[decafninja]

I've been in touch with the people at Interview Kickstart. They seem like nice people, but I'm pretty sure I know what my problem is - not doing the coding rounds with 100% perfect optimal solutions, when another competing candidate is doing so.

For example, in my failed FB interview above, I quickly and successfully solved two problems in the phone screen - thus I passed. The first onsite (virtual) coding round I struggled on the first problem but got it with about 10 minutes to spare. Main issue was that the optimal solution involved doing something in JavaScript that AFAIK typically considered bad practice. The second problem I waltzed through in 5 minutes. The second coding round I got the first problem, but there was an edge case bug I didn't catch, and fixing that took up the entire 45 minutes so I didn't get to a second problem. I'm guessing that was a big negative signal.

I know communication goes a long way, but considering how competitive these positions are at FAANG level companies, I'm sure there is someone else out there that communicates and vibes just as well as I do in addition to getting the 100% optimal solution quickly.

The one thing I can see a service like IK offering me is networks and referrals, but not sure how much that would be worth, especially since they aren't exactly cheap. That said, I'd pay the tuition without hesitation if they could guarantee me a job (of any level) at a FAANG level company, but that's not the case :). Or at least a 100% refund if I fail to get into such a company after a period following the curriculum - but I feel that's easier promised than done even if they were to offer such.

I have friends at some of these companies who have given me referrals, but ultimately all that does is give me higher odds of getting an interview, and in some cases, a chance to directly chat with the hiring manager prior to the interview. For whatever it's worth I've had managers express great enthusiasm about having someone like me on their team after a conversation, but then I get torpedoed for not being able to find the perfectly optimal solutions to some leetcode medium/hard.

[throwaway987978]

Yeah I hear you. I've struggled with the exact same problem. The stress doesn't help and often times I've figured out the answer just 5 or 10 minutes after the interview was done. I know I got rejected from Amazon and then a week later I was doing practice interviews on interviewing.io and the guy who was mock interviewing me said that he works at Amazon and that I should apply. I had to tell him that I did apply and just got rejected from an onsite interview the week before.

Yeah, referrals at these sized companies only help to get a recruiter to pay attention. It doesn't really help. I've even gotten interviews just by searching LinkedIn for ___ recruiter and messaging them directly.

FWIW, I recently attended the Outco sales pitch and they do have a almost guaranteed payment option. Instead of paying up front you can pay nothing and then pay 10% of your first year's base salary. Obviously that would cost you more than if you had paid up front but that could be an option.

[decafninja]

Thanks, I'll check out Outco. Scheduled an info session with them next week.

One other thing that did make me hesitate Interview Kickstart though were that they seemed to be for generalist SWE only, not frontend. The person I spoke with said FEE would have the same interview problems/track as any other SWE, but my personal experience over the past two years has shown me this is usually not the case.

Also would be concerned about what IK/Outco considers a "success". I'm only targeting a relatively small subset of companies (FAANG, obviously, plus others at similar level). So my definition of success (aforementioned companies) vs. theirs (any company?) might be different. A question to ask during the info session I suppose.