She made $1.2M at Google, then quit with 4 offers in the worst market ever.

Ex-Google Senior Engineer Maddy Zhang breaks down how she escaped golden handcuffs, landed offers at OpenAI, Meta and Databricks, and what every engineer needs to know about promotions, AI engineering and surviving the AI takeover of SWE.

Computer science students, new grads, and software engineers…want to land your dream software engineering job or internship? Click here 👉https://www.amanmanazir.com/coaching/?utm_source=transistor&utm_medium=podcasts_description&utm_campaign=MaddyZhang_GoogleEngineer&video=7JwZHBfYFdk

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I’m Aman Manazir, a career coach and software engineer. I interned at companies like Amazon, Shopify, and HP in college, and the day I graduated I landed a $168,000/year* full-time software engineering job. I help you make it as a computer science student & software engineer and get your dream job offer.

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👉 Maddy's YouTube: https://youtube.com/@maddyzhang?si=5QlcdxOXkeWYTriM 
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⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction
01:35 Why She Left Google After 4.5 Years
04:01 Her $315K Google Salary Revealed
04:28 The Golden Handcuffs Problem
04:56 The Moment She Decided To Leave
06:44 What She Was Looking For Next
07:32 12 Companies, 4 Offers, Full Time Job
09:34 Internal Promotion vs Jumping Ship
11:00 How She Managed Energy While Recruiting
12:42 What A Code Freeze Actually Is
14:03 Why Referrals Matter More Than Ever
15:21 Wildest Interview Stories
17:45 What Is A Frontier Model Lab
18:04 Who AI Engineers Actually Are
18:43 AI Researcher vs AI Engineer Explained
19:19 Do You Need A PhD For AI
20:01 Skills Nobody Talks About But Jobs Want
21:00 How To Break Into AI Engineering
22:08 How To Actually Get Interviews
22:58 What The Interview Loop Looks Like
25:05 AI Assisted Interviews Are Here
27:30 Why Google Rejected AI Interviews
28:48 How Different Companies Hire Differently
30:06 Honest AI Engineer Salary Ranges
32:32 47 Rejections Before Her First Internship
34:04 How She Stopped Taking Rejection Personally
35:24 How Important Is That First Internship
37:08 The Waterloo Co-op System Explained
38:13 Does GPA Actually Matter
41:09 Her Manager Pushed Her To Promote Early
44:22 What To Do With A Bad Manager
45:40 How To Ask For Promotion Packets
47:04 How Reorgs Affected Her Career
48:09 Why Reorgs Happen And How To Survive
49:58 Will Software Engineering Exist In 5 Years
51:34 Advice For Terrified CS Freshmen
52:27 Is Google Still The Top Dog
53:43 Is LeetCode Dead In 2026
54:20 Hot Take: Is LeetCode Actually Valuable
56:35 Why People Hate LeetCode
57:54 Has She Ever Used A Linked List
58:03 AI Cheating Is Everywhere Right Now
1:00:36 Does Anyone Actually Get Away With It
1:03:02 Do Personal Projects Actually Matter
1:03:55 The Truth About Job Hopping
1:05:13 She Outlasted 80% Of Google's Workforce