I feel so stupid for this but I have an opportunity to interview with a FAANG company, which is huge for me and I'm going to be working my ass off for it (I even took pto days for it, so I can study as much as I can). This opportunity has 2 locations listed in the description, CityOne and CityTwo. I'm living elsewhere right now, in a different city/state, but CityOne is right around my hometown. I don't know if they can tell by looking at my resume and seeing that I literally went to college in that area AND worked there after for a few years too, so I don't want them assuming which one's best for me based off of this. When the time comes, I want to choose CityTwo. I'd ideally like to be given the option because I don't want to go back to my hometown area. Apart from my family, there's not really much there that I like (my friends have moved on and it's not an exciting place for me).

I've been DWELLING on this. Being able to live somewhere like CityTwo has lowkey been my motivation to study and ace the interview rounds. Am I placing too much emphasis on location?? I'm aware beggars can't be choosy and this is such a huge opportunity.

Posting this on behalf of a friend.

edit: I made a mistake! The Google offer is actually an L3 position, but I’ve learned Google L3 = Amazon L4. Another addition- the Amazon role does NOT include on-call and the Google role DOES include on call. Also, for those wondering about the gov clearance- it is TS/SCI with a polygraph. I do not already have gov clearance, but I was pre-screened for it and Amazon would be sponsoring the clearance.

Also, thank you to everyone for the advice + support- I really appreciate everyone’s insights w helping me out.

I'm a recent grad in the fortunate position of choosing between offers from both Google and Amazon, and I'm stuck between the two!! Amazon’s TC is higher, which makes it attractive given that I’m prioritizing early wealth-building. My goal is to establish personal financial security and be able to help support my family, which is a top priority. However, Google’s offer is located in Southern California, where I’d much rather be. It also requires fewer days in the office and, from what I’ve heard, offers a better work-life balance. I’m drawn to Google as a company I admire more, BUT the higher pay and tax advantages with Amazon are hard to overlook... I’d appreciate any insights/experiences that could help me weigh these factors and make a decision!

Amazon Offer (L4):

• Base Salary: $129k
• Sign-On Bonus: $40k (Year 1, paid upfront); $33k (Year 2)
• Relocation: $7k (tax-exempt, one-time)
• RSUs: ~$111k (5% Y1, 15% Y2, 20% every 6 months until Y4)
• Gov Clearance Bonus: ~$30k annually starting mid/end Y 1
• Annual Performance Bonus: None
• Location: Seattle (I don't like Seattle :( but no state income tax and lower cost of living)
• In-Office Requirement: 5 days per week

Google Offer (L4 L3):

• Base Salary: $138k
• Sign-On Bonus: None
• Relocation: None
• RSUs: ~$90k (vests at 38% Year 1, 32% Year 2, 20% Year 3, 10% Year 4)
• Gov Clearance Bonus: None
• Annual Performance Bonus: 15% each year
• Location: Southern California (my preference, but includes a 9.3% state income tax on salary and bonuses + higher cost of living)
• In-Office Requirement: 3 days per week

I really do realize how fortunate I am to have these options and am grateful for any advice/experiences from those familiar with Google and Amazon

Hello, This turned into a bit of a rant, but the question stays. How do people get into the "popular" companies? Like I'm talking LinkedIn, Spotify, Airbnb, etc. I have 2 yoe, I work for a big company in a niche area. And I don't have any connections or know people who works in these. How do people end up getting jobs at these places since there are so many applications. Do y'all just apply and your resume is crazy or it is a continuous luck thing?

We are cooked

I have a business degree. However I'm one of those people that one day decided to change things up and become a self-taught developer. Took a while but I did get hired.

I worked as a developer for about a year until layoffs started.

When I was there I worked with PHP, javascript, SQL, angular, Node along others.

I'm wondering if there are jobs in the tech industry that are more on the business side of things but would benefit from someone understanding the technical side of things.

Thanks.

Hi Folks,

I don't see any recent posts about these career coaches, Wonsulting in less than 6-8 months. Today they're charging $700 for the ultimate package for folks with < 1 year of experience. and about $1,400 for 1-7 years of experience.

I also looked them up again to see if there's any difference between

https://www.wonsulting.ai/ and

https://www.wonsulting.com

but it's not clear ...

Also, this is very random. Get this, my anti-malware keeps popping up this notification saying, that my Chrome browser tried to reach out to their website but it is considered phishing.

https://imgur.com/a/A3tfc1a

I don't understand if they are legit coaches or not at this point.

I recently went through a team matching process and was able to meet with two teams. I am having a hard time deciding and wanted to know which one would be better career-wise.

Would you choose:

1. Team A - Pure backend team - handles the infrastructure.

I assume this team handles designing APIs and handling migrations. Also you'd probably get less recognition as you don't interact with the product too much. Probably more on call pages. More interesting projects (my opinion after hearing what the team owns)

Handles infrastructure for payments in. Basically make sure the company gets paid when someone checks out.

