flu_bar

I’ve been at a FAANG London for 4 years now, having joined straight out of university. The first 3 years were great for learning: my annual ratings thus far have all been "exceeds expectations".

But since then most of my work has been heavy maintenance on a very company-specific tech stack, and the environment has become increasingly political.

I’m on a visa, which adds an extra layer of complication. I need one more year to get ILR (indefinite leave to remain in the UK)

The work feels boring at best, and I’m worried I’m stagnating technically.

I’ve started prepping leetcode and system design, but balancing that with my job feels overwhelming.

Has anyone else been in this position? How did you handle it?

One option I've considered is just putting my head down do what they ask for a few more years, get some extra RSUs in...but I'm tired.

I was thinking about applying to Anthropic. I'm looking at some of the "representative projects" that they presumably expect strong candidates to have done.

https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/anthropic/jobs/4632830008

> Implement low-latency high-throughput sampling for large language models > Build quantitative models of system performance > Design and implement a fault-tolerant distributed system running with a complex network topology > Debug kernel-level network latency spikes in a containerized environment

I work at a FAANG and I have little to no experience with any of these. I've asked chatgpt and come up with a list of mini-projects. I plan to devote a few hours every day to build up the muscle.

Do most successful applicants typically have experience with these kinds of projects?

It feels like a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem to me, as the reason I'd like to work there is precisely to get experience in this domain.