Hey! I just got word that I failed the Snap on-site for L4. Here’s my interview breakdown: 1. Finished first coding part with follow ups extremely early. Gave a pretty good behavioral story too. The manager seemed genuinely happy and seemed like she was trying to recruit me to her team at the end. I told her it sounded really interesting. I wrote beautiful code and I know it. 2. System design. It was a really simple problem not on Grokking. When I was getting the requirements, I kept asking broader questions and the interviewer laughed and mentioned that those were actually his follow up questions. I finished early, followed the standard Grokking recipe for a good interview. I gave a decent behavioral answer too. I finished early and we started talking about authentication teams. He seemed genuinely excited too. 3. This guy was an engineer and he had a terrible internet connection and the problem was really knotty. He did not seem interested in my behavioral answer at all. For the coding, I got the easy part immediately. Then he asked a follow up on a more complicated example. It took a hint, but I figured out how we could change the code for that case. I don’t know if there was a second follow up that I did not get to. 4. Another engineer. I gave a really good behavioral answer. I got the first question (Lc Med) pretty fast, but added some unnecessary exponential complexity. I fixed it after a slight hint. Then he asked if I wanted to ask questions about Snap because we were too low on time for part 2. I asked what part 2 of the problem was. He gave me the problem and I thought about it for a second, then I wrote code for it and got a working solution in optimal time (LC Hard). 4 mins left on the clock. He seemed genuinely surprised. Got the bad news today. Any insight from the Snappers out there? Edit: I used the same behavioral examples that got me offers from Amazon, Meta, and Google.
Da fuk? If that performance is a rejection, who on Earth is Snap looking for? Sorry buddy!
If all went as well as you say, then somebody just didn’t like you personally and decided to stab you in the back. You can do everything perfectly and someone still has it out for you. That’s the nasty part of humanity. You could remind someone of their ex-boyfriend and unconsciously they become biased against you.
Maybe too many hints? Idk what level L4 is at Snap, but if it’s above new grad, then that could be the reason. It sounds like you were successful in only 1 of the 3 coding rounds.
I would say 2 of them. The last interviewer said “the second part is really a bonus, so if you just want to ask about Snap instead…”
Snap L4 asks for system design? Interesting.
Facebook does too.
It’s not serious tbh. I haven’t passed anyone targeting L4 yet, and my requirements are pretty low for a mid level eng.
Hard to say without actually being part of it, but most likely one of two things: 1. Your behavioral answers aren't as good as you think they are (different companies looking for different things, I see this a lot), or 2. Some interviewers are just bad - biased and just act as gatekeepers who are insecure about what it says about them if they let someone else in
I passed snap L4. Not sure what advice to give but I had optimal sols on my first try to everything. Maybe these subpar solutions are the reason.
Could you share their offer for l4? Did you accept?
I eventually got optimal though, and I did pretty well. 🤷🏾♂️
To be seems like just bad luck. What's your yoe? Could that be a reason?
4 yoe
Surprised you didn’t get the offer. Sound like it’s just bad luck.
I think Snap is big on “culture fit”. The behavioral questions asked in all the interviews felt forced
I was pretty passionate with my answers.
Uh I said I hated amazon culture and my intevriewr said most of our managers are from Amazon and I still got it. Tbh I thought I failed right there
To me, just seems like bad luck. Some interviewers act like they are gatekeepers to heaven and you can’t help it.