Great series. Quite similar to how I broke into FAANG 10 years ago. What I would do differently
* More breadth on algos, was light on dynamic programming. Fox put together a great list, far less tedious than the canonical textbooks.
* More time practicing coding. LeetCode did not exist
* Obtain higher comp by timing competing offers and jumping companies every 2-3 years
Overall happy but was declined by Tier 0 firms. Big difference IMO is typical peers who went Tier 0 think far bigger and more aggressively when it comes to hard work and career.
FAANG culture was foreign and it took me a while to see merits of "work-life balance". Although more aggressive East Coast vibe would have been more compatible with BTB philosophy of making it first before enjoying life. Still working on making it.
thoughts on working in FAANG when you're outside the US? Should you move to the US, or try to get into the firm's local offices first? Some FAANG firms have little more than salespeople on the ground in certain markets. Since visas are a problem, rather go with top software firms in your own market?
Congrats to BowTiedFox for becoming an official BowTiedIsland guy!
Wanted to also add 3 tips here you're unlikely to see anywhere else:
1) You can sometimes get someone - who works at the company - to steal the questions for you. You would be surprised at the caliber of companies that recycle the same few Leetcode questions.
2) In line with above -- certain ethnicity people may have something akin to testbanks. I won't say more, but try this: look at which minorities are most common in the tech industry and most likely to cheat on tests :)
3) Please DYOR on how pre-ipo equity works. There are a million ways to get screwed over on stock options for instance. Learn what participating preferred equity is. There are a few antiquated tax laws on expensive stock options (maybe with high exercise prices) that can also cause a big headache. But yes, there are people who make 7-8 figures from this... just even fewer than you think.
As someone who writes code at one of the afore mentioned firms. This seems pretty much in line with how it works.
In any case I'd just like to thank the authors of this blog. I purchased their book back when they were WSB and that was one of the things that inspired me to get the hell out of front office finance (was a fixed income trader) and into being a code monkey years ago.
Just wanted to post this here since I was super confused as their old website WSB went down and I couldn't drop a thank you note there.
Well written, accurate, and timely given I am interviewer at one of these household brand names (above) this week. Yes these interviews lack creativity but I can tell you this is the script. https://leetcode.com/ is very helpful to focus so buy it for the month or whatever and most interviewer do not care about what language you will use to solve their coding exercises. These series of posts saved you preparation time.
FAANG companies require vax so no dice home slice
Great series. Quite similar to how I broke into FAANG 10 years ago. What I would do differently
* More breadth on algos, was light on dynamic programming. Fox put together a great list, far less tedious than the canonical textbooks.
* More time practicing coding. LeetCode did not exist
* Obtain higher comp by timing competing offers and jumping companies every 2-3 years
Overall happy but was declined by Tier 0 firms. Big difference IMO is typical peers who went Tier 0 think far bigger and more aggressively when it comes to hard work and career.
FAANG culture was foreign and it took me a while to see merits of "work-life balance". Although more aggressive East Coast vibe would have been more compatible with BTB philosophy of making it first before enjoying life. Still working on making it.
Solid series. Working in tech, I thought this had great value. 9/10.
thoughts on working in FAANG when you're outside the US? Should you move to the US, or try to get into the firm's local offices first? Some FAANG firms have little more than salespeople on the ground in certain markets. Since visas are a problem, rather go with top software firms in your own market?
Congrats to BowTiedFox for becoming an official BowTiedIsland guy!
Wanted to also add 3 tips here you're unlikely to see anywhere else:
1) You can sometimes get someone - who works at the company - to steal the questions for you. You would be surprised at the caliber of companies that recycle the same few Leetcode questions.
2) In line with above -- certain ethnicity people may have something akin to testbanks. I won't say more, but try this: look at which minorities are most common in the tech industry and most likely to cheat on tests :)
3) Please DYOR on how pre-ipo equity works. There are a million ways to get screwed over on stock options for instance. Learn what participating preferred equity is. There are a few antiquated tax laws on expensive stock options (maybe with high exercise prices) that can also cause a big headache. But yes, there are people who make 7-8 figures from this... just even fewer than you think.
As someone who writes code at one of the afore mentioned firms. This seems pretty much in line with how it works.
In any case I'd just like to thank the authors of this blog. I purchased their book back when they were WSB and that was one of the things that inspired me to get the hell out of front office finance (was a fixed income trader) and into being a code monkey years ago.
Just wanted to post this here since I was super confused as their old website WSB went down and I couldn't drop a thank you note there.
Well written, accurate, and timely given I am interviewer at one of these household brand names (above) this week. Yes these interviews lack creativity but I can tell you this is the script. https://leetcode.com/ is very helpful to focus so buy it for the month or whatever and most interviewer do not care about what language you will use to solve their coding exercises. These series of posts saved you preparation time.