
Ask HN: Is it possible to get hired by FAANG as a European graduate in the US? - mettamage
I have interviewed 100+ companies and got rejected by all of them because of lack of experience. According to the feedback, my data structure and algorithm skills seem to be fine. A year ago I started out on this journey. I need help.<p>I want to work at Google as a software engineer or creative technologist (collaborative culture, amazing pay, 20% time, focus on best-practices instead of &quot;fail fast&quot;).<p>Despite that I applied for 6 years to Google (mostly) and Facebook (somewhat). I never got a phone screen.<p>I have learned that some Full-Stack Academy graduates do get a phone screen. Even if they didn&#x27;t know coding 3 months prior. So less experienced people than me (see my profile) do get a phone screen.<p>Is it because I&#x27;m not from the US? Or am I potentially doing something else wrong?
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mtmail
US companies need to sponsor a visa and that requires them to provide proof
they weren't able to find an equivalent US citizen for the position. The visa
has a cap limit per year, cost, paperwork, takes months to years. The big
enterprise companies have dedicated staff and lawyers, and experience to deal
with it but given equal candidates it's simply easier to hire from within the
US.

International students currently residin in the US also have it easier.
They're already on a student visa which can be converted.

Consider applying at their European offices, then after a year internal
transfer with L1 visa. No cap limit, paperwork can be ready in as little as
two weeks.

(I thought the 20% time was long debunked. "Realistically it's hard to do your
day job productively and also build a new project from scratch. You have to be
willing to put in hours outside of your normal job to be successful."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6223466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6223466))

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mettamage
I've read that you need to be a bit bureaucratically crafty, but it is
possible. My source is Clement Mihailescu's YouTube channel. He had quite a
few videos that were much more in-depth than the videos of Google on how it is
to work there.

And while your strategy makes sense, I can't imagine applying to Warsaw
(currently the only graduate position open) and answer any "why Google in
Warsaw?" questions with a straight face. Because the answer is: after a year I
want to transfer away. Though I wouldn't mind to live in Poland for a year.

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gaogao
How long ago did you graduate, and what's your current job?

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mettamage
I graduated in Aug. 2018, and worked until the start of 2019 as a freelancer.
From then on I took a break (6 months) and I've been looking for jobs since
July 2019.

I've done 3 side projects for fun during that time. One was following a
security course, the other one was prepping for OSCP and creating something
like Google Jamboard.

~~~
gaogao
Sounds like you missed the college hire cutoff (something like a year after
graduation) that a few of the FAANGs have.

After that cutoff, you generally need more work experience or need to apply to
a rotational position.

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mettamage
But would they even hire Europeans applying for US positions?

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mettamage
I applied for the Zurich office as well in 2018 and 2019, but since it doesn't
have any graduate positions open at the moment I specifically specified my
question to the US.

In all fairness, I wasn't ready for a phone screen then. I had no clue what it
meant to apply for jobs (I had to learn that the hard way).

I'm ready now, I figured out what type of developer I am (a creative one,
Brett Victor, Nicky Case and Douglas Engelbart are inspirations).

