I recently started interviewing for a senior SDE role (been 7 years since I interviewed) and all of my phone interviews so far have been hard level LC questions. I have been practicing LC and getting comfortable with solving medium difficulty questions so I am not surprised that I am unable to solve hard questions in 45-60 min window. But I am very surprised that the expectations is to be able to solve hard LC questions in phone interview. Is this normal for interviewing for a senior role? Should i just hold onto interviewing till I am comfortable solving hard LC questions? Or has interviewing become a game of getting lucky with the interview question?
My senior SWE friend was asked some red black segmented whatever trees question in his Google on-site. Why was that so important to be known, I have no idea.
I think software engineer interviewing has gotten more difficult over the past few years. I also think getting a job offer is a mix of some skill, luck, and circumstances. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. You may need to adjust your expectations though. I personally would spend more time prepping and practicing LC hard Qs. I’m in a similar boat rn. Interviewing for Senior SWE roles and have gotten 6 rejections so far. Hang in there
Do you mind sharing companies? Was it all LC hards?
Yeah so Meta asked me a LC hard question about “evaluate a math expression like ‘3+5*(2-1)’. I think the problem is called Calculator on LC. Pinterest asked me a graph question where I had to use DFS in a 2D matrix. That was OK (still in the middle of interviewing with Pinterest). I failed interviews at Figma, Netflix, Slack, and Square. Their questions were more like LC medium but honestly I wasn’t that good at LC when I had interviewed.
Just keep trying
Numbers game
TC or GTFO
are both questions straight from LC?
Yes. Straight LC questions
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What was the question ?
I was asked a medium question and a hard question for an hour long phone interview. Since I don't want to indirectly reveal my identity by giving out the exact questions, I can DM you if you are interested
Op can you DM me questions? Want to understand difficult level of interviews