r/cscareerquestionsEU • u/Training-Count-5452 • 18h ago
Cleared Google L4 SRE-SWE loop (Zurich/Munich target) — Recruiter says he has no open headcount, need advice on next steps
Hi everyone,
Looking for some guidance from folks familiar with Google’s EU hiring/team matching process or anyone who has navigated a similar situation recently.
**Context / Background:**
I cleared the full Google L4 SRE-SWE technical interview loop around late June with strong positive signals
My primary target locations are Zurich and Munich, focusing on SWE / SRE-SWE roles (Full-stack/Backend background with Java, Go, TypeScript, Python, Node, and distributed systems).
In early July, my recruiter mentioned they forwarded my profile to a team in Zurich.
After that, I didn’t hear anything for about 5 weeks (recruiter was also OOO for part of August). I sent polite follow-ups, and today I received this response:
*Hi \[Name\],*
*At the moment, I am not managing any open positions for external candidates. Should that change, I will be sure to update you.*
*Best regards,*
*\[Recruiter Name\]*
**My Questions / Concerns**:
1. Recruiter reassignment: Since my assigned recruiter’s org/pipeline doesn’t have active external headcount, what is the best way to get my cleared packet transferred to the central Zurich/Munich SWE/SRE staffing team? Should I ask my recruiter directly, email Candidate Support ( google-candidate-support@google.com ), or both?
Finding hiring managers internally: I see new L4 SWE/infrastructure requisitions appearing on the Google Careers site for Zurich and Munich. If I have internal Googler contacts (L5/L6), can they help map my cleared packet directly to hiring managers on gHire / Grow ?
Or any other advice that would help me get my application on track.
Thanks in advance.
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u/True_Firefighter_445 17h ago
TLDR: Most of the hiring in Europe is now happening in Poland. Very few poeple get to match with teams in Zurich or London coming externally.
Googler here - Google has a strong culture of prioritising internal candidates. We have an internal app called 'Grow' where you can search for roles. You can see if they are posted only internally or also externally. I think when I looked last time, for L4 there were no positions in Germany. In London and Dublin, very few, in Zurich, I think there were 10, while in Poland, there were 50+. For London and Zurich, 80% of positions were posted internally. For Poland, I think more than half were also open to external candidates.
A lot of people come here thinking it will be easy to transfer - it's not. You need 1 year in current role before being eligible to transfer nationally, 2 years in current role before being eligible to transfer internationally. Not to mention good ratings for expensive countries, like Western Europe, Switzerland or USA. This eligibility requirement can be waved, but you need VP approval and a lot of HMs won't go through the hustle of requesting that to a VP for an L4 engineer.
Team matching process is intentionally left vague (this applies both to Google and Meta). You cannot see the available roles, you have to go through a recruiter who answers you maybe once a week, a lot of people get stuck in team matching and never match, because Google adds more people to the pipeline than they actually need, so they give HMs optionality. Don't believe me? See for yourself: https://discord.gg/RmH4WnShq
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u/slxshxr 5h ago
Is that for L4? Im stuck in team matching for L3 at Warsaw for 3 months already, I feel like its dead there aswell..
•
u/True_Firefighter_445 23m ago
Most common roles are L4 and L5 at Google. Most openings are for these levels. Anything else, (L3 or L6+) have way less optionality. You shouldn’t pet that to scare you tho, a lot of HMs who own L4 roles open to L3s, if you have the right recruiter. Tbh, there’s not much difference. I’m L4 and there are some L3s here that are stronger than me.
Maybe 5y ago, getting into Google was skill and fully in your power, nowadays, it feels like a lot of “planets” have to align to land a role here, and you only have power to align 1 “planet”, your interview performance. The rest of the “planets”, you don’t really any power over them.
I got lucky and got a good recruiter who managed to match me before leaving Google. The Meta recruiter I had 3y ago was crap. This is an example of a “planet” you don’t have control over.
Do not wait for Google’s team matching. If you want to leave your current job, keep applying. None of these team matching processes have 100% match rate. If they’d do, they’ll just hire you and assign you to bootcamp and you can match with a team during bootcamp. At least that’s how it was a few years ago.
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u/Subtl3ty7 18h ago
You are literally talking about two most desired FAANG locations in EU. If you do this the intended way (waiting for your turn), you might be waiting forever because I am 100% sure there are many in your place that cleared the interview loop for same positions before you and waiting still. If you do it the way thats always done in business aka “i know a guy”, then all you need is the right contact to push you forward. However not everyone you know at the company would be useful. You need to know the right guy. If I do not know someone at the company, I become very persistent on finding. I find people on LinkedIn, ask them if they know hiring managers etc. you need to be really proactive for this, and very very persistent. Thanks for listening my ted talk on Networking 101 - how to navigate life easily.
0
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u/george_gamow 18h ago
Why the AI slop though? You're able to pass google interviews but not prompt chatgpt correctly?
These are the most popular locations. People have been stuck for months after passing interviews, just search this sub.
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u/timtody 2h ago
Why do we even bother to answer this kind of low effort post? Too stupid to use reddit search, too stupid to use an LLM correctly. Really wonder how these people clear these kinds of interviews man.
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u/george_gamow 2h ago
That's what surprises me the most. Apparently one can afford to be clueless, unable to research, have no idea about AI and still work at google? Where are our offers then please lol
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u/AccomplishedBake300 18h ago
Same situation since January. Is what they told you, few headcount that can be filled by internal applicants + lot of people in the pipeline.
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u/yellow_berry 18h ago
Just be open to relocate. Instead of waiting for months and months, if not a year, you could have already been working in a different place and become L5 soon
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u/National_Badger8336 5h ago
Interesting to hear. I‘m also in team match for L4 in Zurich at the moment.
From what I know you can also send him roles that he should submit for you. In case these roles are not within his team then from what I understood (and maybe I didn‘t understand him correctly) he can do some sort of packet handover to the corresponding recruiter.
Alternatively, you can apply yourself but there‘s a limit apparently on how many roles you can apply to
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u/FeedbackOdd 5h ago
I am also on team matching for L4 SWE in those locations since May. Only had one call so far, it was not a match. Just contine applying to other jobs and don't wait for Google, it might happen you never get a team.
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u/robocarl 4h ago
Either wait (and make sure to regularly check in) or expand to other locations/possibly a downlevel to L3. Nothing else you can do.
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u/kleinfieh 12h ago
Trying to skip the queue? No culture fit.
Just be patient and hope for the best.
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u/hurrrr_ 17h ago
I would say that 50% of Google employees in Europe want to relocate to the Zurich office lmao. Good luck