Is this common with senior tech roles?
I have heard of having 2 interviews but 3 or more sounds strange, what do they even ask?
Is the situation really this bad?
- Thread starter neverminder
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Is this common with senior tech roles?
I have heard of having 2 interviews but 3 or more sounds strange, what do they even ask?
What Google or Amazon-equivalent L rank is that? I've not heard of "senior principal" as a title in big tech before.
My guess is that there was probably 2-3 (Leetcode-style) coding interviews, 2 system design interviews, 1-2 behavioral interviews, and 2-3 interviews with senior leaders (HR + BU lead / VP of Engineering / CTO-type folks). It's not that uncommon for this number of interviews for the more/most senior engineering roles in big tech.
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It wasn't 10 years ago but these marathon interviews seems to becoming a thing with many companies now. For me, senior positions or not, minimum is three.
Europe is adopting the American way of recruiting, which is utter BS in many cases and takes too much time.
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These long multistage interviews and the more common 3 month+plus notice periods don't sound all that appealing. I'm a contractor so guessing but I would speculate if they invested so heavily in your recruitment you'd have more leverage with salary uplifts? They'd have to factor in the sunk recruitment costs before turning you down and risk letting you walk
Neither have I to be honest, it was basically a role reporting to the CTO - it's a company everyone has heard of..
I was previously at AWS as an L6 - I think the role I interviewed for here would have been an L8 in AWS.
The whole thing knackered me out to be honest, the worst part was after all of that they just ghosted me - I thought I was still in the process and they've found someone else, they didn't even tell me - I just felt depressed afterwards lol..
Congrats on getting an offer to interview at that level though! I entered an interview round at AWS L8-level as well, but the interviews ended when I met the GM of the business unit who realized that he was ultimately looking for a different skillset to what I could offer him. It was a major fail on the part of the HR folks who screened me for the interviews, but I was appreciative of the opportunity to interview with an AWS GM. You don't often meet those folks.
Congrats on getting an offer to interview at that level though! I entered an interview round at AWS L8-level as well, but the interviews ended when I met the GM of the business unit who realized that he was ultimately looking for a different skillset to what I could offer him. It was a major fail on the part of the HR folks who screened me for the interviews, but I was appreciative of the opportunity to interview with an AWS GM. You don't often meet those folks.
Yeah I mean to be honest I enjoyed the process actually, but they wanted somebody with more skills in the area where I'm weaker, and less where I'm stronger.. so it was fair to be honest.. I was happy with how I interviewed, it was tough and wouldn't change anything...
To be honest though, I'm just a bit worn out with it all at the moment, and I was really upset they that ghosted me after all of that effort and I had to chase like hell to find out..
Soldato
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9 interviews is ridiculous, what a waste of everyone's time.
Soldato
Tbf, it's not a waste of their time if they end up with the right guy. They don't mind so much wasting everyone else's time in this case...
L8 (Principal) roles in big tech (in the USA) are typically paid $600K to over $1.2 million per year (https://www.levels.fyi/leaderboard/Software-Engineer/Principal-Engineer/country/United-States), so the role is a huge investment from the company, and for the person who gets the job, they can make some serious cash.
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I think one of my problems getting interviews might be my CV.. It's a written CV - in that rather than just fill it with acronyms that hit all of the recruiter search tools, it's written with sentences explaining the things I've done and the things I've worked on.
When it's presented in context I can get really far into a process (like the one I mentioned earlier) but it takes someone who knows something to understand what I am....
Bearing in mind, most recruiters are glorified cold-callers, I might try experimenting by creating a second CV which contains only acronyms and some basic stuff - just so it hits all of the searches, to see if it makes a difference
It feels cheap AF, but... I don't see what else I can do..
When it's presented in context I can get really far into a process (like the one I mentioned earlier) but it takes someone who knows something to understand what I am....
Bearing in mind, most recruiters are glorified cold-callers, I might try experimenting by creating a second CV which contains only acronyms and some basic stuff - just so it hits all of the searches, to see if it makes a difference
It feels cheap AF, but... I don't see what else I can do..
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Associate
i had a interview process which consisted of three interviews, more were to follow after apparently... the first three interviews weren't even with management, but with technical staff, I found the thing totally bizarre as each phased interview I was asking the same questions and getting totally different answers from each interviewer on each round, so I came out of the interview feeling more confused and unsure what they were actually looking for. I messed up on the 3rd stage on some technical coding test which was brutal. This was for a very well known quant trading firm in London paying mega bucks, but unfortunately its not uncommon now, even for more junior roles.
I dont understand the massive long interview process, as if the company doesnt like someone, they can just bin them off in the probation period and try again. We have hired people who interviewed excellent, but they weren't upto the actual job. I poached a old colleague from a previous firm doing vCenter stuff, he interviewed really bad, but took a risk and hired him, he ended up being great.
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Most companies dont want to do that anymore. If you don't tick all the boxes they just bin you off. They want someone to come in with the full tool set and more. Unless they can get away with paying a real crappy wage.
