Where Should I Interview? #

It depends #

Where you should interview depends a lot on your personal preferences. Are you intent the "prestige" of a FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) company? Or big tech? Or do you explicitly not want to be in a big tech company? Do you want to avoid doing Leetcode-style interviews?

Interviewing with big tech #

FAANG and big tech have pros and cons. One advantage of gaining employment with one of these companies is having "Google" or "Apple" on your résumé opens a lot of doors—your response rate for job applications will increase greatly.

Of course, big tech has its cons. These companies are large and you may not have a chance to make the size impact that you could at a smaller company or startup. Additionally, you may not enjoy the bureaucracy.

With respect to interviewing, FAANG and big tech companies tend to do Leetcode-style interviews. If you don't want to do Leetcode, you should look elsewhere.

Making an informed decision #

If you're considering a company, Glassdoor is your friend! Use it to look up ratings and interview processes at a potential employer.

If you're interested in what salary you might make at a company, use levels.fyi. It crowd-sources salary information from company employees.

If you're on the fence, apply #

If you're ever on the fence about applying or interviewing somewhere, my advice is to go for it! Worse case, you get some great practice. Best case, you get an offer and either accept it or use it as leverage against another offer.