It all started at the end of 2019 when I was approached by a Google recruiter who asked me if I was looking for a change. Though I was not looking for any change but when approached by Google recruiter, I thought to give a try knowing that I won’t be selected but at least I will learn something.

The recruiter provided lot of quality preparation material (which I still refer) and around 5 weeks of preparation time.

Next 5 weeks, I prepared hard for the interviews and I was very comfortable in DS and Algorithms, however I wasn’t fluent enough in the implementation using Java because in my work place I was using ABAP for coding.

Outcome of google interview was obvious given my less coding and interviewing experience. I couldn’t clear the first round itself. But somehow it gave me a confidence that I can make it.

For next 6 months or so, I practiced coding on Leetcode and GFG and started giving interviews in companies like Adobe, GS, Oracle, MS etc. By this time I was able to clear coding rounds but as I was having 7+ yoe, the design rounds started becoming dead-ends for me.

I realized that the best way to learn design is by doing it. So I started searching a team in my current company where I can get more exposure to latest technologies as my current team was working on a proprietary and outdated technology. After struggling for few months finally I found and joined one such team.

While working in this team, I learnt microservices, Spring Boot, JPA, Event-Driven Architecture, Messaging Queues, external caches, data pipelines etc.

While I was working and learning in this team, to keep my DSA knowledge refreshed, I was also mentoring some students at NewtonSchool.

Now it was the start of 2022 and I was busy in this framework that I setup for learning, I wasn’t actively looking for interview opportunities until I received an email from my employer on April 1st which disclosed the salary ranges of all the bands/levels. I found that my salary was at the lowest level of my band and felt really bad.

That’s when I applied to at least 100 openings in 20–25 companies.

Within a week I started getting calls for interview scheduling. In next 2 months I was giving interviews in war mode. Sometimes 2–3 rounds in a week day and 4–5 rounds on weekends.

In the mid of may I started getting the results and offers. By the end of the May 2022, I had offers from Target, Salesforce, VMWare, Amazon and Microsoft.

At this time, while I was serving notice period in my company, I was approached again by a Google recruiter and I told him about my offers and notice period and asked him to schedule interviews in quick succession as Google interview process is known to be very time taking. By the time I completed my notice period at June end, I also completed all the rounds in Google and was waiting for the result.

It all started at the end of 2019 when I was approached by a Google recruiter who asked me if I was looking for a change. Though I was not looking for any change but when approached by Google recruiter, I thought to give a try knowing that I won’t be selected but at least I will learn something.

The recruiter provided lot of quality preparation material (which I still refer) and around 5 weeks of preparation time.

Next 5 weeks, I prepared hard for the interviews and I was very comfortable in DS and Algorithms, however I wasn’t fluent enough in the implementation using Java because in my work place I was using ABAP for coding.

Outcome of google interview was obvious given my less coding and interviewing experience. I couldn’t clear the first round itself. But somehow it gave me a confidence that I can make it.

For next 6 months or so, I practiced coding on Leetcode and GFG and started giving interviews in companies like Adobe, GS, Oracle, MS etc. By this time I was able to clear coding rounds but as I was having 7+ yoe, the design rounds started becoming dead-ends for me.

I realized that the best way to learn design is by doing it. So I started searching a team in my current company where I can get more exposure to latest technologies as my current team was working on a proprietary and outdated technology. After struggling for few months finally I found and joined one such team.

While working in this team, I learnt microservices, Spring Boot, JPA, Event-Driven Architecture, Messaging Queues, external caches, data pipelines etc.

While I was working and learning in this team, to keep my DSA knowledge refreshed, I was also mentoring some students at NewtonSchool.

Now it was the start of 2022 and I was busy in this framework that I setup for learning, I wasn’t actively looking for interview opportunities until I received an email from my employer on April 1st which disclosed the salary ranges of all the bands/levels. I found that my salary was at the lowest level of my band and felt really bad.

That’s when I applied to at least 100 openings in 20–25 companies.

Within a week I started getting calls for interview scheduling. In next 2 months I was giving interviews in war mode. Sometimes 2–3 rounds in a week day and 4–5 rounds on weekends.

In the mid of may I started getting the results and offers. By the end of the May 2022, I had offers from Target, Salesforce, VMWare, Amazon and Microsoft.

At this time, while I was serving notice period in my company, I was approached again by a Google recruiter and I told him about my offers and notice period and asked him to schedule interviews in quick succession as Google interview process is known to be very time taking. By the time I completed my notice period at June end, I also completed all the rounds in Google and was waiting for the result.