 1.5cr

For anyone out there prepping for Google or an L5 role, don’t give up.

I’d love to give back to the community, please drop your questions in the comment section and I’ll try to answer them as much as possible.

PS : Please do not DM me, as many might have similar questions, and the answers could help others as well!

2mo ago

64Kviews

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ZestyBurrito

Stealth2mo

Congratulations @Minato ✨ Tell us more about your journey!

FuzzyRaccoon

Stealth2mo

Thank you! I’ve mostly worked in startups, got to work on some impactful stuff , directly with founders. Got promoted fast and switched jobs whenever I felt like my learning was hitting a wall

ZestyBurrito

Stealth2mo

That's great to hear. People usually struggle with both - learning and switching jobs, what would be your advice for this?
(You can also read it as not creating/translating learning opportunities, as a result not able to switch jobs because lack of skills)

BubblyLlama

Freshworks2mo

I recently gave Google L5 and surprisingly whenever I felt the round went well it turned otherwise round like strong no hire.

Can you suggest why did that happen?

Also please mention your preparation strategy for DS-Algo and System design, material that you referred for System design

FuzzyRaccoon

Stealth2mo

DSA - Leetcode - I tried to built intuitions for solving problems in different areas like arrays , dp, graphs etc. Solved less problems but tried to cover wide array of topics so that I can incrementally build the solutions. Most of my interview solutions weren’t really perfect , but I was gradually build a solution from the ground up, so actually talking out loud really helped.

SD - Chatgpt/ Arpit Bayani videos - This was a tricky part. I tried to break down the approach into multiple parts , gathering requirements , databases , edge cases , integrating different parts of the solution, and then went really really deep into understanding different solutions for real world problem statements. Used ChatGPT a lot to act as a mock interviewer and gained realtime feedback on my performance.
Watch Arpit bayani’s lectures on SD, they’re a hidden gem!

BubblyLlama

Freshworks2mo

Thanks

GigglyBiscuit

Stealth2mo

First of all many congratulations. Getting L5 at 5 yoe is no ordinary task.
Some questions
How many DSA rounds ?
How many months did u spend on DSA ?
Are all questions hard / super hard in DSA ?
Did u have sys design round? if yes was it Backend focused ?
What was ur previous TC ? ( If you don't mind )
And did google ask ur previous TC ?

FuzzyRaccoon

Stealth2mo

Thank you!!

I had 2 DSA rounds. I didn’t spend much time on dsa, tried to reduce the number of problems solved, and increase the breadth of topics covered. Focused on building intuition to recognise and incrementally breakdown and solve problems. Few days before each interview round.

Questions asked were mostly leetcode medium , sometimes merged into a single question.

My SD round was focused on backend since my role was such. But I also had a mock round , where the interview focused on more end to end design than grilling on individual comments. So depends on the team and role ig

Previous TC : 65 base + (12.5L per year esops , seed stage)

Google just asked if I had any competing offers ( had a lowballed one from phone , but still shared it) . I myself mentioned my previous TC since it was high , so that it would help in negotiations.

GigglyBiscuit

Stealth2mo

Thanks for responding.

FuzzyNugget

Linkedin2mo

Congratulations dude, most people at your YOE would have been down levelled to L4

FuzzyRaccoon

Stealth2mo

Thank you! I was scared that I would be downlevelled because I’d fck up my googlyness round and the interviewer feedback was my answers were better suited for L4, but my past lead experience and my SD and DSA rounds going well, I got in!

FuzzyMochi

Google2mo

Looks like u have heard rumours about L4, many 12+ engineers are L4 here

FloatingCupcake

Razorpay2mo

Congrats dude. Can you provide your year wise salary if you don't mind? (What was your fresher salary and how it got incremented over the years).

FuzzyRaccoon

Stealth2mo

Thank you!
(Fresher) Year 0 -> TC 14 base + 50k stocks
(Switched) Year 1.5 -> TC 32 base + 1.5L stocks
(Switched) Year 2 -> TC 40 base + 12.5L stocks (Promoted Internally) Year 3-> TC 50 base + 12.5L stocks (Switched) Year 4 -> TC 65 base + 12.5L stocks Year 5 -> Starting at Google