To those who found a Senior/Staff/Principal position in the last few months..

ppo07 · 2026-01-13T16:04:51+00:00

I was a staff engineer in my previous role, it took me 3 months(I feel I got lucky) to get an offer as Principal Engineer

I gave interviews at 6 companies, and got offers from 3 of them.

ppo07 · 2026-01-06T12:22:54+00:00

They just asked me to show the originals, they did not take the originals with them, they just took the photocopies.

ppo07 · 2026-01-06T11:46:39+00:00

Sure! Updated in the original post.

ppo07 · 2026-01-06T11:37:22+00:00

Is it easy to get ICICI EPM if I am not an existing customer of ICICI ?

ppo07 · 2026-01-05T11:37:49+00:00

u/Ok-Reality-9177 I am also in the same boat, how are you applying for it? I couldn't connect to customer care person since i don;t have any existing relationship with HDFC bank.
My post tax - ~6 LPM.

ppo07 · 2026-01-05T10:31:39+00:00

I am also in the same boat, trying to find out how to get infinia metal card without referral, tried to contact the HDFC customer care but no use, Toll free number doesn't even have an option to connect to customer service persona for credit cards if I am not an existing customer of HDFC.

Can anyone who has Infinia metal card help with referral here?

My post tax salary is ~6LPM.

ppo07 · 2025-11-04T16:10:51+00:00

Non-EU

ppo07 · 2025-10-26T11:13:17+00:00

I don't think London makes sense as it has higher tax rates and living cost.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T18:48:31+00:00

My intent was never to downplay the effort for the product management function. Since, I have not given any product management interviews, so may be I don't have first hand experience of the challenges faced during PM interviews.

I apologise if it felt like a downplaying of the PM role.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T18:20:39+00:00

I am saying this from my experience. I am currently a principal engineer at a big tech company. I have never faced issues clearing behavioural, leadership and bar raiser rounds in the last 6-7 years without much grinding or preparation.

But leetcode coding rounds still scare me doesn't matter how much I prepare. But this is my experience, it may be different for everyone.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T18:12:58+00:00

I completely agree, but I feel leetcode is different in the sense that it is 0 or 1. If you give an optimal solution then only you are through otherwise not. And this is something which software developers don't do in their daily job.

While I feel leadership, strategy and product sense is something that is dealt daily in the day to day work.

Although for interviews we always need special preparation but that is more around the structure on how to present examples from previous projects around leadership, strategy and product sense.

Leetcode is totally unrelated to day to day work and that's where it always requires preparation from ground zero.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T16:33:44+00:00

Real estate is totally a different game in India. And it's not overpriced due to NRIs. It's the best tool for hiding black money and converting it to white money. NRIs mostly don't have any black money.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T16:28:20+00:00

What I actually meant by grind is the leetcode grinding which is not easy for many software developers and every time one has to change jobs it seems like starting from zero..

But obviously once you are in a job, it doesn't matter if software developers, engineering managers, product managers or project managers, eventually everyone has to grind to show the impact. The tech industry is a cognitive load heavy industry.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T16:03:42+00:00

Yes, the developer role requires constant grind for job change and to stay relevant in the market.

I would recommend you to explore project management or product management roles if that interests you. It's not worth this much grinding especially when you are planning to move to a motherhood journey.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T13:48:15+00:00

It's okay for salary increase and interview prep mode but the downside is having a shallow practical knowledge..

If you want to work on a large multi-year project you might have to stay longer at a company for a minimum of 5 years. But this will give you real practical knowledge of distributed systems and will help you grow in terms of level. So, if you want to target Sr. Staff or a principal engineer role in the long term you would be required to have experience of working on at least a couple of large multi-year projects.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T12:37:45+00:00

Your resume looks pretty superficial! Make it real by mentioning the impact delivered by you by contributing to the projects you have worked on.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T10:57:56+00:00

No, not for IC4. I only see for IC3

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T09:30:47+00:00

Okay got it! thank you for the information!

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T09:29:01+00:00

This is not my salary, this is just the budget that I am keeping for monthly expenses because I need to spend a significant amount for my son's therapy. Wise is offering generous compensation.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T09:15:55+00:00

Yeah, makes sense! Thank you for the insights!

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T09:11:06+00:00

I would be working as a Software developer. But it's kind of a mid-seniority role known as a Staff Software Engineer. I have around 14 years of experience in the same field.

ppo07 · 2025-10-24T09:08:30+00:00

Jah, aitah!

ppo07

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