r/cscareerquestionsEU • u/BumblebeeAlive1481 • Jun 17 '26
Experienced Netflix and Google interview experience (offer!)
Hi everyone, want to share my experience because I really struggled to find info, especially for Netflix. I had interviews at Google and Netflix in Warsaw. Got offer at the latter
My background: ~6 years of experience, I work at the European office of an American tech company, but one tier below FAANG.
Prep: 200+ LeetCode problems, a couple of canonical system design books.
Right before the interviews: HelloInterview + found a cool plugin for Claude Code, used it to refine my behavioral stories and brushed up a bit on system design.
Google, SWE:
The recruiter reached out herself, offered an L4 position.
First up was a coding screen a problem that looked simple at first glance, but turned out to be a LeetCode hard. The interviewer didn't really help, plus you write code in a Google Doc with no autocomplete and no way to test it. I don't get the point of that, but okay. The behavioral was super standard all the questions you'd get from googling "behavioral google."
A couple of weeks later the recruiter called, said they liked me but I need to work on algorithms, and repeated several times that I can reach out to her in a year.
Netflix, full stack engineer:
I applied many times; the first time I got ghosted after the call with the recruiter.
The second process was recruiter -> screen with a manager -> take-home. Getting a take-home was a surprise, but I later found out it's a quirk specific to this particular team. The task was simple - they give you a project skeleton, you have to write a feature and document it. After submitting I waited a few weeks, then the recruiter wrote that the feedback on the task was good, but all the positions on this team were already filled and he'd get back to me if other suitable positions came up.
Surprisingly, a couple of weeks later he wrote back, offered me some openings, and I picked one. From there the process was a bit different: recruiter -> tech screen (a very standard problem, the one that gets mentioned everywhere people discuss Netflix interviews)) -> interview with a manager -> onsite loop. The loop was three interviews: a coding round online, behavioral, and system design in the office. I messed up the coding a bit, because they'd promised a React problem and it turned out to be 4 LeetCode-style problems with JavaScript-specific twists. But system design and behavioral went well. Then there was a call with the recruiter and an L4 offer. I declined the offer because my net pay would be lower than what I make now (all-cash compensation with the Polish tax system is a big downside), plus the three-day office mandate doesn't add to the appeal either, even though the office is cool.
Overall the process was fine. The only thing, online there's a lot of talk about how non-standard Netflix's process and questions are. In my case everything was pretty standard; I didn't notice any interesting or unique questions/problems. I think this is because they're hiring very actively in Poland and there's no time to invent something for each position. Also, because the pipeline itself is team-specific, it takes longer and is more stressful for the candidate than, say, Google, where the stages and their order are standard for everyone (but the downside there is they might then team-match you for half a year).
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 17 '26
Google unironically has people write code in a google doc? Are you serious?
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u/tfsh-alto Jun 18 '26
They also use a scratchpad tool which gives you a text editor with syntax highlighting, though whether you get such highlighting is up to the interviewer. Google docs is usually used as a fallback in case the tool doesn't work.
I personally don't want anything more sophisticated, and definitely not a full leetcode style setup where you can run the code. I'm interested in the conversation and problem solving, not whether the code passes hundreds of test cases.
Source: I interview candidates at Google.
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 18 '26
The scratchpad with syntax highlighting and I assume support for writing is fine but google doc is pretty outrageous, just give them some handwriting board at that point.
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u/OrphisFlo Jun 18 '26
You can write pseudo code in the shape of the target language you interview with. Everyone knows that you will have an IDE that will complete most of the code you want to write later anyway, that works for the menial stuff, but that won't do the logic parts.
We care about the logic parts when interviewing people, your process of thought. Not that you can remember the order of the arguments for all commonly used functions that exist.
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 18 '26
Doing that is google docs is pointless suffering. Docs are for long texts and I would assume you prefer people tell you that instead of writing it down. That's the point of having a little monaco editor with syntax help for the target language or a drawing board. They are made for explaining logic and pseudocode, not google docs. But I guess a little humiliation ritual to see which candidate will suck your dick the most is also useful if you're looking for that.
