Interviews

I applied for an amazon SDEII position. There were 3 stages of the interview process, online assessment, phone interview, and a virtual interview (instead of onsite because of covid) which consisted of 4 separate video chat interviews 1 hour each. I did poorly on the online assessment and 2/4 interviews for the final interview but everything else I did ok.

Offer

To my surprise I actually recieved an offer, but it was not for the SDEII position I applied for, instead it was for SDEI. The hiring recruiter explained to me that though everyone really liked me, they felt I did not quite meet the bar necessary for an SDEII, and my hiring manager thought that it would be better if I came in as an SDEI and in a few months I would likely be able to become an SDEII. I was a bit annoyed that I messed up the interview and failed to prove myself for the SDEII role but I decided to keep an open mind and enter into negotiations. I managed to negotiate my offer up quite a bit, well above what I even wanted, but in the end I decided to decline the offer because the work I would be doing did not sound as fun as my current job, especially considering amazon's reputation for extremely fast-paced work, high turnover rate, etc.

Aftermath

Did I make a mistake? Should I have taken the offer? Maybe. I think about it sometimes especially with inflation and gas prices going crazy but I think I made the right choice. I think like many people I got carried away with the idea of working for a FAANG company, as well as the high pay, that I didn't think about what I actually wanted. I didn't burn any bridges though, I thanked my recruiters and hiring manager for their time and had a good discussion leaving an open door to potentially return later in the future. What I will say is this: Don't try to work for a FAANG company just to work at a FAANG company. Working a job you don't like just for the money or the prestige or just as a nice to have on your resume will only get you so far. If you do want to work at a FAANG company, make sure you are doing something that interests you that you can be passionate about, this will set you up for real success.

Cheers,
Anon