Senior SWE considering interviewing for the first time after 10 years at the same company — how would you prepare?
I’ve been a SWE at the same large company for 10 years and a Senior SWE for about 4.
I like my job/team and have good WLB, so there’s no urgency to leave, but I’ve been considering testing the market to learn new things, make more money, continue growing, and see what other opportunities are out there. After 10 years without interviewing, though, my interview skills are definitely rusty.
I was thinking of spending ~12 weeks working through NeetCode/LeetCode and refreshing system design, then doing some lower stakes interviews before applying to companies I’m most interested in.
For other experienced engineers who interviewed after a long tenure at one company, how did you prepare? Is ~12 weeks reasonable, and how would you split your time between LeetCode, system design, and other prep? Stay where I’m at?