I got rejected by Google even though I thought my coding interview went well. I bombed the interview with Amazon and somehow they gave me an offer as an SDE1 even though I wasn't a fresh grad and had 3 years experience.
My director refers to me as a rock star. My total comp this year is just north of $240K. I was promoted about 13 months in. I'm told repeatedly I'm one of the top engineers in my org and admired and reputable for my ownership, bias for delivery, and quality of work.
The interviews you passed or failed mean absolutely nothing. Any company who rejects you can fuck right off. Take it from me.
As a manager, I recommend everyone to internalise this idea from the parent post: sometimes the quickest career, and being promoted earlier, might not the best path long term.
The "first impression" that the parent created is a powerful image that can burn in the brain of the surrounding people and follow him throughout his career, in exchange for perhaps 1 year lag in "official" experience and remuneration during 1 or 2 years early in his career. On the other hand, being promoted too early and fucking up can unfortunately have an analogous effect, and throw a career overboard.
This is not fair, but people's brain work like that.
There is a vast, vast ocean of programming jobs beyond google and Facebook, and a huge number of those people could never even land an interview at google / Facebook. Don’t give up simply because you aren’t in the top X%
I dropped Google interviews twice in the middle. Most of work in FANG is... boring as everywhere, just a few do super cool stuff. And brands cool aids are not for me.
World is full of other interesting and flexible places with challenges. Think about your ability to apply your skills to make people lifes' around you better.
