Tech IndustryNov 26, 2019
Microsoftfuckcoding

Momentary Depression - Failed onsite

Failed onsite at Google, Dropbox and Twitter. Culprit as per feedback - System design interview performance is not bad but not at par for a senior candidate. If system design interviewers from any of these companies could provide a guidance, that would be awesome!! Thoughts? Any Improvement suggestions?

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NVIDIA Iced Nov 26, 2019

They just want to see a dumb flowchart with some variables and types going between systems. They're of course not going to tell you that.

Microsoft fuckcoding OP Nov 26, 2019

Lol.. A flowchart is standing between a great offer and me..

Northrop Grumman wiz🧙🏻‍♂️ Nov 26, 2019

It’s more about following a meta

Oracle bittorrent Nov 26, 2019

What’s your level and yoe at Microsoft? The bar differs a lot on that.

Microsoft fuckcoding OP Nov 26, 2019

63 & 9YOE

Oracle bittorrent Nov 26, 2019

Then it depends a lot on what kinda questions you are asking and assumptions you are making. Don’t just answer what is being asked. They want you to lead the discussion.

Teradata rockerArm8 Nov 26, 2019

Read up on UML, practice designing your current project using UML. Try again

Oracle bittorrent Nov 26, 2019

Nobody cares about uml

Oracle pzd Nov 26, 2019

uml for system design is the express lane to hard reject.

AT&T random25 ⚽️ Nov 26, 2019

Try Grokking system design course

Microsoft fuckcoding OP Nov 26, 2019

It doesn’t go very deep.

AT&T random25 ⚽️ Nov 26, 2019

Than try highscalability http://highscalability.com

Twitter twitterrr Nov 26, 2019

You should be able to come up with a system and tell the trade offs for the system. How will your system behave if some requirements changes, no system is perfect and you should be able to tell the limitations and shortcomings of a system.

Microsoft ipv Nov 26, 2019

I don't think it was just system design, Google usually down level you if it's just system design

Microsoft fuckcoding OP Nov 26, 2019

Not pursuing L4 path..

Amazon VDnQ10 Nov 26, 2019

OP - PM me if you are interested in Amazon. I can refer you for a good position that I know of.

Amazon mcmx Nov 26, 2019

It's not the end of a world. Try out Coursera, educative.io. I ended up with taking a lot of notes and reflection on interviews right after on-sites. Then prepared follow up plan of self improvement. Prepared plan B, like what will I do if I fail.

Expedia Group e5menow Nov 27, 2019

I would recommend you doing one of the solutions architect studies on cloud products. I personally did AWS Solutions architecture on acloudguru and it was really useful.

Facebook dabbulu Nov 27, 2019

Hi, Take grokking course. But grokking doesnt go deep enough for an engineer role. what role did you interview for? But grokking is a good start and you can deep at each and every point on your own. Main: buy a whiteboard and practice. system design is about getting up drawing and speaking up. SPEAK out loud, it is very important for your interviewer to understand your thought process, not the ultimate solution. he wants to understand how you normally reach at a solution. do you consider a lot of alternatives and then methodically strike off solutions because of some parameters that are not met? what trade off are you considering? etc. I was able to land offers from FB, G, AMZ and a few others. But all involved getting up building the solution out on the white board. Practice with a friend or spouse if you can, it helps.

Salesforce peaceguy Nov 27, 2019

By alternatives, do u mean technologies / tools ?

Microsoft fuckcoding OP Nov 27, 2019

I interviewed for senior SWE roles.. Thanks for the inputs! My daily work doesn’t deal with distributed system design aspects. @facebook, did you have distributed system prior experience?