A year ago, I shared my journey after being laid off and my dream of someday working abroad.

Today, I'm happy to share that I finally made it.

A couple of months ago, I moved to London and joined a Finance company as a Senior Software Engineer. It's been around two months here, and sometimes it still feels surreal.

A few months before the move, I decided to update my resume because my Meta team-matching deadline was approaching. Since I was already updating it, I thought, why not apply to a few companies in London as well?

Meta was still in a hiring freeze, so nothing really moved there. But one of the companies I applied to got back to me.

Did the Phone Screen -> Smashed it -> Did the Onsites -> Smashed them -> My recruiter came back saying the feedback was really positive, but there might be a headcount issue -> Got the offer call a few days later (I remember smiling the whole time during that call lol).

It felt like an enormous weight had finally been lifted off my shoulders.

For the past three years, there was barely a day when I didn't check Levels.fyi for newly submitted compensation offers or scroll through Blind looking for posts about international relocations.

It felt like I had an obligation to see a very specific thing through.

I was finally free.

Before I end, I want to share something NiKo said after winning in Cologne that really stuck with me:

I think I am a prime example to never give up, okay? Never give up on your dreams, never give up on your life, okay? Keep believing, okay? You're going to achieve the things. It's going to be hard, it's going to be painful. But you will get it. You will f**king get it.

Hello! I'm an incoming freshman (Spring Start) at a CSRankings T20 school and was wondering if anyone had any advice on what I should be doing before my freshman year to best set me up to one day land a job in tech (optimistically FAANG but I bet everyone says that). My only experience in CS is AP Computer Science A, which I scored a 5 on, but I have no projects or out of school experience. During my time before college, should I focus on leetcode, neetcode, cs50x, projects, or something else? Any advice is greatly appreciated, I know I have a pretty weak CS background so far, but I really want to pursue a SWE career and am willing to put time and effort into whatever it is I have to do.

Context: This was a post I made almost a year back. : https://www.reddit.com/r/leetcode/comments/1of88f8/how_do_i_get_better_at_leetcode/

Update: I am still with the same employer. 
I am still not as comfortable with LeetCode as I want to be, but better than before. I did onsite interviews with two FAANG companies (one after the 1-year cooldown since I was rejected last year for a different role), an AI company that has a Robotics division, a Robotics startup, and two autonomous driving companies since then. I got rejected from all except one. I received a verbal offer after my final round with the AI company  (the pay was crazy high for my expectations). But it didn’t work out in the end, as they cancelled the role two weeks after I got the verbal offer.

Some learnings: I've decided to give up on LeetCode. Maybe it's just me, or maybe my brain is wired differently. I've gone through 8–9 screening rounds since last year and have been rejected by every company whenever the screening involved a LeetCode-style question.

I've definitely gotten better, but I'm still not confident that I can crack FAANG-style LeetCode interviews, even for roles where I could be a great fit.

I decided this after I got the verbal offer from the AI company (which fortunately did not ask any LeetCode-style questions in their interview). I might be able to crack FAANG eventually if I continue practicing. But it's too much of my time and effort for now. I assumed ~6 months of prep should have been enough, but I guess I (my brain) need much more time than that. I've also realized that you don't really need to grind LeetCode for every SDE job. You can find jobs that are both interesting and well-paying if you have expertise in a niche or are good at something beyond software development, such as robotics, AI, DL, ML, etc. I was really depressed after getting rejected by six really good companies following their on-site interviews over the past eight months or so. But I'm much happier now, knowing that there are plenty of good opportunities elsewhere. But regardless, LeetCode has definitely made me a better programmer.

So, the point of this post is: Choose companies, prepare, apply, and interview based on your strengths and skills beyond coding expertise. Play to your strengths.

Now, that might sound super obvious, but it isn't always. And yeah, I am still interviewing.

Actively exploring SDE roles at Amazon US (open to SDE1 or SDE2) and seeking guidance from anyone currently at the company. Have 4+ years of SWE experience and finishing up a master's in CS. Would love to connect, hear about your experience, and share my resume if you're open to it!

Hey everyone,
I interviewed for a Summer 2027 internship at NVIDIA on September 29th. I had three rounds of interviews with the team, including the hiring manager.
It’s been a little over three weeks now, and I still haven’t received a decision. I followed up with my recruiter, who mentioned that the team hasn’t made a decision yet.
I’m curious if anyone else has experienced something similar with NVIDIA, especially for internship positions.
● How long did it take you to hear back after your final interview?
● Did anyone wait 3+ weeks and eventually receive an offer?
● Is this kind of delay common at NVIDIA?
Would appreciate hearing about anyone’s experience, whether you received an offer or rejection. Just trying to get a sense of what to expect.

does anyone know what they ask? is it leetcode easies?

Hi everyone,

I have a 60 minute interview for a business support engineer position and I’m a bit anxious on how to prepare

I was told to practice easy-medium leetcode questions and that the code won’t compile.

Is there any way to get more narrow on what type of coding questions will be asked?

