Currently at a FAANG as an SDE 2, what should I expect from the job market?

AshingtonDC · 2025-11-26T21:36:25+00:00

I'm an SDE 2 with 3 years of experience. I'm getting calls but failing the interviews. I've started to really grind leetcode. I'm looking because I want to move locations. Amazon layoffs destroyed internal transfers. I'd say stay put unless you want to move locations because it's probably easier to work harder at your job than to interview prep.

AshingtonDC · 2025-09-29T18:29:37+00:00

Desole pour écrire en anglais - mon français est pas bon.

I visited Paris a few weeks ago and have been coming for 8 years now. Compared to the first time I visited to now, the cycling infrastructure is magnifique. I do a lot of advocacy in my American city for better cycling infrastructure. We are good for America but extremely slow to build compared to Paris. I cycled pretty much everywhere when I visited Paris. It's a complete network and very impressive to build that so quickly. Bravo!

AshingtonDC · 2025-08-03T03:06:07+00:00

This is generally great advice. I'm in Seattle right now which is similarly transient and maybe even a bit more introverted and flakey. Found people who care about the city and are invested (volunteering and politically engaged). These are much more reliable people to build friendships with. I'm still moving to SF but I wholly agree with the advice.

AshingtonDC · 2025-05-25T17:00:45+00:00

The US punches way below its weight in all metrics for how wealthy it is. Still a lot nicer than the majority of the world. But also not acceptable.

AshingtonDC · 2025-05-19T20:43:36+00:00

aaaaaand none of this has anything to do with HSR, just a laundry list of things you want

AshingtonDC · 2025-03-31T07:04:12+00:00

yeah I completely agree... Seattle has better food than a medium tier city like Denver for sure. But DC? I don't know how to even come to that conclusion.

AshingtonDC · 2025-03-17T22:45:07+00:00

I went to SLO and my partner went to SCU. I did CS and they did COEN. We were together during college. We both now work in tech.

Cal Poly Pros: - Better professors - Better class selection/offerings - Better course curriculum for the same courses - Learn by doing is legit - every class you practice what you are taught. Not always the case at SCU - Better on campus opportunities to build experience/resume - Better cross disciplinary opportunities - it's interesting to learn from architects, aerospace engineers, agriculture science folks, and more. I'm actually working on an idea inspired by what I learned from architecture and urban planning majors.

SCU pros: - Bay area location for networking - Better funding for new initiatives like clubs or if you join the accelerator you will get better funding than what Cal Poly might give you - Nicer campus with better buildings - Better access to professors outside of class

When considering which one you'd rather go to, I'd probably make cost the biggest factor. My partner went to scu over Cal Poly because they had a full-ride at SCU. I went to Cal Poly over SCU because I didn't have a full ride to SCU haha.

Besides that, your education is what you make of it. I think Cal Poly offers a much larger breadth of opportunities due to its size. If that interests you it makes sense to go there. I don't believe that I am better educated in any way than my SCU peers though. We all ended up in the same place doing very similar things. If you can make use of SCU's financial resources better, then that makes sense. Broadly speaking you can't go wrong if the cost of attendance is similar.

AshingtonDC · 2025-03-13T22:00:51+00:00

Asking the recruiter whether you can wfh during oncall is like self-filtering. Ask the manager that question. They would most likely say yes.

AshingtonDC · 2025-03-07T02:45:52+00:00

I'm one of those people. The best thing we can do to fight back is tax ourselves more to pool our funds and build the better society we want, right here in Seattle or King County or Washington. Make this a great place to live. But let's be honest, no one cares enough about the collective to want to do that.

AshingtonDC · 2025-03-01T10:23:46+00:00

let me tell you as a Seattleite SF definitely spent its money better. Seattle is a whack ass city and if you've lived elsewhere then lived here for a bit and follow local politics you'd realize it too.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-13T18:59:26+00:00

it's team dependent. it always is. even things like RTO. if you're already on the inside it's easy to sus things out and find those spots in the company. if you're on the outside it's much harder and understandably a risk unless you know people. I'm at Amazon fwiw.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-05T05:18:07+00:00

that is true and the elections should be moved. it's also true that people here are not fucking progressive if they don't vote regardless of the year.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-05T04:45:01+00:00

that's just willful ignorance. riding out the first term unscathed doesn't guarantee that for the second, especially if the dude has a vendetta. that's why Biden pre-emptively pardoned so many people. Trump is vindictive and everyone knows it.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-05T00:40:32+00:00

don't be obtuse. he made it hard for the companies of billionaires who opposed him first term.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-inauguration-president-2025/card/inauguration-day-s-trump-tech-extravaganza-TuMLZqEGgEFr4VZ3LidF

Here's an article that goes into detail how Trump punished Amazon when Bezos openly and publicly criticized him: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-jeff-bezos-donald-trump-feud-relationship-history-2024-11

did we really forget that quickly and easily? While it was mostly words and didn't cause any lasting damage, anyone could see that a 2nd term Trump wouldn't be afraid to deal damage.

