How to land Software Engineer offers in 43 days while working on a full-time job

Facts

Around one year ago, I got offers as Software Engineer from Google, LinkedIn, Amazon, Uber… Most of the offers came with a promotion, and the base salary raise was as high as 40%. I ended up choosing Uber out of all those companies (not the one with the highest pay but I was deeply aligned with the potential of this company haha). As today marks the first work anniversary with Uber, and as friends around me are constantly requesting advices with interviews, I decided to reflect on the interview process a year ago and try to include the very essence that I found helpful during the preparation.

Why Start?

I value highly on both my career and the city I live in. I worked for Microsoft Office team and lived in Bellevue by the time I started my job hunting and both factors contributed equally to my job hunting decision. I would like to work on web related software engineering and live in a vibrant city full of young work-professionals who can both work hard and party. With none of preferences being fulfilled by my previous job and city, I decided to move on.

Plan Overview

IMO, Silicon Valley style interview for Software Engineers is a separate evaluating system which is a lot different from evaluating one’s performance at work. Although many of the companies are trying to modify the interview process so that the signal emitted from the interviews would…