I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Snap (Mountain View, CA) in Jun 2022
Interview
I was interviewing for the L4/L5 position at Snap. I had 4 rounds and finally got an offer for an L4 position. The pay is close to L5.
(You need to have managed teams or people in order to qualify for an L5 position. You can either "talk" well and get the L5 position or it'll default to L4. I wish I knew this, else I would've sold my work / experience leading engineers better)
YOE: 6 years
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Design Interview: Design a game leaderboard with top K results. Assume there is an online game that's taking place, and you need to only build the dashboard that everyone is viewing.
2. Behavioral: They try to gauge your level here - so try to aim for an L5 - or explicitly state so.
3. Merge k sorted lists
4. Schedule matches between two sets of players where no two players have a re-match (play only once against each other)
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Snap
Interview
Phone screen with 4 on site interviews. A mixture of coding and system design and OOP. I was given the opportunity to ask questions. I could split the onsites over a couple of days and do them remotely
I applied online. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Snap (New York, NY) in Jun 2022
Interview
1) Had a recruiter reach out within a couple of days of applying. Conversation was polite and based on a basic overview of work history.
2) Then, a take-home task of reviewing "data" (screenshots of support ticket increase chart + an assortment of different user ticket submissions). Task was to put together a 500 word (max) response of next steps for internal product/engineering teams to take. The data isn't really anything in-depth, not an excel sheet or anything like I've seen in previous interviews with other companies, so I'm not too sure how in-depth this role actually gets.
3) Received an email a few days later that while some positives, they were going in a different direction. No insight on what could have been better about the assignment, which I would have appreciated, but that's totally fine.
I do have to admit, I didn't realize until my conversation with the recruiter that this was very much an entry-level role (while I am mid-senior level), with a salary below my salary range expectations. Had to re-check the job posting, and sure enough it said "entry level", whoops!
I'm less picky about salary for the right role; however, the person who I was told would be the supervisor for this role is someone who has experience that's only slightly above entry-level.
There's not anything wrong with that, but for most of us in our careers - the expectation is that we can learn from, and be mentored by, those who are above us in any given role we take on. It's all part of career progression and personal growth.
If I had known this (or double checked the level on the LinkedIn posting) I likely wouldn't have applied to the role, so I'm pretty thankful this didn't work out. :)
All in all, I still believe Snap Inc. would be a fun & interesting company to work for, and the role I applied to would be perfect for someone looking to break into the world of user/customer insights & support.