Uber (5b) vs LinkedIn (Staff) Offers
I hear hella mixed things about both. For me, WLB > career growth > TC. I’m engaged and like to do good, focused work during normal hours, but I don’t like being pressured to work a million hours a week to avoid PIP. Uber - Team is growing, high value area - Con: was told it will be very busy, minimum (?) 50 hours/week for the foreseeable future. Concerned I’ll drown with the scope/ramp/hours - Con: The commute sucks (50% RTO) LinkedIn (Infra) - Team and tech is less interesting but commute is short (RTO Tues-Thurs starting October) - Con: Less clear info on current state of culture - Con: I have more belief in Uber’s business, not sure on LinkedIn’s long term growth prospects. Interested to hear thoughts on both. Uber TC can beat LinkedIn if I negotiate, but at this level of TC I don’t care much TC: 405k YOE: 8-9 ---------------- PREP ---------------- [Edit] Lots of people asking for prep advice, here are the deets... honestly, nothing special or anything you haven't already heard of. Just keep practicing and interviewing consistently. -- LC -- Start with topics from Neetcode 150 until you feel comfortable with them. If you don't feel comfortable with a topic, do a spike for a day: read about it, solve a bunch of problems, then continue to keep it fresh by keeping it in your rotation. Once none of the problems seem particularly surprising, do random LC from the Leetcode top 100, FB top 100, etc. I mostly did mediums, the occasional hard, most of which I didn't solve in a reasonable amount of time to be honest. The main thing is taking the few minutes at the beginning to really understand the question, hash out exactly what your solution will look like, and run it by the interviewer for a change in direction in case you've gone down the wrong path. -- SD -- SD interviews are a skill in themselves. Even if you have a lot of experience building distributed systems, having a consistent and reproducible system (heh) for doing these interviews is important. Use Alex Xu's second book to get the format down and refresh on a bunch of miscellaneous topics. The first book isn't nearly in-depth enough for senior or higher--maybe useful for ideas for things to practice designing. Even with the second, anything that doesn't go into enough detail--you should find a couple things every chapter, or more--write it down and research it later. Question claims the author makes. If they say "X is a good choice here", and they don't also answer WHY, look that thing up and make your own assessment. The interviewer may well ask you why you made that choice, and you should be able to explain that to them with an informed perspective. Once that's done, start doing "design X" on your own, 45-60 minutes. Then look up examples of that system and see how yours compares. If there's anything you felt unsure about, note it down and research it. You should be able to guesstimate what scale you can handle with an RDBMS and when you'd want to consider something else; you should understand WHY Cassandra comparatively performs so well with high write load (i.e. B-trees vs. LSM trees). It really helps if you find this stuff genuinely interesting; try to approach it out of personal interest rather than "stuff to memorize" and you'd be surprised at how often the knowledge comes up. Note that the overall idea here isn't just figuring out "what to remember to pass the interview", it's actually improving your knowledge and confidence. For these deeper details, consume SD talks and relevant books, such as the following: DDIA - Martin Kleppmann Database Internals - Alex Petrov USENIX - YouTube InfoQ - YouTube Also read company blogs: FB, Netflix, Uber, etc Some talks I have noted down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4_7W4XzRgk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO4teCbHvZw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNIvHttFjdI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w6E_B55p0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AO4t7G8Bmk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc3PPmHvrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnpzNAPiC0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuDJBTPdaOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BfMH4GQWnk -- Behavioral -- Honestly you just have to have some stories prepared and be able to speak to your experience. There's no secret here. If a HM asks you about a conflict you have at work, think of something, present the scenario, and present the solution. Overall, I'd recommend being solution and customer oriented no matter the question. I probably do the least prep for this, but did write down a number of things I could imagine coming up as well as write notes on previous projects in detail, so I wouldn't forget them, and even referenced them during interviews. Nobody seemed to mind. Even with the above I still got rejections, even for SD which is for sure my strongest. It's a numbers game, folks. Just focus on continuously improving, studying at a sustainable pace, staying consistent, and putting yourself out there. #offers #Offer Evaluation
Both offers seem low for staff. But LinkedIn sounds like a better option than Uber especially given that neither has a sign on bonus
LinkedIn staff is Google’s senior level, isn’t it?
Agreed @Splunk. Seems in line for LinkedIn, and low for historical Uber. They’ve changed their comp bands and reduced RSU grants + front loading; I think it’s a reflection of the current environment
@Expedia LinkedIn staff is like, top half of Google senior and partway through L6. I think they’ve cut down on the title inflation in recent years but Staff is still a thicc band lol
LinkedIn has much better wlb compared to Uber. They give you plenty of holidays as well. Uber stock may not grow as much considering the competition for gig economy and the million extra fees each local government is imposing.
How'd LI now after msft acquisition? I heard they're still kind of under their own mgmt and wlb is better than the regular msft teams?
They are under their own management and WLB is fantastic. Their business is kinda unique— I hate the platform, but can’t deny they have a ton of usage with no competitor in sight. Uber on the other hand is going to go through a challenging period with AVs. And their stock has been very flat
Linked in Hands down
With LinkedIn you get better commute and WLB. With Uber you get better TC over time with refreshers and possibly better career growth. Given your priorities, LinkedIn seems to be the winner.
Some advice on LinkedIn’s interview prep will be appreciated. Especially the craftsmanship.
Yeah this is kind of where I’m landing. There’s been less chatter about hunger games at LinkedIn vs a year ago, so I’m hoping things have stabilized now—I’d rather take Uber if I’ll be working the same hours at LinkedIn Thanks Meta!
When you can, please share interview prep.
Just got recruiter message from LinkedIn. Do you think I can aim for staff with 7 YOE?
Fuck OP. Responding to people who give info about LI and Uber. But won’t answer a single question about interview prep. C*nts like this at are all over Blind - take a lot but don’t give anything back.
Honestly the commute is plenty reason to choose LinkedIn itself. My commute went from wfh/10 minutes to office any time I want, to 45 minutes each way 5 days a week and I'd value that at 75k-100k
Yeah the commute is definitely a concern for me, about 40 minutes each way. That’s time you don’t get back! I’d be less concerned if the WLB were good, but I hear mixed things. Seems team dependent, and either great or terrible
5b > staff. You probably won't get much refreshers if any at linkedin at that tc.
Gotcha, I’m guessing there’s a target middle-of-band TC that they try to adjust to? Do you know what that is for Staff?
+1 to pfleoefs. mid point TC for staff is 420k ish and you are way above that. unless you get exceeds ratings don’t expect any refreshers. refreshers aren’t great either so setting the expectations.
Midpoint for staff is not 420k, it’s 450k. Also that’s for apps, not infra which would be higher I agree refreshers at LinkedIn are hit or miss. Depends on many factors. I got 150k refresher this cycle as exceeds staff
Why not stay at DBX?
It’s a dumpster fire, no professional growth, haven’t been happy for a while. I’d rather leave now than job search with a layoff cohort lol
Don’t leave us Dripbox the company channel the company channel won’t be the same without you!
❤️ I’ll lurk even after leaving as all good Blinders would, I just won’t have new tea to offer myself! Gosh I feel like a D-list celebrity 😂 thanks for that!