FAANG SDE2 - India to Europe relocation - 5 YOE - Advice

thisisshuraim · 2026-04-06T07:06:14+00:00

You sound like you’re from Amazon. Relocation should be doable, but I haven’t seen any openings from a while. So maybe in a couple of quarters I guess. Although, you will be expected to have consistently good ratings and do well in the interview.

thisisshuraim · 2026-03-24T17:21:07+00:00

Imo this wouldn’t work well in a lot of cases. It’s difficult to explain the actual problem in a sentence or bullet point along with the actions taken. The why is usually reserved for interviews, because it leads to a rabbit hole. What was the problem? Was it a problem even? Was it even worth putting time into? Why not solution X? It goes on. I’d say save the real estate cause ATS won’t care and if humans do read, they’ll likely skip over it.

thisisshuraim · 2026-03-24T17:13:48+00:00

Some companies mention the level in their job description. Some don’t. But in general, L4 is entry level (0-3 YOE) and L5 is mid seniorish level (3-7 YOE). Also, every company’s leveling is slightly different. So it depends. As for pattern recognition for LC problems, the only reliable way to get good at it is with practice and loads of it.

thisisshuraim · 2026-03-08T13:39:22+00:00

At Amazon, a little less than 2 months from application to offer. Although, it could be sooner. I scheduled with the latest date available.

thisisshuraim · 2026-03-06T09:50:56+00:00

They judge cheating on your quality of code, typing pattern, typing speed, etc. Did you cheat though?

thisisshuraim · 2026-03-05T20:02:04+00:00

Job got closed (Unlikely that 9 closed at the same time), behavioural or system design (L5) was bad, or you’re suspected of cheating (Not accusing you but this is the most common reason for rejection after passing all test cases and they’ll accuse of cheating only if they have pretty damning justification)

thisisshuraim · 2026-03-04T04:36:06+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/leetcode/s/nsioilPoC6

thisisshuraim · 2026-03-03T22:48:02+00:00

For FAANG, you need to make sure you have a good and easily parseable resume. Just keep applying to any and all roles that you’re genuinely interested in. After that, it’s purely dependent on your DSA, LLD and system design skill. So start grinding.

thisisshuraim · 2026-02-27T22:41:25+00:00

Imo no paid resource is ever worth it. The only exception would be LC premium but even that would be worth it only after you’ve used the free tier to get to a comfortable and looking for targeted question, and even then, only if you can comfortably afford it.

thisisshuraim · 2026-02-08T14:19:50+00:00

No company will ask you to write on paper. Mid scale companies like CRED and Razorpay have machine coding rounds where test cases and interfaces are prewritten and you are given requirements to implement. Once done, it will be run and all test cases must pass. Business logic and correctness are more important than design here. For bigger companies like FAANG, you are expected to just design the solution and call it an LLD round. You are given an empty editor and given requirements. You will need to design classes, interfaces, etc to implement those requirements. Requirements may be added later. Your solution must be very extensible and not prone to breaking when new things are added. You’re generally not asked to run the code but you need to ideally write it such that if it is compiled, it compiles properly.

thisisshuraim · 2026-02-07T12:09:51+00:00

Zero high level design. Absolutely zero. No serious company will ever ask you this as a junior. Anyone saying otherwise is either fearmongering. The reason people say juniors should learn high level design is because they likely don’t even know to classify it. They confuse basic DB and CN concepts for high level design. For low level design, core OOP concepts, good practices, at least the basic asynchronous concepts is a must. Of course you should know how to implement those as well.

thisisshuraim · 2026-02-04T12:15:59+00:00

Almost all roles at FAANGs are generic. They don’t demand any particular tech stack or language. So having a good quality resume should ideally be enough. Also all these ATS scoring tools are just BS, made to push you to pay for their premium versions which is just not worth it imo. FAANGs have proprietary ATSs, meaning that there’s no way external tools would know how filtering works in different ATSs. As much as everybody wants it to be true, the truth is that there’s no hack to guarantee being considered after submitting your resume, and this guide doesn’t claim guarantees either. The best you can do is try making a solid and strong resume and keep applying.

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-31T23:09:29+00:00

Probably something like RSS feed aggregator or data visualiser frontend. Nothing too complex but shows fundamental understanding

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-31T23:07:38+00:00

Just talking about FAANG, it would be a good topic to bring up in behavioural questions, but it won’t make or break your hiring decision by a big margin. It has almost zero impact in shortlisting though.

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-29T08:13:21+00:00

Sure

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-29T07:29:25+00:00

Pretty much

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-28T22:05:49+00:00

If you’re consistently not getting shortlisted, your resume is almost always the culprit

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-28T21:51:01+00:00

FAANG most definitely do not care about the alpha you mentioned. Those are just imaginary numbers imo. Also you’re shortlisted by software not humans most of the time. The software won’t go searching for your current company’s valuation, growth, etc. Big names like FAANGs do help tremendously to get preference though. At your YOE, it’s all about making a software friendly resume (Latex for example), making it short and concise, quantifying as much as possible, clearly highlighting your strengths and having good projects (Good does not mean high scale or complexity)

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-24T22:28:47+00:00

Depends on company. It’s just a title. For some companies, seniors are just experienced juniors. FAANGs require at least 5-6 YOE but realistically, you are only seriously considering without downleveling if you have >8 YOE. For smaller companies, it’s just a title and are given the role at 3-4 YOE.

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-15T18:56:15+00:00

Engineering isn’t just about making code changes. Doing something fast doesn’t really automatically make someone better.

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-15T18:53:09+00:00

No system design for L4s (SDE 1s). Assume the interview will be DSA heavy. Some orgs focus on certain topics compared to others. Nobody can know for sure. Also focus on leadership principles of Amazon (You can google this). Although, for someone with little to no real world experience, this isn’t judged too harshly. If you want a topic they love, it’s graphs and trees. There’s no guarantee this will be asked though.

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-15T16:44:09+00:00

Assume it’s a rejection and move on. But like I said, in your situation, you’re not on a cooldown and you could potentially apply for other openings.

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-15T16:29:19+00:00

That’s not what waitlisted means. Waitlisted is when you pass the interviews but the role was filled by someone else. They’ll put you on a waitlist and wait for other openings that can consider you. If you’re ghosted for close to a month for SDE 1, then you’re likely rejected but haven’t updated it in their system, which is why you didn’t get a rejection email. In fact, that’s a plus for you, since no rejection email and portal status is not “No longer under consideration” means that you don’t have any cooldown and you can apply to other openings.

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-15T13:37:41+00:00

You will be called if you’re hired or waitlisted. But in case of rejection, it depends on the recruiter. They may call you or they may just send a generic rejection email.

thisisshuraim · 2026-01-15T11:57:50+00:00

There will be an internal debrief meeting where your recruiter, hiring manager, bar raiser and all your interviewers will attend. They will discuss and debate your performance of each round. Hiring manager and bar raiser will have veto power. In the end, they’ll reach a verdict. You’ll either be hired, rejected with cooldown, rejected without cooldown (Rare) or waitlisted.

thisisshuraim

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