The Tech Career Podcast with Fexingo: Engineering Jobs, Interviews, and FAANG Career Strategy

In this episode of The Tech Career Podcast, Lucas and Luna break down the FAANG engineering phone screen process in 2026. They cover what to expect, how to prepare algorithmically and behaviorally, and common mistakes that kill your chances early. With specific tips on coding, communication, and follow-up, this is a must-listen for anyone targeting a big tech role. #TechCareerPodcast #FAANG #Phone...

Lucas and Luna discuss a rarely covered but critical lever for FAANG engineering candidates: building a professional network before you even apply. Lucas explains why warm referrals can increase interview callback rates by over 40 percent at companies like Google and Meta, and shares a specific three-step framework — find, engage, and nurture — using real examples like a candidate who connected wi...

Lucas and Luna explore how FAANG engineers actually deal with imposter syndrome on the job. They discuss a 2025 Blind survey where 67% of FAANG engineers admitted feeling like frauds at least once a month, and break down specific strategies used at Google and Meta — including a practice Google calls 'competence journaling' and a Meta peer-review ritual called 'acknowledgment Fridays.' Lucas shares...

Most engineers think a promotion at a FAANG company comes from doing great work. But at companies like Meta and Google, a promotion actually depends on a document called a promotion packet — a written case your manager submits to a promotions committee. In this episode, Lucas and Luna walk through what a promotion packet contains, how engineers and managers build one over several months, and the s...

Episode 25 of The Tech Career Podcast with Fexingo dives into the art of negotiating a FAANG offer in 2026. Lucas and Luna break down the specific tactics that work now, including how to leverage competing offers, when to ask for more equity, and the exact language to use with recruiters. They walk through a real case: a senior engineer who turned an initial $350,000 package into $480,000 by playi...

Episode 24 of The Tech Career Podcast breaks down the real onboarding experience at FAANG companies in 2026. Lucas and Luna trace a typical first 90 days for a new software engineer at Amazon, from reading internal codebases to shipping their first feature. They discuss why your first project is often your hardest, how to navigate team documentation that was last updated three years ago, and why b...

Lucas and Luna tackle a stressful but common scenario: your FAANG coding interview veers off the planned question. Maybe the interviewer adds a constraint you haven't seen, or asks you to solve a problem you've never encountered. Lucas breaks down a three-part framework — pause, reframe, communicate — using a real example of a binary search question that got twisted into a search in a rotated arra...

Lucas and Luna break down the concrete steps for getting promoted at a FAANG company, using the specific case of an engineer at Google who went from L4 to L5 in 18 months. They discuss how to build a promotion packet, get the right manager support, and navigate the calibration process. The episode also touches on how the current tech hiring environment in mid-2026 affects promotion chances, with s...

Episode 21 of The Tech Career Podcast takes on one of the hardest FAANG behavioral interview questions: 'Tell me about a time you failed.' Lucas and Luna break down why this question is so common at Meta, Google, and Amazon, and why most candidates flub it. They walk through a real example from a former Amazon engineer who turned a production incident into a promotion story, and share a specific f...

You've got a FAANG offer—congratulations. Then your current company matches it with a counteroffer. What do you do? Lucas and Luna walk through a real case: a senior engineer at a Series B startup who got a $340,000 total comp offer from Google. Her CEO countered with a promotion to Staff Engineer and $360,000 in equity over four years. They break down the three things you must evaluate before acc...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the strategic differences between startup and FAANG engineering careers, focusing on how to successfully transition from a small company environment to a large tech giant. They discuss practical steps including adapting to scale, navigating the interview process, and leveraging startup experience as a strength. Specific examples include how to frame your sta...

Lucas and Luna discuss the power of a curated 'tech portfolio' — a public collection of code, design docs, and blog posts that demonstrates engineering skill beyond the resume. Inspired by a Google recruiter who said 70% of hiring managers check portfolios before scheduling interviews, the hosts walk through how to choose projects, write READMEs that tell a story, and host work on a personal site...

