L6 staff at google- AMA
Travelling over the next few hours. Thought of doing an AMA. First job out of college, 8+ year experience. TC :1.8cr
FindingHorses
Stealth
6 months ago
How much have you saved ? Just curious with that high of a salary :)
Also have you moved departments in Google?
Hey @Shophunt
I'm @salt
1. What do you think about the ongoing culling of senior folks within Google right now?
2. Where you headed? I'm sure it must be a baller location.
1) it was all zirp. We hired too many people and you need people to lead them. Now we are reducing hc and don’t need as many people. So we don’t need as many seniors folks. It will stabilise over time
2) I am still at google and no plan to leave anytime soon. Unless fired :)
Deep4ever
Stealth
6 months ago
What will your advice be for someone working in a startup in early career? Should they get their MS/MBA or continue grinding if the pay is good?
It depends on what you want to do. So I can’t answer that for you. I can try to answer what all options provide you
1) staying in a start up: staying in a startup accelerates your ability to solve problems faster. However you don’t always become the best engineer as velocity is more important than maintenance and other concerns.
2) if you don’t want to remain technical, you can do MBA. There are better ways to do this by trying out product roles but MBA might be faster
3) MS is generally useless. Only two things for which you should do MS: 1) you are finding it hard to crack product companies in India and have money to do MS and long term want to settle outside. 2) you want to see if you can do phd but don’t know if you can survive 5 years. MS is pretty useless outside of these.
What advice do you have for someone who is in their early career at Google right now?
I think my biggest learning is to not have a short term view of your career. Lot of people optimise for short term wins and lose long term view. Simple example an infrastructure engineer doesn’t want to work on a client feature cz they would need to ramp up and that would delay their promotion to l4/l5 let’s say. But you will find it infinitely more difficult to get promoted to l6 if you were just a back end engineer all your career
I was pitched L5 interview couple of years ago which I didn't take for personal reasons. Since then, I have been leading a project with 2 SDE1s in my company. I have total 7 years of experience. Will Google me for L6 role?
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@Shophunt nice to see this AMA!
What’s the ideal manager to engineer ratio in engineering teams basis what you’ve seen at Google?
What’s the best PM to engineer ratio.
Would love your views
Answer depends on the team and manager. I don’t think there is a one size fits all ratio. And I don’t necessarily think it matters that much tbh. A good engineer should be able to do product work as well as work with their managers to grow themselves irrespective of the bandwidth of the said manager
That's the biggest lie people say. There are people getting into top companies who claim they have leetcode count of <50 when in reality they have surely done some kind of competitive coding or questions on other platform. Please prove me wrong by telling your interview experience. Please don't say you don't remember because my friends who are in Tier 1 company remember every single questions they were asked in interview because it's a big thing to get into such companies and a life long memory. Atleast you could recall the process.
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Hi man! Thanks for doing this!
- how did you get in and what did you do to overcome that imposter syndrome in your early career?
- are things repetitive there?
- do you think at your level more than your skills your network would be a better moat?
1) straight out of college. Via college coding contests that google used to do. Idk I still have major imposter syndrome. And I don’t think it ever really goes away
2) skills are important. I think your biggest moat is the trust you have built over the years in your org. You can do that overnight even if you have the skills
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Any advise for someone who wants to switch from IT / support roles to core tech roles in product companies? Like how should they optimize for the upskilling journey
Idk tbh. I am not from IT and I am not involved in hiring. I would suggest start doing smaller projects and/or get an internship. Then leetcode etc should also help. But your aim should be to
First get interview calls
I have seen some staff engineer openings in Google but can't find that many interview questions or details associated with L6.
Could you share what L6 interview looks like and what is expected from L6 in Google.
Not sure about interview loop. Expectations from an l6 ice is to set technical strategy for a team of 10-15 people and execute on 2-3 year projects. It’s more about strategic thinking and solving complex problems
@Shophunt
I have been on the lookout for a job. I almost have two years of experience. I am a 2022 graduate. I just want to know where the market is heading. Do you think that I should change my line to data sign from full stack engineering role?
2. I have been trying to change my job for quite a while, but the markets have not been kind to my early career experiences. I would be grateful if you can tell the real picture of the market
I am not sure I am the best person to answer this. Overall economy works in cycles and this is a downturn for sure. Just like 2-3 years ago everyone had like 10 offers. I do think long term it will stabilise so keep working hard and thinks might look bad today but it will not last forever
Thanks man, what do you recommend for exponential growth? Should I move to data science or keep in my full stack development only
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What are you working on right now and what all tech stack is used in your day to day work currently.
You mentioned NW around 9-10 crores. Have you worked at Google US as well? Is it still possible to reach this NW by staying at Google for 8+ years and growing to staff?
Yes. I was in us for a while. But I think I wouldn’t be way off my current net worth if I wasn’t and I started investing earlier
I have 3 years of experience , working in a SBC my current compensation is : 3.28 LPA. Any advice??
Keep working hard. If I can do it anyone can :) switch to a product company as soon as possible
I know this may sound very usual , as probably everyother guy must be asking you for help. But by any chance , could you please help me or guide me. Thank you sir
Have a L5 ML interview lined up, cleared my system design rounds (they were scheduled before the dsa) have the DSA rounds and GnL round coming up, any tips on the prep?
Not an ML engineer. DSA just think out loud and practice as much as you can. GnL is pretty basic: think about hardest problems you solved etc
@shophunt : What is your base at L6 level and , how hasbeen your growth timeline from L3?
D0nkey05
Stealth
6 months ago
@Shophunt as generic as this question sounds, I would still want to ask it.
Infinite things to learn as someone still in uni, how to prioritise and spread that learning over the entire career because I constantly feel like I'm not learning enough to beat the curve, which sort of debilitates me.
Find out what you want to do. And focus on that. If you are good you can make a career anywhere/any technology. Some are easier than others but that just cz other folks are mediocre
I don’t generally refer people I don’t know cz it doesn’t help there candidature
How to grow in Career (I feel stuck)-2.5yoe and Currently working in Back-end but should I go for full-stack or learning Cloud??
Engineering won't go away.Best way to Learn that??-BOOK RECOMMENDATION plz
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