I’ve recently given 3 on-sites where I’ve done well in 4 of the 5 interviews, and have faltered in the fifth. I’ve been solving LC problems( solved around 200 ), read the grokking system design interview. Reading github primer. Have failed in different flavor of interviews. Qualcomm - algos ( before I solved the LC questions) Amazon - strange one at this. The interviewer kept questioning doubtfully every answer I made, and for some reason he did not want me to use the white board. ( I asked him 2-3 times and he said No ). I was not assertive enough and changed my answers few times when he repeatedly questioned them doubtfully. I was not anticipating hardware flavor questions in a software interview. LinkedIn - systems design It is kind of becoming a pattern. I was wondering is there anything I can do to change this?
Hey OP, I know it's out of context, but can you help me out with a position at Hughes?
Sure. What kind of position? Message me.
Dmed you, please check!
What hardware question were you asked? Amazon rents servers, so I could see them asking some basic hardware questions. Feel free to dm it if you can’t share it here.
I know it’s unsettling to feel like you did well, but don’t end up getting a convert. While this could happen for a variety of reasons, one important thing I realised after starting to take interviews for other candidates is that our perception of how the interview went doesn’t always correlate with what the interviewer is evaluating. Interviewers look for signals through the thought process, and even if you solve an algorithm, if your thought process is not clear, it won’t give positive signals. So either you can start taking interviews to gain more insight, or give mock interviews where they give you feedback (forgot the name of the site that does this). Sometimes it’s just bad luck, where there are probably other candidates that are a better fit. Anyway, don’t give up :) the more you interview the better you’ll get at it!
If 4/5 interviews are postive, you will get offer vast majority of time. Are you sure you did well on other other 4? Remember some interviewers are just polite.
I did over 100 interviews at Amazon and 4 inclined + 1 not inclined resulted in a hire all but once. And the one time it didn't, we recycled candidate. So you just got really unlucky. Just interview at another company. If you keep doing well on 4/5, you will get offer.
Thanks for your immediate response. Solved the algo questions fully, wrote algorithm, code walk through, time complexity, gave example. Had 15-20 min design interview question, came out and discussed my solution with an amazon employee, he said it seemed correct. Leadership principles- it’s subjective, so not sure on the interpretations of the interviewer. The round I messed in Amazon was of bar raiser though and it was for position in a specific team.