I think one of my problems getting interviews might be my CV.. It's a written CV - in that rather than just fill it with acronyms that hit all of the recruiter search tools, it's written with sentences explaining the things I've done and the things I've worked on.
When it's presented in context I can get really far into a process (like the one I mentioned earlier) but it takes someone who knows something to understand what I am....
Bearing in mind, most recruiters are glorified cold-callers, I might try experimenting by creating a second CV which contains only acronyms and some basic stuff - just so it hits all of the searches, to see if it makes a difference
It feels cheap AF, but... I don't see what else I can do..
I have 4 CV's saved depending on what I am applying for.
Senior IT System Engineer
Cloud Engineer
Security Engineer
Cloud Security Engineer
All of these enhanced with ChatGPT for better wording of skillsets, also helped shorten my CV's from three pages to two.
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Soldato
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And they can't tell after 6 interviews? Maybe the big wigs aren't so big after all.
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Soldato
But the bigwigs aren't doing 6 interviews I expect. The only person doing lots is probably you...
Soldato
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We're talking 9 not 6 though...
Associate
No offense but I guess you can kind of understand that a quant firm don't really want mistakes and that it might be good firing you afterwards but they might lose a lot of money until then!
Better luck next time!
Soldato
Well, no, you said 6, I said lots. Same thing applies. They aren't doing 6 , 9, lots, 40, more than probably 2 or 3. You're doing 6, 9, lots etc...
I can tell usually within the first 5-10 minutes of an interview if someone is suitable for roles I've helped hire for. I would draw the line at 3 interviews, unless it was for a very high calibre role. Nobody wants it to become a job, to get a job FFS. Ridiculous.
I've got some tips for anyone who interviews from offshore or remote;
1. Get a decent mic. Test said mic with different people and be sure you are clear.
2. Get a decent camera and also test it. Turn it on.
3. Get a decent connection. No excuses.
4. Go somewhere quiet.
If you can't do 1 or 2 the interview will be terminated and you'll be crossed off our list as you obviously aren't a serious player and will have been told prior to sort this. Connectivity issues on a live interview can happen, but I'd be instantly suspicious that you'll be problematic in the future.
We've had PM's leading huge projects that have had to quit teams calls half way through because they're mic or connection or some technical combo locally goes bad. We've had this repeating in daily calls consistently, until they've basically been told to sort it or you are out. Contractors earning £1000 day rates that CBA to sort a mic out. Yeah bye mate. Don't come back.
Additionally I can't tell you how many people we deal with from India that seemingly live on the middle of a major roundabout, with no windows. Beep. Beep. Beep. Every. Single. Second of any call they are on. Like I get they beep a lot out there and there's only so much getting away from it you can but jeez. So distracting on calls that if I get a whiff of it on the interview - a time when it's most likely to be at it's best you would think - I will just move onto the next one. Again we've had extreme ones where people literally seem to work in almost like call centre type places or perhaps they go to offices over there which they hire out for Indian contractors to go and work from, which are noisy AF.
And our company seem to lap this **** up and find it acceptable. It's because we are in bed with a major 3rd party partner who provide us with "resource" to go and hire. Their resource is usually always offshore in India. It's hard to find any good ones.
I've got some tips for anyone who interviews from offshore or remote;
1. Get a decent mic. Test said mic with different people and be sure you are clear.
2. Get a decent camera and also test it. Turn it on.
3. Get a decent connection. No excuses.
4. Go somewhere quiet.
If you can't do 1 or 2 the interview will be terminated and you'll be crossed off our list as you obviously aren't a serious player and will have been told prior to sort this. Connectivity issues on a live interview can happen, but I'd be instantly suspicious that you'll be problematic in the future.
We've had PM's leading huge projects that have had to quit teams calls half way through because they're mic or connection or some technical combo locally goes bad. We've had this repeating in daily calls consistently, until they've basically been told to sort it or you are out. Contractors earning £1000 day rates that CBA to sort a mic out. Yeah bye mate. Don't come back.
Additionally I can't tell you how many people we deal with from India that seemingly live on the middle of a major roundabout, with no windows. Beep. Beep. Beep. Every. Single. Second of any call they are on. Like I get they beep a lot out there and there's only so much getting away from it you can but jeez. So distracting on calls that if I get a whiff of it on the interview - a time when it's most likely to be at it's best you would think - I will just move onto the next one. Again we've had extreme ones where people literally seem to work in almost like call centre type places or perhaps they go to offices over there which they hire out for Indian contractors to go and work from, which are noisy AF.
And our company seem to lap this **** up and find it acceptable. It's because we are in bed with a major 3rd party partner who provide us with "resource" to go and hire. Their resource is usually always offshore in India. It's hard to find any good ones.
Soldato
Can totally agree with this. Our engineering team have just been outsourced to India and they are awful. The sound quality is like they are living on the moon, and the constant beeping and chickens crowing in the background it's really hard to take any of them seriously. They constantly lie to you and everything "will be done tomorrow"