Straightforward

Edit: Thank you all for the overwhelming support and response to this guide. A lot of you have asked me for personal resume reviews, and I did over a 100 by now. I, however will not be doing so going forward. But don't worry, I am not hanging you out to dry. I have finally posted A Straightforward Guide To Building A FAANG Ready Resume which contains all my knowledge and insights about resumes. I will still reply to queries more general in nature in the comments or DMs. All I ask is to ask a question instead of a vague "Please guide me". Thank you guys again for all the support. Cheers! I have created this guide with a lot of research, feedback, trial and error, and customisation. I have personally used this to secure an offer at a FAANG company. I'll be using some terms in this guide: * This guide will be mainly targeting two candidate groups: L4 and below (<4-5 YOE) and L5 and above (>4-5 YOE). * Some section maybe be only applicable to specific candidate groups which I will explicitly call out. * I'll also mention cooldowns at every stage in case you get rejected. How to Apply: The best way by far is to directly apply on the company job portal. Ex: Amazon Jobs, Google Careers, etc. Make sure your resume is well prepared. Resume prep is out of the scope of this guide, and I might post a guide on that too some time down the line, if there's interest. Be sure to apply ONLY after are confident in your preparation, since rejection will put you on a cooldown. Sometimes, you may get lucky, and a recruiter may contact you themselves. Google and Amazon do this often. Note about Cooldown: First let's talk about what a cooldown is. A cooldown is a time period, where you cannot apply to the company. The system will auto-reject your application. Please, don't try to game the system to bypass the cooldown period by changing emails, numbers or other info. The system already accounts for this, and can potentially permanently blacklist you, right from the parent company to all this subsidiary companies. Note on Paid Resources: You will see a lot of paid resources around the internet. Please, for the love of god, DO NOT BUY any resource with your money. You can find everything you need for free on Youtube (Neetcode, Striver, CrackingFAANG, etc). The only thing I suggest you to buy, ONLY AND ONLY IF you can afford it is Leetcode Premium. General Hiring Process: * Online Assessment which will include 2 or more coding question, generally of Medium or Hard difficulty, as well as a System Design section (L5+ only) that will be in a multiple choice form, which you will have 60-120 minutes to complete. The evaluation is done by an automated system, and the criteria is different for every company, and even every org within the company. Attempting and getting rejected at this stage will put you on a 6 month cooldown. * Phone Screening Virtual Interview which will be completely technical in nature. Do note that Amazon focuses on Behavioural questions as well (50%). L4- candidates may expect one or two DSA questions, and L5+ candidates can expect both DSA and System Design questions. Getting rejected at this stage will put you on a 12 month cooldown. * 3-4 Virtual or Onsite Interviews, likely on the same day, back to back. L4- candidates may expect all the rounds to be based on Behavioural questions, DSA questions and LLD questions (Amazon Only). L5+ candidates may expect all rounds of L4- candidates, and an additional round based on HLD (System Design). All rounds are usually non-elimination in nature, but your recruiter may cancel upcoming rounds if you bomb a round really badly. Getting rejected at this stage will put you on a 12 month cooldown. Evaluation Criteria: The evaluation was very relaxed up until last year. But, I'm seeing that they have really tightened their process, and expect nothing but perfection in every round, especially for L5+ roles. Now, let's move to the actual prep. Your preparation will be split up into potentially 4 spaces: * Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) * Low Level Design (LLD) * Async Programming and Grasp of Language * High Level Design (HLD) Timeline for Preparation: This is very difficult to say, since every person is different. There are a lot of variables such as Natural Skill, Dedication, Current Responsibilities, Available Time, etc. Some successfully prepare in 4 months. Others take a year or more. But do note that this is a very tedious and time consuming process. So you'll have to work very hard and stay dedicated. AI Usage in Preparation: I highly recommend using ChatGPT or any other LLM in your preparation. Use it as a teacher and mentor. For example, you could use it to explain complex parts of an algorithm, or to evaluate your code, or to explain why some cases fail for your code. I personally used ChatGPT very very heavily in my preparation, and my guide heavily encourages the use of it. Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA): This is required for all candidates. Firstly, you'll have to choose a language. Choose a language that you are most comfortable with. If you're already working, just choose whatever you use everyday at work. If you have no experience or have no inclination to a specific language, choose a language that is easy to understand and easy to write such as Python or Javascript, or a language you use in your studies. Remember, during DSA, you should not be fighting the language syntax or the compiler, and should focus only on your logic. Next, create a Leetcode account, if you haven't already. Now comes the part where a lot of you get overwhelmed. Where and how should I start? My advice would be to start with a Roadmap that is freely available. Ex: Neetcode 150, Striver's A2Z Sheet, etc. Start solving questions from the roadmap. Use Youtube, as well as the Leetcode Solutions Section for help. Once you're confident with the Roadmap questions, buy Leetcode Premium if you can afford it, and solve Company Tagged Questions, sorted on Frequency. Try solving at least 50 Top Questions of the Company, which will have an intersection with your roadmap questions too. If you're feeling like you're a bit bored of the Roadmap Questions, you can do this step in parallel the roadmap. I did this too. I recommend this only after you get a good grasp on the algorithms. Use ChatGPT heavily when you don't understand from the resources available. Here's a bonus and important tip. Use Spaced Repetition. You can search for this on r/leetcode for more info. In simple terms, it's just resolving problems every couple of days, especially the long and tricky ones. This will make it easier to recognise patterns, make you faster while solving problems, and help you remember patterns. Personally, this helped a lot during my preparation. This whole process will crush your confidence, humiliate you, and question your existence. But if you stick with it, by the end, you'll feel pretty good about yourself, and be able to solve most Medium questions and some Hard questions too. Low Level Design (LLD): This is required for all candidates. Google does not ask this for L4- though. There aren't any Leetcode style platforms to practice LLD on. So we're gonna improvise. Now there's gonna be a little bit of work for you. Gather as many LLD questions as you can based on company from Leetcode Discuss Section, r/leetcode, ChatGPT, and the internet is general, sorted from latest. This way, you'll be preparing for questions that are recently asked. Brush up on your Object Oriented Programming fundamental from any free resources, if you haven't already. Now, you're all set to start practicing. Pick a question and feed it to ChatGPT and analyse the answer. Study it. Understand it. Then try doing it yourself. Ask questions back to ChatGPT for why specific design decisions were made. This way, you'll implicitly learn a couple of Design Patterns. Then solve another question and feed your solution to ChatGPT and ask it to evaluate. Learn from it. Eventually, you'll get good at it. Don't overthink this stage. Solve maybe 5-10 questions and move on. You should be good. Async Programming and Grasp of Language: This is required for all candidates. Now, on to the interesting part of your prep. Ask ChatGPT for questions on Async Programming in your language and try to implement it. If you're not able to, ask ChatGPT to answer it, and learn from it. Here's a sample question you can solve. Write a class that has an addItem method, which adds an item with an expiry. You class should automatically delete the item once it expires. Can you do it without creating multiple threads or processes or timers? How do you make it as real time as possible? Again, don't spend too much time on this. A week or two should be more than enough. High Level Design (HLD): This is required only for L5+ candidates. This will be a whole new game for beginners. So let's get started. Do not attempt to solve previous question found. Questions are usually org specific, so it's difficult to predict what may be asked in your interview. The only resource you'll need is HelloInterview. They have written content from fundamentals to problems. Don't try to memorise solutions. All the solutions are written in an incremental manner. So understand each design decision. Reread solutions as much as possible. Spend a lot of time in this stage, since System Design is very strongly judged at L5+ levels. Finally, we reach the end of this guide. I'd like to point out that this is NOT a universal one size fits all guide for everyone that guarantees a FAANG offer. Some strategies of mine would work for you, in which case double down on it, and some won't. A Final Note: I will not now and not ever start a course, free or paid, or teach any of the things mentioned. I will, however, answer to any queries or doubts that are general in nature, in the comments or in DMs. So feel free. Also, I am NOT promoting any of the resources that I have mentioned. Good Luck and All The Best !