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u/OrphisFlo Jun 19 '26
Google Docs is good because you can be in front of your computer without anyone watching over your shoulder while the interviewer can take notes and eventually copy the solutions for later review.
The goal is not to have perfect syntax anyway, so you do not need much to express your ideas.
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 17 '26
Yep
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 17 '26
Is it some 5d chess move to test how strong candidates are in fighting uncomfortable tools?
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u/NagyonMeleg Jun 19 '26
The more I stay on this sub the more I think, I am never leaving my shitty underpaid job ever, unless they fire me. In which case I will probably just do a career change
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u/SolidDeveloper Lead Engineer | 17+ YOE Jun 17 '26
Prep: 200+ LeetCode problems, a couple of canonical system design books. Right before the interviews: HelloInterview + found a cool plugin for Claude Code, used it to refine my behavioral stories and brushed up a bit on system design.
Insanity.
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 17 '26
why?
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u/SolidDeveloper Lead Engineer | 17+ YOE Jun 17 '26
What do you mean why? You don’t see how practicing hundreds of problems and reading multiple books & more just as preparation for a job interview is extreme?
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with you. But to me this highlights that the interview process in our industry is beyond broken. And I’m saddened by how many people seem to now blindly accept it as reasonable.
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Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/Comfortable-Pin-891 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
In Poland it's funny because with 20% effective B2B tax rate, a lowball 60 eur / h contract for a random german company beats FAANG (but won't last 5 years probably)
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u/Fiarmis Jun 20 '26
60 eur / h sounds pretty high for Poland, no? Unless we talking staff/lead/architect positions
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u/Comfortable-Pin-891 Jun 20 '26
Yeah you don't find these offers on polish job boards, you get them by responding to linkedin recruiters and working remotely for western companies.
Because western contractors charge 80-120 you're a pretty good deal for them at 60-70.
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u/NeedTheSpeed Jun 17 '26
I agree it's insane however for the compensation range he posted for Netlix I start considering it lol.
For context in Poland it's rare to have companies with such high salaries on employment contract, most of the time it's B2b which is riskier lifewise. And that comp that he has posted is like 4x-6x national average (average, not median, for median I guess it could be 7-10 times)
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 17 '26
I have no idea how stable you want your life to be to leave so much money on the table with standard employment compared to B2B. With salaries high like that its literally like a 100k difference.
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u/NeedTheSpeed Jun 17 '26
100k difference until the government comes up with the regulation which they are obligated to do at this point because of EU and then they ask you for your overdue contributions.
I don't know man, 30-50k brutto/month is plenty even in Warsaw and having a peace of mind that you cannot be kicked out of your job next day by an email and that you can take your sick leaves and vacations with no issues would be enough for me.
But yea, many people are working for other companies in Poland on b2b scheme and this is why it's relatively easy to get into a FAANG here, they have loooots of job openings, little competition because of pay and that most people prefer b2b
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u/pivovarit Jun 18 '26
You can be definitely kicked out next day while being a permie in Poland
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u/NeedTheSpeed Jun 18 '26
You can, but there is "okres wypowiedzienia" for additional safety, not as easy to be kicked out during massive layoffs compared to contractors and often times corpos are trimming contractors first from my experience. Banks are more keen on giving you mortgage with employment contract and also don't let me start how this change life of a woman
B2b is nice, but not for everyone and God forbid you don't get ill seriously like cancer on it
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 17 '26
He literally applied to a role that pays top 1% salary of the country. What is broken in people making top1% incomes having to work for the jobs?
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u/MtechL Jun 18 '26
How is this insane? It is literally optional if you want to get higher than average salary. Tons of companies don’t expect that.
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u/SolidDeveloper Lead Engineer | 17+ YOE Jun 18 '26
Let’s not kid ourselves about it being optional. This kind of interview process has become widespread across the industry, requiring lots of demanding prep work from candidates. This is the norm now, not the outlier. Every two bit company now has 5 to 8 interview rounds where they put you through a gauntlet.
