I saw a post that was extremely helpful of someone's interview experience and I thought I'd share my thoughts on mine. Thanks Blind for all the help! This was my first time interviewing for a software engineering position. I didn't need to do it out of undergrad and was already happy where I was at. Glad I looked because the market is quite hot and I ended up getting a ton of response. From initial phone screenings to final rounds to offers, this was done in 1.5 months. I applied mostly for full stack roles anywhere and everywhere I could. I thought I'd just apply and interview for the experience even if I bombed. I diligently studied leetcode for an hour or two on most weekdays and then two to three hours on weekends. Not a lot of work got done at my job... TikTok: Got past OA and bombed on phone screening. It was a hard graph problem. Didn't move past that. Two Sigma: Got the OA and didn't complete the first problem and left the second untouched. Still got the phone screening. Phone screening was first a few questions about latency vs throughput, process vs threads, etc. Then it was creating a random number generator class. Got rejected shortly after. I'm not sure how I got past the OA since I didn't do any of it. Paypal: TC: $130k for base salary, stocks, and bonus Level: T22 Negotiation: Couldn't match other offers so just said no Tech screen then onsite (1 hiring manager, 1 technical, 1 system design) Google: Process took too long so decided to accept elsewhere. The recruiter did say that I probably couldn't get L4 but have a good shot at getting L3. Skipped straight to final round due to being in final rounds for Amazon. Consisted of 4 technicals and 1 behavioral. Technicals was matrix and graph mostly, all of them a solid medium. No DP. Robinhood: Got to final round but didn't get an offer. The karat interview was easy, and the final round was easy in retrospect also. You have to be fast on the coding question to complete the 2 parts, so I'd make sure to prioritize speed and just having a solution down quickly. System design was not great for me but its a pretty standard question. This was my second system design with zero practice so I didn't do well here. Recruiter said I just missed the bar and would love to interview again in 6 months. Amazon: Bombed final round but had a really awful recruiter and interview experience. Was still given the chance to interview for a QAE role after bombing but turned that down. OA was easy or medium-easy and onsite was an anagram problem and two trie problems. Convoy: TC: $160k base + $240k stock options over 4 years + $7.5k signing bonus Level: Midlevel Negotiation: Original TC was $140k base + $200k stock options over 4 years + $5k signing bonus. Also landed a fully remote position. Their interviews are more relaxed than big techs, meaning they're completely fine if you google something if you just blank out on something. They're very understanding that if something is a helper function that takes a little bit of time to implement, you can just create a helper function and state what it does and use it. They're a very passionate start up with very smart engineers. LinkedIn: Didn't make it past phone screening, but the two questions they asked were Binary Tree Maximum Path Sum and Maximum Subarray. Microsoft: Haven't heard back yet but I'm confident I got an offer from here. One of the interviewers actually messaged me on LinkedIn and asked if I'd join one of his teams in a non-Redmond location. The OA was an absolute joke - the easiest of easys. The onsite was a ton of building classes, like build an LRUCache, Reader and Writer Lock, and ShortenUrlGenerator. No system design even though my recruiter said there would be. Overall, a pretty good experience. Toast: TC: $137.5k base salary + 5500 RSUs over 4 years + $15k signing bonus Level: Software Engineer 2 Negotiation: Originally was $130k + 4500 + $5k Really liked the interview process. The algo questions were easy, the engineers were relaxed, and I felt like they really assessed you as a team player than you as a leetcode machine. This is the offer I'd most likely go with. Overall, this was an exhausting experience. Leetcoding takes a ton out of your personal time and you end up just having half your head out the door during your work time. Virtual interviews are incredibly convenient though. I don't think I would have been able to do as much if I had to fly out to onsites. Good learning experience, good upgrade on comp, exciting new opportunities. Let me know if anyone has any questions and I can definitely go into more detail. TC: $117k YOE: 2
Congrats on the great progress! Iโm going through a similar experience with quite a few interviews over the past month or so, but I feel burned out and drained. At this point Iโm not able to solve problems because Iโm mixing up problem strategies in my head. This may have happened because Iโve had to switch between Android domain preparation and algorithms. Any suggestions to retain/recollect the Leetcode problem solving strategies?
Revise often.
For me, it helped to just do easy problems that slammed the fundamentals, e.g. how to traverse a tree, bfs and dfs, basic dp problems. After long interview days, my brain would be so fried I just won't be able to do any prep. I end up casually watching kevin naughton jr or some other leetcode techtuber on 1.5x speed to maybe passively prep if you know what i mean lol
How long did Google take to get back to you after onsite?
I had a call with the recruiter a few days after my onsite and she told me she couldn't get an offer on the table in a few weeks, so I didn't really wait. I know it takes a while
I have a phone screen with Google, but also an on-site with amazon lined up. Any chance if I let the recruiter know, theyโll let me skip straight to the on-site?
Take convoy offer
What you had in toast onsite? What did they ask in coding and design?
Lots of behavioral and really easy questions if you've been prepping for any other interviews, you're completely fine
Microsoft is super easy but that path will level you to L60/L61. If you want anything above, you have to skip the OA and go through phone screen. The offer ratio is lower obviously but will place you in higher leveling
This is false. Stop spreading false statements.
Lmao It is not False. I am currently in the process. Did the OA and it was extremely easy. Asked for more details from recruiter on what the leveling is and she mentioned unlikely to get L62 and need to put me through different pipeline.
Finally which company you joined ?
Congrats and thanks for sharing your experience. Just to clarify, so you told your google recruiter you got to the final round at Amazon and they let you skip to the final round? Can't anybody say they got to the final round at a big company?
Yeah interesting right? You can say you have final rounds very broadly (even if you don't) and that'll probably work really well for you. No one asks for proof. Honestly, bluffing is the way to go.
Congratulations !!
What position did you apply for MS? Been getting interviews at other FANGs but not MS. Wonder what i did wrong.
Yeah interviewing and preparation is exhausting. Congratulations OP on your offers and thanks for sharing your experience.