I recently gave interviews at many companies for the senior software engineer roles. Few did not get past the phone or online test like dropbox, amazon, splunk. Others where I got through first round happen to fail in onsite in 6 other big companies. When I retrospect myself I see the way I'm explaining on a language construct or system design is not well received. Also with coding rounds giving an approach straight out of my head is also not acceptable. How can I improve myself? I feel something is going wrong. Not exactly sure how to work on them. Kindly advise. Additional details- have 7yoe in software development
How did you prepare?
It’s all part of the game. Keep playing it though you might win
What functional role were you applying for ?
Don't lose heart, keep improving, luck may be around the street
I can then recommend few more tips
Yes please. It's for senior software engineer roles.
Books: PIE, CTCI, EPI (hardest)
Books are a waste of money. Please don't give more money to Gayle laakman McDowell. She passed Google interview without even studying (see her quora answer) then made a scam industry selling books. In reality all you need is leetcoding, geeksforgeeks, self motivation, etc.
Or if you are doing books download the PDFs - make sure the scam authors do not get any money
Pretty much just experienced the same thing as you. I think I might apply to less companies next time arround to be able to focus more on each of them.
Also my 2cents based on friends who succeeded preparing from web is not sufficient, get down to brushing basics from relevant books so clearing your fundamental programming skills, use slack or other apps for mock interview give it good 3 months to prepare
Unless you have rich experience in Algorithmic problems / System Design , you cannot just crack these interviews if you have not prepared extensively (unless by luck). Appears to me that your preparation was just not there.
Good job...everything starts from failure keep trying ... I failed my first 11interviews cracked 8 out of the next 10