Are interviews indicative of actual job content?

Hey /u/[8um8lebee](https://www.reddit.com/user/8um8lebee/), Yeah, I mean very bluntly, you're not alone and we (my company) works with a lot of people like you - experienced engineers who need help navigating, preparing for, and interviewing at top tier FAANG-ish companies that ask DS&A, SD, etc... In 2024, everyone who has started has 1 to 30 years of industry experience, typically around 5 to 8 right now. There are a class of programs that focus on interview prep that aren't bootcamps but help you prepare specifically for interviews. They are good options if you are getting interviews on your own and not passing. Formation is my company, Interview Kickstart is our main competitor and both of us prepare you comprehensively for top tier companies, and Interviewing.io and Hello Interview focus JUST on mock interviews. You will get iOS topics as well but 75% of your interviews will be generic technical or behavioral. If you don'y want to pay for anything or want to pay minimally, I would recommend NeetCode, Structy and Hello Interview's free content. Expensive programs like Formation and Interview Kickstart are helpful for busy people who don't know what they don't know and just want to be handed practice and sessions every week rather than even think about it themselves (or if you have done the above and are failing all your interviews and it's not working). Formation continuously benchmarks you and adjusts what you work on so you can efficiently get from A to B and that's another thing you are paying for. (You get dedicated staff, personal strategizing, as many REAL mock interviews you need to be ready (at our discretion), and more... you are getting advice from numbers engineers who CREATED interviews at Meta, TRAINED OTHER INTERVIEWERS, and sat on HIRING COMMITTEES).

Yeah it's expensive and it's not like we have some magic spell to cast to hand you a job either. The goal is to increase your annual compensation by way more than the cost. The average placed Fellow in 2024 from their self reported placement forms, increased their first year comp by over $100K and that's how you can justify the cost. Now can you do it on your own and get the same increase without paying us? Of course and it's different for each person. For example, someone might not want to negotiate their offer and we make it completely painless to increase the offer by $20K, paying for Formation itself regardless of the other increase. Some people do like 30 mock interviews (which are run completely like REAL interviews with real engineers), which would cost them way more with a competitor. Some people make like $150K already and an hour of their time is valuable so they would rather get ready efficiently with us. Saving 200 hours of their time might justify the cost. Some people have a family and are super busy and they don't even have the time to spend figuring it out so we enable them to make a change they otherwise would not be able to make, by having a completely adaptive and flexible schedule that adapts entirely to your availability every week - ramping up and down. We're not a giant company like Google here but there are a number of win-win reasons to pay for expensive coaching. If you don't have a reason then I wouldn't pay for it for sure!

Yeah sure

Yeah good point, the compensation overall is lower for SWEs but our contract is based on your GAIN IN BASE SALARY in USD over your current job, so Canadians pay less if the gain is lower.