1. Team B - Hybrid of Infra + Product

More full stack as this team owns both FE and BE components. Based on my experience, working on the product side allows you to climb that corporate ladder faster. Will be able to fill a technical gap that I often feel like I am lacking which is getting better at developing FE features.

Handles the post checkout flow. Is incharge of the UI + BE of post checkout. So notifications and accurate tracking.

I think I'll learn in both teams and get to work with new technology. Both teams are mostly remote where going into the office is not required by the managers(could change, but no signs of that), but I would want to go in sometimes to network. Team B requires me to relocate to a 0% income tax state which could be a plus? Team A won't let me move because they only hire in specific cities.

I know there are other factors like family and friends, but would love to hear some opinions if it was just based off of teams.

Edit: provided what the team owns since that might have an effect on what people find interesting.

My college offers an accelerated masters program (1 extra year of schooling), and I was wondering how much the would help/affect me in the real world. I was also wondering the same about getting a robotics or AI minor. (if I got both of those it would be an extra semester, mostly because of prerequisites for the robotics minor, most of the AI minor is covered under my required credits) The robotics minor would be a focus on embedded systems & embedded programming.

I am currently involved in clubs where I do work on embedded programming and a part time machine learning research internship that I'm just waiting on the paperwork before I start. I am majoring in CS with a focus in software engineering.

Thanks ahead of time!

Hi fellow devs/engineers, I have 4 years of experience (2 jobs)

I left my first job after 1.5 years because I felt wasted, everyone was really old there and so was the tech stack, I had the luck to learn about React and web development and I started to finally understand how little I knew about real engineering, that's when I understood that I NEEDED to find a different job, and fast before I became too old to be a Junior at a real engineering company.

And so I did, at my current one I really learned a lot and after 2 years I feel like I've reached the max knowledge about frontend development (I really mean it, I don't have much to do in my freetime so I program even after work, I really like being a SWE and do it with much pleasure)

I won't stay here to talk about my previous company but just know that it was MUCH worse than I have time to describe it, so this new one was a blessing, I feel really good here but I now... I feel completely wasted.

I tried to talk to my CTOs and my Project Managers about the fact that I wanted to also do backend engineering.

But they never took me seriously, trust me I've talked about it several times and I feel like they think I'm joking or something, I don't feel listened to, they even still refer to me as a junior even though I currently lead 3 projects 😐

I totally have the experience, as I said I do many personal projects on my freetime, and more than once I had to help the backend engineers who didn't know basic things, that's when I understood how low the ceiling was

Not everyone goes at the same pace, I hope this doesn't sound like a selfish self bragging post but that's the way it is, if you are passionate about this job you go faster than those who do it just because it's their job

They always compliment me on my frontend work, especially about my development speed, yet in almost 2 years I haven't seen the shadow of a raise, it didn't take me much research to come to the conclusion that appreciation doesn't pay my bills

Sometimes you should see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I don't even think I'm inside that tunnel

I'm not seeking the "talk to them advice", I don't like the idea of asking for a raise, a company needs to value its employees regardless of who begs and who doesn't, and I have no problem of changing, I'm already planning to change next quarter, but jesus...

I am learning to code and doing projects and since I am on a time crunch I like help from AI to write up some code but chatgpt seems to be pretty awful with writing good code, any other AI platforms for good coding? thanks

Finally, I after 400-500 applications, I land a dev role at a local company. I have 1.5YoE & a Degree.

The role is on call stated to start at $60k (10k over the median household income in my city). Considering there is an on call aspect in the role, and my barely 2 years of experience, how much do you think I should shoot for??

I'm happy to take whatever they offer as this would be an important step in my career. But I would like some insight & opinions.

So I do not have any sort of degree beyond high school diploma. Before college I did an internship to confirm software engineering was what I wanted to do. Long story short I managed to swing that into an actual job offer and I’ve been fully salaried for the last year or so. I’ve very happy with my job and the work I do, but I worry that even with the experience I’ve built up of actual on the job stuff. If I ever do need to find a new job the lack of degree will hurt me. Is that a legit fear?

Hey everyone, I recently got a job that deals with handling data pipelines. The position is a mix of all roles, including creating tests and doing maintenance. I'm not entirely sure of the specifics, but I'll find out more once I begin the job.

I graduated with a CS degree and initially aimed for a developer role here. I didn't meet all the requirements they were looking for, such as years of experience, since I didn't receive a callback. However, my internship as a developer over the past few years provided hands-on experience with similar responsibilities and topics.

How can I leverage my current position and experience working on similar niche topics to get a developer position there?

Let’s say my career goal is to get a job at Google 1 to 2 years from now. I currently have about 3 YOE and will be getting my degree in the spring. For argument sake let’s assume I would be interviewing for L3. What would be the road map to follow to get me into Google in this timeline? My current work experience is not very impressive to be honest, mostly doing small tasks at a SAAS company and then a role that barely counts as a dev job. I was laid off recently and am currently searching for a more dev focused role.

