
Ask HN: My applications for FAANG dev roles are rejected immediately - devblacklist
I&#x27;m a dev with a CS degree, and around 8 years of experience at startups and agencies. During this time, I&#x27;ve worked my way through various different roles, and languages. Most of my experience is in C# or with JavaScript, but a year ago I joined a consultancy and now work with Python, Node, and Ruby.<p>Like many, I&#x27;ve always wanted to interview at a top-tier tech company, but for some reason I&#x27;ve found myself unable to even get as far as an interview with any of them. Applying directly to the likes of Facebook and Google either results in a rejection email a day or two later, for roles in several cities&#x2F;countries, or sometimes no response at all.<p>My CV is fairly straightforward. I joined a startup straight out of uni, where I became the sole developer and ended up being handed the lead dev title and having to build a team of three. We were acquired 18 months later for the platform we had built. After the acquisition, I have worked at a handful of digital agencies in a mid-level and senior capacity, and I now work at a consultancy firm that deals with early-stage startups. I have also contributed to open-source, either through my own projects or via PR&#x27;s on others, and have given a handful of talks at local user groups.<p>On paper, you&#x27;d think I&#x27;d be worth at least a glance, but over the past decade I&#x27;ve applied a handful of times to FAANG, Twitter, GitHub, and Microsoft, and 80-90% of the time I am rejected outright within the week. A few weeks ago, I decided to try all at once, and was rejected by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft within 72 hours.<p>It genuinely feels like I&#x27;m on a blacklist, and although I would love to work for one of the big firms I have no intention of spending the next decade applying to places that don&#x27;t want me.<p>I thought I&#x27;d reach out to HN to see if you have any advice for me on either how to get an interview at one of these companies, whether a blacklist is even a thing, or whether my experience is even that uncommon.
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PaulHoule
One of those "A"'s is a different story in terms of recruiting than the others
(it has three headquarters, the first of which is in Seattle and it is not
mentioned by name in the post above.)

If you could not get interviews with that particular company I would be
worried. At times they will interview anybody with a pulse.

The other companies on your list all have more people who want to work for
them then they could possibly hire so they can filter for a profile for people
who are at different career stages and if you don't fit that profile you don't
get through the screen. The hiring manager is filling up a platoon of two
squads and is not so interested in anything about you that makes you hard to
evaluate.

(Microsoft|Google|Facebook) are not startups and they may not find your
startup experience useful. In software they are what Nestle or Kelogg are to
food and they don't look at product development in the way a startup does at
all.

I have seen solid performers in large companies who do well with structure
(where the solidity of process means you can go to an atm 24-7 most places and
expect to get money) just not be able to cut off chunks of our startup
mountain into units of work they can do. Salesforce.com sends fresher
salespeople to a gala conference in their home city. They will get sales
training and a proven playbook. In our startup you are going to write the
playbook.

If you want to get into that kind of shop and you are an oddball at all your
best bet is the "aqui-hire" but the person who succeeds at that often can't
stand to stay.

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devblacklist
I was going to mention Amazon, but I had already reached my character limit.
I've applied there twice in the past, once in the UK and once for their
Seattle office. My recent application from a few weeks ago was rejected.

Amazon certainly have that reputation, but there has been a time where many of
the other companies have had a similar reputation. I applied to Google,
Twitter and Facebook during the time where they were pushing to hire more
employees than ever before, and even then I couldn't get past the initial
screen.

Regarding my focus on startups, that was mainly to highlight that my
experience isn't purely Web Dev at digital agencies. To be perfectly honest my
main reason for working for a FAANG-level company isn't because I'm in love
with them, or because I want to work for a big company. It's mostly because
the interview process is challenging, and because it's an opportunity to work
with the top tier of talent on hard problems.

You're right, though. Some of those companies have a reputation for aggressive
hiring, and the fact that their recruiters seem to want nothing to do with me
indicates that there is a problem. I have absolutely no problem getting
interviews anywhere else in the UK. Hell, Reddit offered me an interview a
number of years back, so it's not a location thing. You say my startup
experience isn't relevant to them, but if Google will fall over themselves to
hire CS grads to graduate schemes or recent graduates with a few years
experience for interviews, why can't I even get the time of day from a FAANG
recruiter?

The whole situation has really soured my opinion of these companies, which is
a real shame because I would love to work for them. Ultimately, there's only
so many times you can be rejected before you become resentful.