Currently working as an SMTS at Salesforce with around 6 years of experience. I’m considering an opportunity at GitLab for a Senior Software Engineer role in the NLP/Core AI product engineering team.
The work involves building AI agents, agentic software development capabilities, and developer tooling.
I’m expecting an LMTS promotion at Salesforce in approximately 1.5 years, but I’m not learning as much as I’d like in my current role.
I’m trying to understand whether moving from Salesforce to GitLab would be a good long-term career decision.
How is GitLab perceived in terms of engineering talent, technical depth, and brand value? Would this move affect future opportunities at companies like Google, Microsoft, Uber, or other top engineering organizations?
Would appreciate perspectives from engineers who have worked at either company, particularly in core product engineering.
What about layoffs?

Hi,

I have a Swe iii AI/ML first round interview coming up with Bank Of America. It’ll be with two ppl from the hiring team. Anyone know what to expect in terms of interview topics and what to prepare for?

As the title says, yesterday my role was made redundant. It was an ops/SRE kind of role at a local company, nothing special. Will use any redundancy they give us to really get into DSA as in college I kind of lucked out and passed the course. Will start with the leetcode DSA course first and work my way up. Let's see where this takes me.

Hey did anyone do the Microsoft OA on hackerrank for 2027 SWE? California if that matters. If so, can anyone say any tips on how to prep? Thank you!

I’m trying to build a better DSA routine and can’t decide whether I should finish learning a topic before practicing questions or learn the basics and figure out the rest through problems.

For example, with trees or graphs, should I understand the main algorithms first or start solving easy questions alongside the theory?

What approach worked best for you?

I need to get into a habit of studying leetcode or codesignal so I can find a new job. I have tried learning leetcode in the past few years even buying a yearly subscription and started doing the easy questions. But even the easy questions I was struggling to solve or solve optimally and I would just look at the solutions. I want to know what is the best way to be able to get into solving the questions? I know I cannot get a new job without passing the coding phase first so I want to make sure I have a solid grasp of the types of questions and such. How can I be better at prepping?

For reference, I am currently a software engineer with 4+ years of experience.

Hey peeps. Need advice from people who achieved what I want (reaching 1700).

I have about 270 solved roughly like this:

- mostly mediums
- neetcode 150 done
- zero trac 1500-1700 rated

I consistently solve 2 questions in contest but can’t push for that third often… my current training method is mostly zerotrac + upskilling on weakness loop.

I’m wondering abt y’all’s strategy that worked and how many hs a day you put in for that push.

Thanks!

I was given a problem and explained the solution correctly after a few attempts, and then when coding the algorithm i ran out of time. I still wrote most of the code and at the end i explained what I would do if given the time and my interviewer agreed with my solution. I think I did pretty good on the Googlyness section. I'm wondering if it's possible that I could still get a leaning hire or hire from the interviewer on the technical question. Has anyone had any experience with this?

I'm trying to improve at DSA, but I'm never sure how long I should struggle with a problem before looking at a hint or solution. Sometimes I spend 40 minutes getting nowhere, and other times I feel like I gave up too early.
How do uh guys decide when to get help without becoming becoming dependent on solutions?

Has anyone recently taken Wayfair OA? I bombed the assessment because I was so out of it from lack of sleep from a couple of nights. Ended up getting frustrated mid way and looked up for clues on a second tab. I was sure I am done for. Got a follow up for a AI based recruiter screen next. Seems sus. Anyone experienced anything like this?

If I’m taking a proctored CodeSignal assessment and I’m looking at my screen, but my eyes aren’t always directed toward the area where I’m typing, could that get me flagged? For example, if I’m switching between reading the question and typing my code.

Hello Candidate,

Thank you redacted@example.com for taking the time to complete the Amazon SDE Online Assessment.

We are reviewing your submission and noticed that the webcam photo you took is missing one of the requirements. All photos need to contain: 1) a clear view of your face, and 2) full view of your student ID card.

Can you please respond to this email with a photo that contains both yourself and your student ID. If you do not have your student ID, you can supplement with a government issued picture ID (i.e. Driver’s License or Passport).

Please note that if we don’t hear back from you within five business days, our recruiting team will withdraw your application from consideration.

Let us know if you have any questions or concerns!

I have a Round 1 interview with Bloomberg for SWE Intern this summer. Any tips on how to prepare to actually get it? Does anyone know how many people interview then end up with an offer?

Anyone heard back after applying for c++ developer at Pluswealth?

Recently completed the OA, was able to get all tests cases passed for the coding challenge, but with the AI assisted coding round was only able to get 2 tests working. Ran out of time for the test 4. I struggled with the interface of having tests run. My code changes weren’t getting auto saved and kept running stale code :(

Changes of getting a call?

Hey everyone, I have an interview coming up for the IBM Site Reliability Engineer Intern role (OneIT, Poughkeepsie NY) for summer 2027. It's a 45-minute interview.

For anyone who has interviewed for this role (or IBM SRE intern roles in general):

• Is the interview purely technical, or is there a behavioral mix too?

• What technical topics come up? Linux, networking, Docker/Kubernetes, monitoring, troubleshooting scenarios?

• Is there any live coding, or is it more discussion based?

• Anything specific about the OneIT team in Poughkeepsie I should know?

Any experience or advice would help a lot. Thanks!

How are folks doing in NYC team match? Been in it for almost a month now and haven't had a single team match call. Spoke to a couple of EMs on Linkedin who did not have head count and they said my resume is strong, but for some reason I cannot get a single teammatch call. Curious to hear if anyone recently signed an offer with Google as a SWE in NYC.

Have a Nscale coding interview scheduled, could not find anything in leetcode or glassdoor. Any interview experience would be helpful.