I have been interviewing and prepping in light (1 lc a day) and medium-hard (2-3 hours of dsa study with lc, lc contests on weekends) for SDE2 since August, with no success. My lc count is 565 (272/267/26). I have read DDIA and Alex Lu Vol 1. Have decent experience in sys design. Meta: rejected after phone screen despite solving both questions. Microsoft: Onsites were easy but got rejected. Amazons: same as Microsoft. (Most event) Google: solved the questions, but got rejected. 6 months till another attempt. DoorDash: medium dp on phone screen. Solved with test cases. Got rejected. But I just can’t land an offer. At this point I feel like it’s just luck. I literally had to put my life on pause for 2 months for Google, where I had to skip all the fun activities my friends did. I sacrificed all of that to get rejected, and I was well prepared. I am thinking about just yoloing and not taking it so seriously. I have already done a lot of LC and Sys Design. If I get another Lc autist as my interviewer then there is not much I can do. Just take the L and move on. Thoughts? 180 3
Same
I decided to YOLO in new year. What the heck
If you think you solved everything 6 times but didnt get an offer 6 times, you didnt solve everything.
There are other candidates in the pipeline who may have better experience than me, especially in this market. Plus, there is always an element of bias in interviews.
Offers aren’t given out based on experience. These are the largest companies in the world. They have thousands of people interviewing from different backgrounds Interviews matter a lot for the decision, it’s like 80% of the metric where they try to find signals People on Blind can’t see how your interviews went, it’s very easy to miss something
You’ve just started your career, keep trying if that’s your goal. In the mean time, build good experience.
The best preparation is to interview. So yes, just keep interviewing until you find what you want.
Something is seriously wrong Either you cannot think loud while solving or did miss to ask sufficient clarifying questions. The sympathy is there for sure try getting Mock interviews and grab the feedback. Likely you need to convince interviewee how did you arrive the solution
Goes to show how worthless lc is
Likely a white, straight dude. DEI needs to DIE
Definitely seems like you’ve studied enough, and that focussing on other things for a while could be good for your mental at the very least. Also, if you’re getting to the onsite stage and failing every time, maybe the issue is the way in which you are communicating your problem solving. Have you tried doing any mock interviews where you get feedback on your interviewing skills?
Yes