u/michaelnovati replied ·
My company might be a good fit if it's technical preparation that's blocking the person, but I'm happy to chat with the person async on LinkedIn just to get an idea of what's going on more and give my personal advice. You can give them my LinkedIninfo, same name there.
Right off the bat I would ask if they got promoted and if their resume demonstrates this promotion well, because that's a sign to check off the boxes for E4/L4/SDE II mid level roles.
If someone is at a FAANG and stuck at midlevel then I would focus on getting to senior THERE. I have worked with people that try to transition to title bump and it doesn't often work out that way within FAANG. People tend to get senior titles but at smaller companies and they don't get senior at other FAANGs.
Even if your current FAANG isn't "the one", the other FAANGs want to see that you can get to senior at any of them (except Google which is fine to stop at L4) as common ground signal.
Once you are at senior e5 and close to staff e6 then sometimes changing companies can help in certain circumstances.