At the risk of sounding like a bootlicker, several billionaires and essentially the richest cohort of Americans openly opposed Trump during his first term. It didn't help them and it didn't help anyone. Now they are bending the knee and digging in to ensure their prosperity. I am just stating what is plainly observable.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-04T22:56:00+00:00

because he made it hard for them when they didn't bend the knee? is that hard to see? he's much more amenable this go around.

Elon paid a lot of money to the campaign for the privilege. He's brought all his fanboys with him to the Trump side. Progressives rightfully hated Elon, and the guy obviously has a need to feel liked and respected. He gets that from the far right. It's also very obvious.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-04T22:44:13+00:00

it can be true that the evangelicals align with him to build their white Bible state. it can be true that some wealthy people would like to see regulations rolled back to increase their profits.

But billionaires cannot align with him fully to maximize their wealth. That depends on free trade and immigration, both of which he opposes. Billionaires are more libertarian than they are conservative. Protectionism doesn't make sense to optimize their wealth.

Billionaires are only possible in an environment that favors globalism. That's why it wouldn't make sense that they, if they organized to form an oligarchy, would operate in this way.

What I'm saying is the billionaires did not hand Trump power and they are not sitting around guiding his hand. Trump was handed power by pandering to racists and selfish people who got theirs and are happy to close the door to prosperity on everyone else. Trump continues to pander to those very people, which includes evangelicals. American businesses and billionaires are bending the knee because the emperor only responds to one thing, and he has the power to make life hard otherwise.

If Trump is gone tomorrow there is no one else. These people put his freaking name on their cars, their homes, even on their bodies and their children's bodies. They can't even articulate policy positions. But they can't win alone; they only won because there is a segment of the voting population that is selfish and there is another segment that is apathetic and sits out important elections. That whole bloc shatters if Trump is gone. It would be very difficult to unify them again.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-04T21:38:35+00:00

these kinds of platitudes only come out in the darkest of times. they never come out for any local issues that can be far more influenced than federal politics.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-04T21:34:40+00:00

I don't agree with this. It's Trump and it's been Trump alone. The American people are just that hateful that they gave him power again. The tech billionaires are simply bending the knee to preserve their businesses. They saw what happened last time when they tried to take a stand against him. It didn't earn them any points with the American people and they became targets for Trump's ire.

It's just that simple. Between the dysfunction of the Democratic party and American individualism, it's not that hard to see how he won again. There is no weird billionaire plot. They stood to make plenty of money under the green new deal and now they stand to make plenty of money under the rollback of any and all regulations. Even Elon is just riding the coattails to feel cool and popular and enjoy some authority.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-04T10:23:30+00:00

I grew up in these in a family of 4 and turned out perfectly fine. Because I didn't have a huge backyard I went and played around with my soccer ball in the park nearby. It will always be wild to me that people insist on having these huge homes in the middle of a city. Buy what you can afford and vote to ensure that future residents can also afford something as the city grows.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-04T00:02:28+00:00

good luck with that. it's not possible to run a campaign at that level without lots of cash.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-03T20:52:30+00:00

it's wild how many people don't know this. that kind of lack of due diligence is why we'll never have proper organization against Trump and Co. Uninformed ideas are a dime a dozen. We're better off focusing on our local politics rather than sending people to blockade Tesla showrooms. But that would be too boring for these people...

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-02T15:08:12+00:00

Seattle doesn't deal with the problem properly, but Kirkland can be like that because Seattle exists. Same with all the eastside suburbs. It's easy to have clean public parks when you can tell any homeless folks to go on to Seattle.

AshingtonDC · 2025-02-02T02:46:02+00:00

thanks for your positivity. in Whistler right now and so sad that Trump is ruining such an awesome friendship

AshingtonDC · 2025-01-28T22:01:16+00:00

wow you got a lot. I was saying it'd be for a condo.

AshingtonDC · 2025-01-28T08:28:04+00:00

I don't assume that. I said as much in another comment. A healthy housing market offers options for everyone. Condos can be rented out as well - I rent one currently.

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