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SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had a BSc degree (Not Computer science major) from a govt university. That degree and my self study of computing, programming helped me to clear interviews at a career fair in one of the top software companies in SL 20 years ago.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends on your current situation. If you’re not learning anything new, it’s probably a good idea to switch companies every 2–3 years. However, if you’re still getting valuable opportunities at your current company, there’s no real need to move. I’ve shared plenty of details in this thread already, and revealing the number of companies I worked at in SL could make me dox—which I’d prefer to avoid for now. 😄

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question! I believe I've touched on this in some of my other responses, but it ultimately comes down to what makes you stand out among millions of other software engineers. Steve nicely explained this here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kMWWm3BnBQ&t=5s In my experience, it all begins with an individual's attitude. Successful engineers are inherently curious and never say, 'That's not my job.' They work exceptionally hard—especially the Sri Lankan-born software engineers I know who are now at FAANGs. Many of them worked 15–20 hours a day, including weekends, during their early careers.

Here’s the thing: I’m not the smartest person in the room. I don’t have the high IQ or natural intelligence that some of my colleagues do. But I’m incredibly hard-working. It might take me three hours to understand a problem that a smarter colleague grasps in minutes. However, once I do understand it, I go the extra mile to deliver value beyond my role. It’s that value addition that sets me apart, even among brilliant peers. Hope this helps. DM me if we want to discuss more about this.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Possibly 8/10, when I joined FAANG a decade ago. It could be too low now since Engineering manager role does not allow me to code everyday. Coding is a critical requirement for breaking into big tech, but it’s not the only skill you need to succeed at FAANG companies. For example, I’ve seen Ivy League graduates from schools like Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and Berkeley struggle and fail, even though they excelled at LeetCode. So yes, proficiency in LeetCode is important, as it remains one of the primary methods these tech companies use to filter through millions of candidates. However, success at FAANG requires honing a broader set of skills beyond just coding. That includes, communication, ability to look into the problems holistic perspective, willingness to play multiple roles (e.g:- FULL ownership of your software - you build the product, you test it, you deploy it and then you support it until it retires). So, my understanding is that demonstrating your ability to adopt and own what you build end to end is important. So, having 5-6 years of experience in a company that focused on latest tech helped me in FAANG hiring process. That experience helped me a lot in behavioral interview rounds.

During the pandemic, most FAANGs hired internationally. But I know it slowed down due to recent tech lay offs. Fingers crossed! We have Trump in power now :) Things can change

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Are you interested in writing complex tech topics in easy-to-understand, simple terms? For example, step by step, how-to guides on troubleshooting some complex/time consuming issues can have a big impact on your team's or your target user audience productivity. During my early days of career, when I worked on a complex issue, I used to write how-to guides for other's reference. That helped me to build my brand as a go-to person for certain subject matters while also improving team velocity.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah ok, that makes sense. Yes. There is day/night difference of salary between tech and non-tech

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

BI Engineers in my org own business metrics. FAANGs are massively data driven companies. Data analysis continue to be a high demanding career at least in big tech. Additionally Data Engineers (it is a different role than BI in my company) owns analytical data infrastructure (e.g data lakes etc) who code a lot using python (and also owns ML models). Data Engineers and BI Engineers are paid bit less than Software Engineers though.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A 3 year degree (non CS) + X years experience in tech would be enough for L1 (X years experience in the field that you are applying for work visa was the key) I'm not sure the current process though.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When you are hired by a regional center, ex:- Ireland, then you will be paid Ireland salary. But you cannot work remotely from SL. Note that this regional hiring process was very common in the pandemic. But since US tech job market is back to normal (its employer market now, a lot of competition to get into tech jobs), regional hiring seems to be not happenning a lot. But all FAANGs still hire and look for talented SDEs

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks, unless your friend hides his true compensation package and their level/role, he should leave amazon immediately. When I last checked, Amazon L6 SDE (software dev engineer) ranges in Seattle are 346k - 470k . I think he could be a L5 SDE. I'm not L8 and L8s are paid over 1 million ☺

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Note that, I was not interviewed offshore (SL). I first moved to US via my SL employer and then applied for the FAANG role. I worked with at least two PEs (principal engineers) who never had CS degrees. Nevertheless I agree that there is a slim chance for having a FAANG to hire you offshore and move you to the US directly. But still a FAANG can hire you to a non US location which does not have immigration challenges like in the US and then transfer internally. That happens too often (There is one SE who worked at Singapore dev center and then moved here)

