[strikelaserclaw]

i think basically they look at the companies listed and think "this person has a shot at passing our leetcode style interviews" rather than can this person's experience contribute to our organization in a meaningful way. Essentially, most engineers at most companies are just replaceable cogs. I'm going through interviews with FAANG right now and boy, it's so scripted, you have leetcode questions tagged with the company so you grind those and hope to see those in an interview, there are "behavior" type questions which are tagged so you prep for those and give a regurgitated answer which you think will win you approval rather than an authentic answer. The sad part about all this is that it works, but it also leaves one feeling dead inside.

[waoush]

Before I was a lead research engineer at CMU, I only rarely showed up on search results for FAANG companies. After a few months of being there, I started appearing rather frequently, and their recruiters would even argue with me that I should interview with them. A Facebook recruiter once told me they targeted me specifically because and I quote, "we know smart people are there". My favorite line of BS from them was when an Instagram recruiter tried to tell me, "everyone is our kind of candidate" LOL!

Being a lead research engineer isn't quite the same as being one of the PhD students. Although I did get quite a few people there who insisted I would be great for FAANG, it remains impossible to get in. Meh. I refuse to pay for leetcode premium and effectively cheese my way in.

[vmception]

> Meh. I refuse to pay for leetcode premium and effectively cheese my way in.

NMGI

If you aren't willing to do that, you wouldn't want to be around people extremely comfortable doing that, or a couple dozen other things viewed amorally.

Nobody in these companies values academia, and would not care about the distinction you mentioned there about a lead versus a PhD.

You're either in or you're not.