How to prepare for google, airbnb, linkedin, twitter

Apr 8, 2018 13 Comments

Got interviews coming up for above companies for senior engineer. Got 3/4 weeks to prepare, can spare about 2 hours daily. What should i invest time in ? leetcode? any suggestions for system design interviews?

@airbnb @google @linkedin @twitter

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
TOP 13 Comments
  • Twitter / Eng
    T Rex

    Go to company page Twitter Eng

    T Rex
    If you are applying for senior backend roles at Twitter, brush up on distributed systems.
    I have seen multiple candidates ace coding/algorithms, then fail on basic systems design. A few resources to help you:

    Theory : Understand basic things like CAP, PAXOS, Blockchain, LSM/B-Tree, two phase commit.

    Implement: Consistent hashing (I observed more than one candidate that didn’t really understand what it is - it is not complicated. Code it up, you will get it)

    Read : Existing designs/research - Zookeeper , Haystack , Cassandra, MapReduce, HDFS/Hadoop, Spanner (too many to list)

    Scale : Practice analyzing bottlenecks in all the systems above. Throughput/Storage/Number of Items/something else? Network/memory/cpu/IOPS/.../$$

    Like in real projects, understand requirements - ask questions and/or state assumptions you are making. Do not BS - no need to take any risk here, just ask for help when you need it.

    Good luck on your job hunt - leetcode might not be sufficient for senior backend roles anymore.
    Apr 8, 2018 1
  • Microsoft / Eng
    AmIEwok

    Go to company page Microsoft Eng

    AmIEwok
    Probably the same stuff you did to get into Facebook?
    Apr 8, 2018 1
  • Oracle
    Longshort

    Go to company page Oracle

    Longshort
    Why to Twitter and linkedin from Facebook?!
    Apr 8, 2018 6
    • OP
      @longshort curious which company you are in if not oracle. Also can u explain why the other companies you’ve listed are better than linkedin and twitter? i genuinely think twitter and linkedin have exciting and challenging problems. Of course pay matters too and I believe they pay pretty good.
      Apr 10, 2018
    • Oracle
      Longshort

      Go to company page Oracle

      Longshort
      I'm at a small startup. I don't mean that they're bad companies. I always consider how the company going to scale in the next 3-5 years. if you think linkedin and Twitter are going to scale atleast by 200-300 million more daily active users, go ahead and choose them. But I strongly think Instagram, G, Uber, Lyft and Robinhood are going to scale to at least two times their current DAU.
      Apr 10, 2018
  • Facebook
    dunkmaster

    Go to company page Facebook

    dunkmaster
    Just make sure you study consistent hashing and understand it well, almost every system design interview I've had boiled down to applying it (Airbnb, FB, and Google twice)

    Then drill leetcode…
    Apr 8, 2018 0
  • Uber
    tebduek

    Go to company page Uber

    tebduek
    .
    Apr 8, 2018 0