
Google Front-End Engineer vs. Gen SWE - hdjrudni
Hi,<p>Can anyone that works at Google tell me what the difference between these two positions are, what I&#x27;d be interviewed on, and differences in salary, if any?<p>I&#x27;ve been given the choice to interview for either. In particular, I&#x27;m trying to figure out if &quot;front end&quot; includes native Android or iOS development or if it&#x27;s strictly web.
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nostrademons
Disclaimer: I went through the interview process almost 10 years ago. I think
I'd initially applied for the Gen SWE position, the interview process was
changed to Frontend SWE after talking to a recruiter (at the time, they really
needed Frontend SWEs), but my offer letter & job title were actually Gen SWE.
I did frontend duties for my first 2 years and last year, and then more of the
algorithmic & research stuff that Gen SWEs do for the middle 2 years.

"Frontend" at Google is everything from the client (usually Javascript, mobile
platforms have their own job titles) back through the webserver and RPC
interface to the rest of Google's services. This is somewhat distinct from how
the rest of the industry does it; "Frontend SWE" at Google is almost
equivalent to "Full Stack Developer" at many startups, because the full
server-side code for many startups is like the webserver code for many Google
services. It's also why Frontend SWEs need to know at least one server-side
language (Java or C++).

The interview process reflects this. When I interviewed, and when I conducted
interviews, Frontend SWE candidates usually had 2 interviews that focused
specifically on frontend technologies (usually things like Javascript, DOM
traversal, web platform APIs, sometimes knowledge of how HTTP works or what
your browser is doing when you make a request) and 2 interviews on Gen SWE
topics (algorithms, data structures, system design, general programming
knowledge).

The Gen SWE position focuses much more on algorithms - Gen SWEs at Google are
usually the folks implementing the backend services that the webservers call
out to, along with various data pipelines etc. Typically your task is "Design
and implement an algorithm to do X, and make sure it runs efficiently", and
the interviews reflect this.

When I was there the differences in salary were fairly negligible. I think
that Frontend SWEs may have come in with a slightly higher salary & stock
grant (though this was an artifact of the times; in 2008 very few devs really
knew Javascript well, in 2018 virtually everyone does), but they share the
same engineering ladder, so it equalizes over time and your individual job
performance matters much more.

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hdjrudni
Thank you so much for responding! This is very helpful.