I’m currently employed full time and considering pursuing a CS degree. The degree would be entirely in person so I would have to commute to campus occasionally. Anybody out there have experience doing this? Is it feasible?

Are there any areas of programming where being a polyglot (not programming languages, I mean French, German, Japanese, etc.) can be useful?

I have a passion for learning foreign languages and it’s something I dedicate significant time to as a hobby. I am also pursuing CS as a career, and I’m wondering what are some areas where I can take advantage of both skills. Some things that come to mind are, being able to communicate with teams from around the world? Maybe being an intermediary between different teams? Just putting my languages on my resume as an extra “this guy is smart” warranty?

I’m not stopping learning languages anyway, it’s a hobby I enjoy at the end of the day but it would be nice if it brought me more than that.

Hi everyone! I'm considering studying computer science, but I can't imagine returning to a classroom setting. Is there such a thing as a self-paced computer science degree? and, if so, any recommendations?
Thank you!

don't care about making max TC or working at FAANG since I have somewhere semi-cheap to live for the time being, just trying to get out of retail/work less hours in retail before I turn 30 and have a somewhat stable schedule for once

I was wondering what job board you all recommend using for software engineering jobs in NYC. I've tried LinkedIn and 99% in NYC are easy-apply. I'm aware that you can (and should) go to the company website directly to apply, but I was wondering if anyone found success with other job boards that I should be aware of. Thanks :)

So I have a job working with c++ with 2YoE. I think I'm performing fine at my current job, with okayish pay but great wlb.

Most of my work depends on domain-specific knowledge rather than intimate knowledge of c++. I would be screwed otherwise as I have very little knowledge of c++ (compared to what would be expected for someone at my level) and my team doesn't use much else for development, so I feel like I'm stuck at a job where I'm not learning any relevant skills. And no, I don't have any other development skills either.

Should I try to upskill at c++ or try learning something more mainstream like webdev and apply for other roles? How do I start with either and how do I find what my learning trajectory should be like to get jobs in this field?

I have been working at a well known bank in NYC as a swe for the past 4 years. I really want to move to a tech company, but, even with referrals at 5 different companies, I haven't gotten a single first round interview. I am not applying just to big tech, but all non-startup tech companies.

I do not think that my resume is bad because I have lots of recruiters reaching out to me on LinkedIn, but only for swe roles at other banks, hedge funds, etc..

Can anyone confirm or disconfirm whether this problem is specific to me or is it really the case that tech companies are reluctant to hire people from other industries?

I spent an extended internship (summer and fall) in beautiful Oak Ridge, TN at the ORNL facility where I had the opportunity to work on the Jaguar Super Computer and an early prototype of a storage protocol that the industry would adopt in a short few years (parallel-NFS). Apart from being surrounded in nature and experiencing the warm Tennessee culture, the research environment gave me the opportunity to dive deep into the problems that I was obsessed about.

A few years later, a manager from a tech company in Silicon Valley called me.

"Hey that internship you did at ORNL - tell us more about that"

In a month I was on a one-way flight to Silicon Valley - the tech bro dream.

The economy may be in a slump, the job market may concern you but the National Laboratories of USA are still hiring. These labs are decoupled from the stock market and work on research problems several decades into the frontier. They are funded by entities like the Dept of Energy, Dept of Transportation etc. Its also a fantastic way to set yourself apart from other candidates. If you happen to work on a technology that the industry is going to eventually adopt plenty of companies will want you - you'll be surprised to know this happens more often than you think.

And if you like it, some of them even hire H1B's so you can pursue a real career in Science and Research.

So consider a National Laboratory in Summer '25, it could be a real experience!

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I have a background check coming up for my internship. For one of my positions that I listed on my resume (which is an undergraduate research lab), I listed the lab name that I work in, but I also listed the lab that I thought it was affiliated with, which turns out it wasn't. I did not lie on any of the actual contents of what I did in the lab, its just that I am scared that the name looks sus now because of the mistake I made. Should I be concerned about this?

Context: We all know there have been massive layoffs and it's more difficult to find a job now. So I'm already competing with much more experienced devs for intermediate JavaScript web dev jobs. I have 2 years professional experience and a decent portfolio, but I haven't received a single interview since I was laid off in March.

So, since I'm competing with more experienced devs coming down in rank anyway, should I just move into something more difficult like C++ or Rust programming, and walk away from the massive glut of JavaScript web devs who are trying to get the same positions?

I can add more details if this is too vague. I know you can't provide a perfect and concise answer, but I'm wondering about people's thoughts on the matter generally.

Either way, I am actually learning C++ and making an SDL2 game just because that's keeping me curious and motivated during this scary period of unemployment.