Hey everyone,
I'm a software engineer with around 10 months of professional experience and I'm genuinely passionate about breaking into FAANG (or FAANG-adjacent companies). I'd love to hear from engineers who've been through the process — especially those who joined early in their careers.

The problem I'm running into:
Every job listing I find on official career portals (Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft) lists a minimum of 2–3 years of experience as a requirement. I understand these are often just filters, but it's discouraging when you can't even get past the application stage.

My questions for the community:

1. Is it even realistic to target FAANG with ~10 months of experience, or should I aim for feeder companies first?

2. How do you actually get past the automated filtering in their portals?

3. Does a referral completely bypass the YOE filter? If so, how approachable are FAANG engineers for referrals on LinkedIn?

4. Are there specific roles or teams within FAANG that are more open to early-career candidates?

5. What preparation areas should I focus on — and in what order of priority?

What I'm currently doing / my background:
I'm currently a software developer in Image infoSystems, delhi, india

Preparation areas I'm currently aware of:

DSA (Arrays, Strings, Trees, Graphs, DP)
System Design (still early-stage for me)
Behavioral / Leadership principles (especially for Amazon)
CS fundamentals (OS, Networking, DBMS)

Am I missing anything critical? Any honest advice — even if it's "wait another year" — is appreciated. Not looking for a sugar-coated answer, just real talk from people who've been there.

Thanks in advance 🙏