Google L5 @ 5 YOE

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

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)

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!

Thanks

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.

Thanks for responding.

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!

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

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

Yearly components