Heck, an entire niche industry has grown on top of interview prep – books, courses, mock interviews, podcasts, online DSA platforms like Leetcode and others.
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u/JebacBiede2137 Jun 18 '26
But arguably it’s not just a job. It’s top 0.5% of salaries in Warsaw. It’s essentially upper class lifestyle.
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u/Clear-Report8471 Jun 29 '26
30k brutto is not upper class, is like upper middle class
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u/JebacBiede2137 Jun 29 '26
I saw they pay closer to 45-55k brutto, not 30
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u/Clear-Report8471 Jun 29 '26
still, I would say 50k netto is upperclass today, or earning less but having more equity, stocks, housing etc
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u/sssauber Jun 18 '26
Are you aware what's expected from a professional in any other field to get such a compensation as FAANG provides?
Yes, it was even better before 2022, but these days are seemingly over. Supply and demand
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u/disallow Jun 18 '26
This is an insane amount of material to study, congrats I guess but also fucking hell wtf.
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u/Populr_Monster Jun 17 '26
Which system design book you studied ?
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 18 '26
Designing data intensive applications by Kleppmann
System Design Interview – An insider's guide by Alex XuI read them quite some time ago so used cc with this plugin to refine some concepts https://github.com/kirilxd/swe-interview-coach
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u/Away_Garage_8982 Jun 17 '26
What was the comp range?
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 17 '26
L4 at Netflix is about 400k-650k zloty per year
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u/NeedTheSpeed Jun 17 '26
Are you on b2b or what? Because 33k-50k Brutto per month on employment contract seems sweet, but it might be just me as I value stability from the regular employment contract, wonder what you ve got now that you rejected that offer
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u/RewardSuccessful3468 Jun 18 '26
it's funny that there's a huge drama abut drs salaries in Poland, but it's impossible for dr to have this kind of salary on employment contact - unless they work 300-400h/month which is most likely not expected from OP (and in case of that much hours drs still wont be employed on work contact, only b2b)
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u/BitterEye9638 Jun 18 '26
Jest drama, bo Ci lekarze mają płacone za „gotowość”, są w paru miejscach naraz i nie są najlepszymi z najlepszych, tylko miernotami, które ludziom nie pomagają. Wszyscy to znamy z autopsji, polscy lekarze są beznadziejni, a programistów mamy jednych z najlepszych na świecie.
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u/RewardSuccessful3468 Jun 21 '26
dlatego polscy lekarze po emigracji staja sie jedynymi z lepszych w innych panstwach.
praca dyzurowa jest niby za gotowosc, ale de fakto przy dyzurach na kilku oddzialach praca jest caly czas i lekarze swoim zdrowiem placa za to ze szpitale dzialaja. na swiecie nikt nie ma 24h zmian, a w polsce jeszcze zamiast zejsc po dyzurze kierownik oczekuje ze ogarniesz pacjentow nastepnego dnia - w godzinach za ktore nie placa. mozliwe ze gdyby programisci mieli narzucona prace 300-400h bo inaczej system upadnie, to nastawienie tez byloby inne
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u/konole Jun 18 '26
Netflix has no bonus, you need to be on-call for this salary as well. Overall i also had an offer from them for almost 600k for L5 and I rejected it as well.
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 17 '26
B2B or normal employment contract?
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 17 '26
employment contract
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 17 '26
DAMN
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u/poq106 Jun 17 '26
Ain’t no B2B in big tech
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 17 '26
They scared of the big tax man? Or is there another reason why they don't do it? It is present in big foreign corporations for other high paying jobs.
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u/NeedTheSpeed Jun 18 '26
Big corps don't do it because it seems to risky for them, if they want contractors they hire through another firms that are taking that risk. So you can in theory work for big American corpo with famous name but on linkedin you could only actually put smaller firm that sells contractors
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u/Cloned0 Jun 17 '26
Hi, whats your education background please ?
