Elated this panned out and my job hunt is over! I started applying around in January and went through the interview process with Amazon and Meta. The Amazon recruiter put me in the SDE II loop despite being a staff engineer at my current company and telling them I wanted at least SDE III. Meanwhile, Meta never told me what level I was interviewing for and I only learned it was E6 when I flat out asked my recruiter after on-sites were scheduled. Passed both loops, received offers around the same time, and then used the Amazon offer to counter Meta's. I didn't discuss the level or share the numbers and instead emphasized that the role had a huge intangible benefit of my not needing to relocate to the bay area. They came back with an offer more than double what Amazon was offering and I signed it on the spot! In retrospect probably should have pushed harder to get in that SDE III loop, but it all worked out in the end. Current TC: ~$180-$230k (Bonus Dependent) Amazon Offer: $290k Meta Offer: $730k #meta #amazon #software #swe
Congrats! Thatās amazing an amazing story and glad it worked out! Iām in the Meta on-site stage for E6 as well, can I DM you for some advice? Also curious how you navigated team match, how long it took and stuff.
Sure. I may not have the best advice but happy to chat.
whats your YOE? feel you could have pushed a bit more .. great negotiation skills nonetheless i am surprised Meta mapped you to 6 directly
10 YoE. Yea it was a balancing act of pushing for more but knowing that if I pushed too far they could call my bluff and ask to see numbers. Regardless Iām happy with the number. Itās higher than most of the E6 offers Ive seen recently. Iām more surprised by the Amazon down level. I mentioned that in addition to my IC work I manage a team of 6 senior engineers and the recruiter kept saying they expect SDE III to have more influence than just five peopleā¦ it was weird. Despite explaining that I lead significantly larger teams and those are just the ones I directly people manage, she wouldnāt drop it.
nicely done with just 10 yoe.. kudos and congrats š
So you have to relocate to the Bay Area ?
You must be pretty good at system design. Any tips ?
I do, but I was already living in a very expensive city. Just not SF/Manhattan prices. I Donāt know if I have the best tips for System Design. I really donāt care for mocks so I didnāt do any. My day to day is building systems in AWS, so the biggest thing I needed to learn was the āvendor agnosticā lingo. Read DDIA and any time I came across something new Iād read a couple of the reference papers on it and spin it up in AWS to get a feel.
Well done. Offer details?
Thatās great to hear. Thatās a killer offer for 10 YOE. Congrats and nice play.
Your amazon offer would probably have been ~450k at L6. E6 is an L7 equal at amazon, you won my friend!
Can you share your counter email, removing/redacting details? What was the original Meta offer, what did the counter email look like, and then what did they come back with?
You forgot to mention that when you told Amazon about the meta offer, that Amazon pulled even with a local offer. And then, when you told meta that you got a similar offer, without having to relocate, meta bought you an 8M dollar house in the bay, had a Model S and Model X in the garage, ready waiting, and arranged full marriage for you upon your arrival... It was only when you asked to have a white Arabian horse and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the backyard to take care of the house, they said they wouldn't do it, but at least up leveled you to director with 1.5M TC to start with.
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Lol, good work. Surprised to hear they didnāt press you to reveal the details on the Amazon offer.
They asked and I said I didn't want to muddy the comparison because the offer is for a different Cost of Living, but that my main drive was that it kept me local.
one of the best responses iāve heard!! this is what got you the kick ass offer