Susan’s Adventures in Job Searching for Senior Engineer Roles

It was time for my performance review meeting. I rated myself pretty highly in almost all the goals that the manager and I had set last year: I had fixed a lot of bugs and technical debt as the only remaining engineer on a web applications project in a turbulent year where both the product manager and 2 engineers on the project had resigned. My manager summarized that I met expectations last year and even if our opinions completely differ, there there would be no changes in my total compensation. Not even a small salary increase to keep up with yearly inflation in the high cost-of-living Bay Area. Hiding my disappointment, I nodded silently and the brief meeting was over. With no system of peer reviews in place and being the only engineer left, I felt that the performance review was one-sided. My self-evaluation did not count.

The project has been on permanent feature freeze for the past year. Even worse, I realized my total compensation number was far lower compared to the numbers on levels.fyi for the years of experience. These were more incentives to continue interviewing while in a full-time job.

I went back to my desk where I continued to reply to emails from technical recruiters for full stack engineering roles. With literally nothing work-related to do at work, I had scheduled 6 technical interviews, 8 intro calls, and 1 on-site interview. This was my typical week of interviews. This fast high volume style of interviewing is my preferred way of doing interviews. I had already (mis-)used up all my vacation days & PTO days to do interviews for an entire month, so I was stuck in the office, trying to book empty conference rooms for phone interviews.

A recruiter on the phone had asked me about the number of companies I’ve been interviewing at and why I do so many interviews at once. I replied that I keep getting better with each interview because each interview is practice for the next interview, and I keep seeing similar technical questions so I get better at solving them faster, and with the increasingly large number of tech companies in the Bay Area that are hiring, the statistics will help me. I never heard from the recruiter again. Maybe she disliked hearing the blatant cold truth from a candidate.

Either the candidate or the employer can end the interview process for any reason at any stage of the process. I tried not to get too attached to any new potential employer even if that potential employer checks all the boxes and has an office with beautiful skyscraper views and free lunch and snacks.

I asked the same 6 questions to every recruiter and hiring manger:

1. Is there daily catered lunch & other team activities to get to know coworkers? (Team comaraderie is important in the culture I’m looking for .)
2. What is the female to male ratio on engineering & engineering executive team? What is the ratio of junior, mid-level, to senior engineers? (Because diversity matters).
3. Is the company net profitable or has positive revenue each year? (Because a tech company that is net profitable survives a recession better than a VC-backed tech company that wastes money on building an indoor spa and gym.)
4. What is the retention rate of the engineers overall? (Avoid companies where engineers keep leaving or if the original team has left.)
5. Will stocks/equity/RSUs be part of the total comp package? (Avoid companies that do not offer equity nor performance bonus plan; just a base salary is not enough to be a competitive total comp package).
6. What is the internal promotion/annual performance review process like? Is there a clear set of expectations between mid-level software engineer and senior engineer and what to do to reach next level? (A peer review process is better than a 1-sided manager review and a detailed career ladder document is better than an ad hoc way of promoting engineers).

Also, I’m not a fan of open-ended take-home code homework or code challenges for various reasons; take-home code work is a deal breaker for me. The only exception I make is for public giant tech companies.

A surprising number of employers did not know the answers to my questions or did not bother to reply after I posted my list of questions. Based on these 6 questions and by the end of first intro phone call, over 30% of potential tech employers did not meet my basic requirements or were too early stage.

At least 2 recruiters did not read my email and sent me a take-home coding challenge. At least 2 of the technical phone interviews copied difficult questions from Leetcode word-by-word. At least 2 recruiters told me that their entire engineering team consists of all men. At least 2 technical interviews asked the same algorithms question. I did 3 take-home exams, primarily for big tech companies, but I never got feedback on how I did.

Every interviewer on the phone and at each on-site meeting asked me about my favorite project that I implemented, why I want to leave, and what I’m looking for in my next role. I memorized all the answers to common questions with answers that I had to repeat multiple times in the same day.

A month into my intensive job search, I got my first offer from a giant 1,000+ employee co-working real estate company. I was under levelled because the offer was for a midlevel role while I was aiming for senior roles. I told a tech recruiter what the new total compensation was. She told me that this was a terrible lowball offer and I should ask for twice as many more RSUs. Unfortunately, the potential employer who gave me the first offer refused to move the numbers higher. This put them out of the running quickly. I continued my busy interview schedule. Even with a lowball offer as my only offer, I was ready to say no and move on.

A month later, I received my second offer from a 20-person tech startup. The second offer was literally twice the total compensation of the first offer. This was a no-brainer decision. The mission, the small size of the engineering team, and culture all fit my requirements too. The most surprising fact was that the total compensation in a job offer from a 20-person startup beat the total compensation of a 1,000 person tech giant by 2x.

My job search started on January 1, 2019 and ended when I signed the offer on March 9, 2019. Over the past months, I’ve tried many new snacks and beverages at tech offices and talked to over 70 recruiters & engineers. I’ll remember the floor-to-ceiling views of the Bay Area when visiting a beautifully designed office. The journey was unpredictable. Failing an interview helped me gain more experience to improve in the next interview.

This is a kanban view of all the tech companies I’ve talked to and my notes on each of them.