In this episode of The Tech Career Podcast, Lucas and Luna tackle one of the toughest moments in any engineer's job search: getting a rejection from a FAANG company after a long interview process. They break down the psychology of rejection, explain why a 'no' from one team doesn't mean a 'no' from the whole company, and share a concrete three-step recovery plan used by a former Google recruiter....

Lucas and Luna explore how side projects actually tip the scales in FAANG engineering interviews — and not just the 'build an app' kind. They break down a real case: a developer who built a simple open-source tool that grew to 2,000 stars on GitHub and used it to pivot from a non-target school into a senior-level interview loop at Amazon. The hosts discuss what hiring managers look for beyond the...

Lucas and Luna help you weigh a FAANG offer against a startup offer — not just salary and equity, but equity structure, vesting schedules, liquidity timelines, and the real difference in engineering culture. They break down the trade-offs using a concrete example: a senior engineer with a $350k total comp offer from a FAANG company versus a $180k salary plus 1% equity grant from a Series B startup...

Episode 14 of The Tech Career Podcast with Fexingo dives deep into behavioral interviews at FAANG companies. Lucas and Luna break down the STAR method with a real example from a Meta product manager interview, discuss how to structure stories around impact metrics, and reveal what interviewers actually look for beyond the resume. They also cover common mistakes—like rambling or picking the wrong p...

Episode 13 of The Tech Career Podcast with Fexingo dives into one of the most underrated career decisions: picking the right team before accepting a FAANG offer. Lucas and Luna walk through the three factors that matter most — project roadmap, manager style, and team culture — and share a concrete framework for evaluating them during the interview loop. They discuss why a 'team match' call is not...

Episode 12 of The Tech Career Podcast dives into the culture of first-day reading lists at FAANG companies. Lucas and Luna explore why companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon assign specific books to new engineers—from 'The Mythical Man-Month' to 'Staff Engineer'—and how these picks reveal engineering culture, expectations, and unwritten rules. They discuss a 2025 survey of 200 new-grad FAANG hire...

Lucas and Luna break down the often-overlooked take-home engineering assignment used by FAANG companies like Meta and Apple. They walk through a real example: a candidate who spent 30 hours on a design doc and code submission but failed because they didn't read the spec closely. Lucas explains the three-part framework—requirements, architecture, implementation—and shares the exact checklist that t...

In this episode of The Tech Career Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the fast-growing alternative route into Big Tech engineering: apprenticeships. They break down what a FAANG engineering apprenticeship actually is, how it differs from a traditional internship or new-grad role, and what the interview process looks like — including real examples from Amazon's Apprenticeship Program and a specific co...

Lucas and Luna dive into what makes a system design interview different in 2026, using the example of designing a real-time ride-sharing platform. Lucas explains the shift from scaling monolithic apps to event-driven microservices, and why distributed caching matters more than ever. Luna challenges common prep advice, asking whether memorizing patterns still works. They walk through the five-step...

Lucas and Luna dive into a hidden reason many engineers get rejected at FAANG interviews: a mismatch between the resume and the interview narrative. Using a real case of a backend engineer with six years of experience who got no callbacks despite strong coding skills, Lucas explains how recruiters and interviewers use the resume to frame your performance. The episode breaks down the 'resume-interv...

Lucas and Luna break down how FAANG recruiters actually screen engineering resumes in 2026. Drawing from leaked internal guidelines and interviews with former recruiters at Google and Meta, they reveal why the standard advice is often wrong: nobody reads your objective statement, the GPA cutoff is lower than you think, and the order of your bullet points matters more than the content. They walk th...

Lucas and Luna break down the practical steps for preparing for FAANG coding interviews in 2026, focusing on the 5-step framework used by a recent Amazon hire. They discuss data structures and algorithms study plans, the role of mock interviews, and how to balance LeetCode practice with system design. Specific tips include targeting 150 LeetCode problems, focusing on medium difficulty, and using t...

Episode 5 of The Tech Career Podcast with Fexingo dives into the most underrated part of FAANG engineering interviews: the behavioral round. Lucas and Luna break down the STAR method with a concrete example — how one candidate turned a failed project into a story about learning velocity. They discuss why Amazon's Leadership Principles matter more than LeetCode, how to structure answers for 6-minut...