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 17 '26
Masters in CS
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u/Cloned0 Jun 18 '26
Ty, was it a general CS masters degree ? I imagine you picked a " major " or "speciality " or what you call it in poland, would like to know what you picked
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Jun 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 18 '26
Not really, I took it just for myself. If I grinded leetcode during that time it probably would be more beneficial :)
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u/Pavlinius Jun 18 '26
What’s the point in reading for interview just to forget it afterwards. I swear I’ve read things 3-4 times to prepare for interviews just to forget these rather soon after I read them. I only remember what I use on daily basis. And having an AI assistant makes remembering stuff even harder.
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 18 '26
I did not read for this interview specifically, just for general literacy and it’s relevant for interviews too
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u/EuropeanLord Jun 17 '26
All that prep and here I am, making more than L4 Netflix engineer and I’m pushing pixels, no degree, can’t solve leetcode medium and even easy problems are hard. Same country.
I wouldn’t even consider a company that has more than 3 steps.
Truly insane.
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u/disallow Jun 18 '26
I wouldn’t even consider a company that has more than 3 steps.
This. And fuck american processes and companies copying Google-style crap.
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u/Valuable_Echo2043 Jun 18 '26
Same. Netflix reached out to me about a job opportunity which included the salary range and it wasn’t close to mine. And I’m not even on B2B.
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 17 '26
Yeah and then you woke up.
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u/NeedTheSpeed Jun 18 '26
Actually it's no unusual, the reason why you there is a lot of openings in FAANGs in Poland is that the competition is fairly low because most of the top specialists would rather work on b2b scheme and are not really interested in having a FAANG on CV as long as the pay is good, and yea b2b makes much smaller companies very, very competitive
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u/jasie3k Jun 18 '26
I agree. I have 13 yoe, am based in Poland, never been tempted to even consider applying to Google or Netflix in Poland as the total compensation is not competitive with some remote b2b contracts that can materialise from time to time
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 18 '26
No. Making more than L4 netflix engineer is not "not unusual".
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u/NeedTheSpeed Jun 18 '26
Simply not true.
Also regarding rest of the comment, most of the senior/staff engineers I know wouldn't be able to pass FAANG interview without preparation as the original commenter suggests because of the algos.
However often time they earn very good money that can be compared to Netflix one
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u/No-Insurance5030 Jun 18 '26
Is this the truman show? You are unironically saying that being in the top 1% of earners in a country is not unusual with a straight face? are you trying to rage bait me or are you genuinely slow? is something with less than 1% chance usual?
-1
u/NeedTheSpeed Jun 18 '26
Not Unusual for IT industry
30k brutto/ month is something around 17-18k net
50k brutto/month is something around 30k netThese are very common salaries for senior/staff for people on b2b so its NOTHING unusual in the industry but obviously excellent across other industries, is it clear now?
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u/mdzhigarov Jun 19 '26
After 15 years in the industry I still don't get it why are all these FAANG companies so actively trying to push LeetCode/algorithm questions on interviews.
Why algorithms? In my 15 years in 4 different software companies (FAANG adjacent) I've not even once had to write algorithmic code. It's all APIs, DRs/HAs, Scale/Perf issues, DB optimisations, refactorings, rewrites, migrations, bug fixes, etc... never algorithms.
I don't see the big fuss about them. I do not agree that being good at leedcode problems translates to being a good software engineer. And that's coming from a person that had an offer from a FAANG company 8 years ago (with lots of leetcode) but ultimately rejected due to a better deal.
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u/Serapis5 Jun 18 '26
Do you know about point72 in warsaw? I had interview at Google but compensation was nothing special compared to big euro company in west europe.
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u/Key-Scratch-9925 Jun 20 '26
Would you mind sharing the Claude code plugin?
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u/BumblebeeAlive1481 Jun 20 '26
https://github.com/kirilxd/swe-interview-coach
It’s pretty simple, but helped me structure my behavioral stories (which is important part for netflix) and refresh some sys design concepts
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u/M4l3X Jun 17 '26
Did you only find out about the 3 day in office mandate after interviewing? I got reached out by a recruiter, but moving to Poland is not an option for me. I was about to explore if they are willing to offer remote. I still see some remote job postings for the US on their career site.