Summary
Overall interview experience was really pleasant. I used LC to discuss a lot in my 2 month prep, happy to contribute back my interview experience here.
Interview Rounds
- 1 Phone Screening
- 2 Coding round
- 1 Design + Coding round
- 1 Googliness
- 1 System Design
Phone Screen
Question
A medium backtracking problem to return all possible String that can be generated from a RegEx pattern.
Result
Positive
Onsite Interview
Round 1 - Coding Question
A simplified version of -> https://leetcode.com/problems/exclusive-time-of-functions/
Answer
- Asked a few clarifying questions.
- Explained the approach I was going to follow. Wrote the code.
Result
3.5/5
Round 2 - Design + Coding Question
A complex version of -> https://leetcode.com/problems/the-earliest-moment-when-everyone-become-friends/
Answer
- I was able to identify that this problem can be solved using the Union-Find(DSU) algorithm.
- Explained the same to the interview. Interviewer want to design this algorithm in a Distributed manner.
- Got confused and was not able to understand the task completely.
Result
1/5
Round 3 - Coding Question
A medium question similer to -> https://leetcode.com/problems/insert-delete-getrandom-o1/
Answer
- Explained the approach I was going to follow and wrote the code.
- Discussed the complexity(both space and time).
- Interview want me to improve the time complexity of a particular edge case.
- I was not able to come up with an improved solution.
Result
2.5/5
Round 4 - Googliness
As expected, different scenario based questions from past experiences.
Result
4/5
Round 5 - System Design Question
Design a fraudulent user request blocking mechanism(Prevent DDOS attack) for Social media like Twitter.
Answer
- Asked a lot of clarifying questions and Wrote down the use-case on the shared doc.
- Explained the approach I was going to follow. Created a High level design diagram in Google Doc.
- The interview was really good and helpful, I felt like he was directing me to different areas of design to measure my L5 level understanding.
- Even though I had technical understanding required to answer the design questions, I was lacking enough preparation to present it in an interview setting.
Result
2.5/5
Final Result
- Reject
- Contacted the recruiter through mail after 3 weeks.
- Recruiter setup some time the next day for a quick call and shared the result.
Mistakes and Learnings
- All the questions were LC medium but tricky once.
- I should have polished my Design presentation skills and attended a few mock design interviews.
- Encouraging others to take Mock Design interviews.
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!