Does codesmith seriously get people "senior" level SWE roles with no prior experience?

FWIW, PhD grads at Meta entered at the "mid level"/E4 and I think still do. assuming you did a number of legit internships or published research throughout. It's hard to tell, but a large amount is in the interview process and asking THEM the right questions. But ultimately companies are companies and things change and there's a bit of luck involved. It's much easier to decide between FAANG for example that have well known patterns and publicly communicate their cultures. Each FAANG is SOOOOO DIFFERENT, it's massively important to choose the right one if one were given that opportunity (which is obviously not common), but if you dont' have that opportunity, at least understanding the culture enough to know the areas you should focus on and the areas you'll be weak at. For example, Meta values getting work done over overthinking things. So if you overthink things, you can try to change your behavioral a bit to do well there.