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Just got an offer a super interesting place doing work I genuinely love, but wanted to share my experience, surprises and thoughts on this sub to give back since I used it a bit to make my decisions. # Background: I'm 6 YOE, all in Rainforest over 2 countries. My team became super toxic last year and all the good folks left. I was severely burnt out and depressed, even though my TC(260k at SDE2) was the highest it had even been. Decided to quit with no job lined up in December and travel the world for a month and a half disconnecting from everything to refresh and recover. # Expectations: I wanted a job with good WLB (or) a job I would be really passionate about and excited to work on everyday. I thought good WLB was more realistic. I was quite willing to take a big pay drop to work in some mid level chill company where I could (relatively) be a rockstar and not have a lot of pressure. My naive expectation was that if I applied to 70 mid TC chill companies(TC: 100-160k), I would hear back from half of them(35-40) given my YOE & FAANG experience. And if I applied to 30 high TC companies(roughly 160-350k), I thought I would hear back from 2-5 of them. I started mass applying on Jan 18th, for reference. # Reality: Literally every company paying a midrange TC (or TC not mentioned but clearly small-medium size) rejected me! Like, 0 out of 70+ for even the first technical interview. Almost all at resume stage, and others after a recruiter call even though I mentioned that I wouldn't mind taking a TC hit and that I really loved their product. All the Big 5 banks rejected or ghosted me, as did SunLife, IBM and a bunch of no name companies. Almost every company paying high TC(> 160k) moved me forward quickly. Some of the ones I scheduled with off the top of my head: Arista, Doordash, Confluent, Atlassian, Stripe, Faire, Robinhood, Veeva, AutoDesk, Ripple, Lyft, Coinbase, Instacart, Clutch, Block, Composer and the place I am going to join(which I won't name). The only ones I was interested in and rejected me(inexplicably, in my opinion): 1. Microsoft, even though I had good referrals and applied to 6-7 jobs on their site. I thought getting an interview would be easy with them and it was one of my top choice for good WLB, but they didn't even phone screen me lol. 2. Okta, which I was meh about, but which matched very close to my resume. That was inexplicable imo. # The Problems: People might say it is a first world problem to only get interviews at high paying companies. Here's the problem and why company expectations are a big joke: I hadn't practiced leetcode for 8 years(I got my amazon offer in 2017 and started in 2018). # 2017 Hiring Tech interviews were completely offline and required white boarding. "Leetcode" wasn't even a thing! Even though the site existed, I had never used it and neither had my friends. I only skimmed through CTCI(which didn't even mention dynamic programming lol), but I had a good theoretical understanding of data structures. During my Rainforest interview in 2017, the coding rounds were: (1) linked list reversal and then a follow up traversal (2) trapping rain water and (3) a 1-D DP problem. For the DP problem, I white boarded a brute force solution, and then the interviewer asked how it can be improved, and I mentioned "possibly with DP". Even the mention of "DP" was enough to show understanding of theoretical concepts and pass the interview! During my HM call in 2018, my manager even asked me why it took me 20 minutes to reverse a linked list(that slowness was the only concern called out in my debrief, and I still passed that round). I am a very strong communicator and great with behavioural questions, so my communication of technical and leadership question responses was likely the strongest reason to hire me. With this performance in 2025 for any company, I am 100% I would have been rejected. I would now me expected to complete the 1 D DP problem with DP solution in 20 minutes and then have a second follow up to solve in the next 20 minutes. I would have also been rejected for taking 20 minutes to reverse a linked list. # 2022 Hiring In 2022, during the peak of the hiring bubble I did a bunch of problems and got external offers pretty easily, though I decided to move internally in Rainforest to Canada. Internal transfers in 2022 did not even require a coding interview, only a review of the work you had already done and non coding discussions. Completely fair, and made sense to me at the time. I had multiple offers internally with just a review of my work. Managers would wait weeks to hear back and come back selling their team again and again in the DMs. Employees were ghosting employers. It was a completely unsustainable period IMO, but I took advantage to move. # 2025 Hiring Back in 2017, I thought using Python in a coding interview was an orange flag because it was a higher level language that showed you maybe didn't understand memory management and the like, so I would always use C++. I literally never used a vector and STL stuff and passed the Amazon interview with C++ without the STL tricks. In 2025, I got rejected from Doordash for example for coding too slowly on a Leetcode Hard 2-D graph problem. By coding too slowly, I mean I literally finished the logic in C++ in 30 minutes, and they also expected me to manually type up 10 test cases and try it out. Yes, 10 pairs of 2-D arrays of different sizes and conditions. They wouldn't give me samples to copy from or verbally explain. I spent 15 minutes typing it up. Hit compile. Multiple errors. Spend 5 minutes checking the logic and it seems fine. Literally explain my logic clearly to the interviewer who is silent 90% of the time. He says ok, but he wants working code. I couldn't get it to compile. After interview, I checked it. I misplaced a single bracket! The entire logic for the leetcode hard was correct and I explained it, I wrote all the edge test cases, and because of a single bracket misplaced in a nested loop, I was rejected in the phone screen :) After being burnt multiple times with speed on Stripe and other cos, I realised a crucial point: It is complete insanity to use C++ or Java in coding interviews at high TC companies. Yes, even if you code with it for years. Python is the least verbose and allow you to focus on logic and not syntax. I had practiced all my leetcode on C++, and decided to make an abrupt change by Jan 15 to start practicing Python. It took me about 1 week to become comfortable in Python, but after that my problem solving speed with literally increase by 30-50%. Also, my record of probably 50-60 Leetcode today is pitiful, though I read the solutions for probably 100-120. I would not have quit my job without 200 Leetcode solved in Python if I had to do it over again - that probably takes 1-2 months. This only applies for high TC companies. I had phone screen with IBM that was ridiculously easy. Like, I solved it in 10 minutes for a 60 min test. I think other low-mid TC companies may have questions like this, but none of them interviewed me. Two of the best companies I got(and the one I'm joining) were referrals from a hiring platform in beta I found on Blind that sends your profile to smaller companies if you are a top talent. I would not have found these companies by cold applying as the jobs posts were months old or not public. I think that platform is focussed on people with faang or prestigious uni backgrounds, not sure if you can get in without that. # Summary/Findings: 1. Don't f***ing use C++ or Java in coding interview. Just shut up and learn Python. 2. FAANG is a double edged sword. Yes, it opens up doors(especially with Cloud backend experience which is highly in demand), but it also closes doors you thought were safe and would always be there. It's possible to get stuck in a dangerous zone where you are not good enough at leetcode to pass interviews with high TC companies and getting rejected by low TC, stable companies because they think you will not stay around. 3. Employees hired pre 2018 or during 2022 boom are f***ed if they haven't kept leetcode skills sharp. Companies now expect absolute perfection and blazing fast speed. 4. Yes, referrals are still the best, especially for smaller companies and startups you are interested in. 5. Speed of applying matters, positions fill up fast. I think I was rejected by Atlassian despite finishing both problems in the phone screen because it was 2 weeks after recruiter call and the position got filled(the public posts for the position got removed, so I think it was really closed and I didn't fail the interview). So be prepared even before the recruiter call and schedule ASAP for your top companies. In the end, you only need 1 yes, and I got it today, on Feb 14 - 3.5 weeks after I started mass applying. It was at a place that became my first choice as soon as I saw what they working on, which is a childhood passion. All is well that end well.