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I recently came off of a job search in the Los Angeles area with around 2.5 YOE. While interviewing for jobs, I couldn't find much LA-specific info, so hopefully someone finds this useful. Job History: | Area | Comp | Years ---|---|----|---- 1 | SaaS | 90k + 2 weeks vacation | 0.75 2 | eCommerce/Media | 130-160k + 3 weeks vacation | 1.75 3 | SaaS/Ads| 185k + 3 weeks vacation | N/A I graduated from a California state school in 2017 and since then have been working in LA in both full-stack and DevOps roles. I really like my current job, but I'm leaving because company financials have been increasingly shaky and I work at a satellite office. End-to-end, my job search took 3 months from submitting my first application to accepting the offer for my next job. Whereas I took the "shotgun" approach to getting my first job, this time I only applied to roles that were at least decently aligned with my work experience. For personal reasons, I only applied to roles in the area. I didn't track the exact number of applications I submitted, but I estimate that it was around 12 over the course of a month. Raw numbers from that point on: X | HR Phone Screen | Technical Phone Screen | On-site Loop ---|---|----|---- # Responded | 6 | 4 | 3 % Responded of Total | 50% | 42% | 25% # Positive | 5 | 4 | 2 % Positive of Responded | 83% | 100% | 66% % Positive of Total | 42% | 33% | 17% Almost all companies I spoke with targeted me for mid-level roles. The offers I received had very different compensation breakdowns but were around the same in terms of total compensation. I would've been more than happy going to either company, but I ultimately chose the one with slightly lower pay and better long-term growth potential. Some general trends I noticed: * Higher paying jobs skew incredibly towards the Westside. I don't really want to settle down in that area in the future nor do I want to endure the hell that is commuting in via the 405/10, so I came out of this more open to relocating in the long-term. * Most openings I saw were for companies in the Media, AdTech, "Uber for X", or Defense space * There seemed to be a lot fewer entry-level positions open than I graduated, although I'm not sure if that had anything to do with the time of the year that I was interviewing. * Headcount issues were a bigger roadblock this time. Again this might have been because I was interviewing at the beginning of the year, but recruiters at various stages of the interview process would tell me they couldn't proceed with my application anymore because they could only hire Senior+ talent. * I got more systems design questions this time around * Leetcode-style interviews were still the norm, but they were more focused on iteratively optimizing a decent solution as opposed to expecting the optimal solution from the get-go. The Blind 75 list was really good for studying (anti-shill disclaimer: nothing on that site is worth paying for though). Anyways that's pretty much it, thanks for reading! Feel free to ask questions below.