From my experience, Google/FB pay much more than Amazon and Microsoft if we're talking about total compensation so I think it's a little more rare than what you're saying.
I don't think it's that easy to hit L5 either. My teammate is amazing and had like 8+ years at Microsoft before joining Google but was hired as an L4.
For most SWEs, L5 would be the last level they ever reach in their entire career..
Actually my salary was very similar at Amazon when compared with Google and my friends have similar salaries. The problem with Amazon is that their vesting schedule is very heavily weighted towards the 3rd and fourth year.
It's true that if you stay the entire time, that might work to your benefit since by that time the stock value may have increased greatly, but I'm not sure how much that should count since you could in theory just sell your RSUs and buy Amazon stocks if you wanted to.
My experience is that total comp at Google is much higher than Amazon but again this may be anecdotal?
I have interviewed on two separate occasions by Amazon, and only contacted by Microsoft (submitted some forms, but they never called me back). Both times, it was from an internal recruiter making first contact with me. But when I try to reach out to them first (applications or LinkedIn), nobody answers.
Are these FAANG companies usually recruiting candidates on the basis of "don't contact us, we'll decide if we want to contact you"? Other than knowing an acquaintance that works in the company I see no other way to get into an interview more quickly.
My best advice is find someone who can submit your resume as an internal referral. Those carry a lot more weight (at least where I work). However, make sure that person is someone you know and is comfortable “vouching” for you. These referrals are looked at more favorably since the thinking is that it’s somewhat of a known quantity.
Other than knowing an acquaintance that works in the company I see no other way to get into an interview more quickly. You should certainly cultivate an internal advocate. In no circumstance will that be worse than applying cold; it will often be better.
Go to Google and search "python list comprehension" in a bunch of different tabs. Make sure it's exactly that. If you have an extra 's', or if you do "list comprehension python", it's not gonna work.
If you go through the first 3 levels, then they'll ask you to send in a resume.
Admittedly, I only know results from the perspective of students, but I know several people who were initially rejected that got callbacks after finishing Foobar.
Anyway, I did that search in 20 tabs and didn't get anything.
I wouldn't worry too much about getting into them though. SE's are in high demand across the Valley; expand your horizons and interview with some of the late stage startups and other SE companies as well (e.g. Atlassian). They will provide amazing compensation as well as being a smaller company where you can have a bigger impact. Once you build a few years of experience delivering products, your problem will be rejecting 99% of the recruiters that reach out to you lol.
Seriously as a CS student, you really just have to get a job where you can learn and write actual code and watch your career soar.
If you are on a team of n<10 responsible for keeping a company/product alive you tend to learn a lot more than if you're on a team of n>1000.
Yep, say hello to startups who go cheap by outsourcing to developers who are not as good in their craft or don't care about learning more.