Yep, that’s exactly what I did. I came back during COVID (after leaving to move away from an office five years prior) and chose to return at the level I left at rather than deal with leetcode interviews. It was a rough personal time for me (two kids under five during COVID daycare shutdowns) and I wanted the stability/benefits of the big G, and didn’t want to take the risk of an interview that I didn’t have time/energy to prepare for.
I feel a little bit bad because I very much used their benefits and then left again to go to a more appropriately leveled job. But going back to L4 at a megacorp was kind of mind numbing, and the compensation got so bad after the stock drop and location based pay cuts that I couldn’t justify staying any longer.
