Getting Into Big Tech: From Startups in Mexico to Amazon and Microsoft as a Software Engineer
Watch the second part of the conversation, with my advice to get to the senior level at Big Tech here: • The Road to senior - feat the PragmaticEng...
Subscribe to Jorge's channel: / @latincoder
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➤ All books: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/bo...
👨🎓 My email series to prepare for senior+ Big Tech Interviews: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/te...
Follow me online:
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➤ LinkedIn: / gergelyorosz
➤ Newsletter on software engineering: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ne...
➤ Blog: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com
Jorge worked at Microsoft, Amazon, and Intel. Sounds like a typical software engineering success story, right? Wrong. Jorge worked his way up, step by step from local startups in Mexico (some that did not pay him), to Intel in Mexico, SDE1 at Amazon in Seattle, and now an SDE2 at Microsoft.
He shares his career path, the importance of English and communication, and what the day-to-day looks like at Microsoft, as a software engineer.
I was really happy to have this conversation, as I don't think we hear enough about the slow, years-long journeys to get into a larger tech company: and I personally find these stories more relatable (it took me many-many years and several companies to finally make it to Uber as well: that's for another video).
00:00 - Intro
01:56 - Rapid fire questions
04:37 - Jorge's Career Path: Mexico and Startups
07:22 - Intel in Mexico
08:34 - Getting an offer for Amazon in the US
10:46 - On hiring engineers with expereince at the SDE1 levels
12:02 - Working at Amazon in the US
13:52 - Joining Big Tech from a senior role to a non-senior role
16:15 - Impostor syndrome at Amazon
18:06 - Joining Microsoft
19:18 - What does the day-to-day at Microsoft look like as an engineer?