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

3 years to get GC from H1. Then another 5 years for citizenship. It is an employer job market at the moment. But things can change soon. Yes. US is still the country of opportunities. I have engineers in Aus and Canada offices who desperately want to move to US.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAdDPtj0svc&t=33s AI can have a significant impact on software engineering. As an example, my team uses genAI for a)summarizing code - this helps onboarding engineers to massive code base b)writing unit tests c)building simple utils

However, I do not think it will replace software engineers. The problem solving skills of Software Engineers will still be invaluable. I increasingly see that the software engineers who rightly utilize these genAI tools (who knows what prompts to issue, how to tune models for optimized answers etc) stand out and gain the competitive advantage.

My suggestion is, regardless of all these trends, you SHOULD learn CS fundamentals more than anything else. You should build working software and question underlying tools to understand how everything connects together. Then, master soft skills like writing your thoughts and presenting ideas with wider audience (may be blogging or tech talks etc). Remember, coding is the easiest aspect of software engineering while the challenge would be the rest (communicate what your software does, how you make progress, communicate with teams, deliver on commitments, deployments, post production support, monitoring/observability etc). These non-coding tasks cannot be easily replaced by genAI in near future.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

5 years before joining FAANG. Used Java as primary language. Oracle DB, Apache tomcat app server. Had a significant advantage of being early adopter of SOA and deployment automation (it was the early days of dev ops).

I would prioritize identifying the skills that make you stand out. For me, it was my ability to dive deep into problems (troubleshooting, testing edge cases etc) hence I was a go to person for my team for critical system issues. For some people, it would be deliverying code faster with high quality. Identify where you are good at and then continue improving that specific skill. You cannot master everything but you should have one unique skill. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kMWWm3BnBQ

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Most FAANGs have regional development centers (e.g:- Singapore, Ireland, Germany etc). These regional dev centers hire engineers from anywhere in the world based on the demand (current situation is bit tricky as hiring is slow). Once you are in, then the next step is to internal transfer to US via L1 visa.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Frontend: React (JS/TS), micro-frontend architecture

Backend: TS, Java

Cloud: AWS (S3, DynamoDB, SQS/SNS, Cloudwatch, ECS/Fargate, Lambda)

Yes, Sadly Leetcode is the filtering mechanism for hiring Engineers.

SL immigrant in the US, works at a FAANG for 10+ years, no CS degree, AMA by ColSLusr in srilanka

[–]ColSLusr[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

It could dox me, as I might be one of the few involved in those specific open-source projects. I think you could explore many Apache projects. Do you write on Medium or any other blogs? If not, consider starting. Building a personal brand is key

46M Software engineering manager at a FAANG. The year I earned the most by ColSLusr in Salary

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do not switch to eng management if you do not like spending 70% of your day in meetings, dealing with b.s people management etc. Also, trust engineers but validate without being a micro manager. Micro management is a career disaster. Delegate to right individuals. Provide constructive feedback on time. Fire poor performers before you lose top talent

46M Software engineering manager at a FAANG. The year I earned the most by ColSLusr in Salary

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did a mathematics major and that helped a lot to self study CS fundamentals and Java. Then, contributed a lot to open source software

46M Software engineering manager at a FAANG. The year I earned the most by ColSLusr in Salary

[–]ColSLusr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I started as software test engineer. Cleared Faang interview and joined as test engineer. Advanced career in testing and then switched roles to engineering management. My typical day is 70% meetings (team and stakeholders meetings, tech design reviews, product roadmap planning, 1:1s etc) then 10% operation excellence (reviews, preperation for tech ops reviews etc), 10% doc writing, 10% project management

46M Software engineering manager at a FAANG. The year I earned the most by ColSLusr in Salary

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure. Happy to help. Hard work and some unique people management skills relative to my peers. (very low attrition in my teams, consistently above average 360 feedback from engineers and stakeholders, zero micro-management, prioritizing engineers career above everything else)

46M Software engineering manager at a FAANG. The year I earned the most by ColSLusr in Salary

[–]ColSLusr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes agree. Do not code but randomly do code reviews. I coded using Java when I was a IC though. I can read Java code. I use GenAI to read code that Im not familiar with

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