Tips on Coding and System Design interviews format and time management?
I am preparing hard for coding (grinding leetcode) and system design (grinding YouTube videos, DDIA book, etc.).
I thought i gained good enough knowledge. So, I tried some mock interviews with few folks in real companies and I failed.
The reason is that I fail to do time management and format following.
Coding:
Spent too much time on discussion, jumped directly to optimized solution, etc.
System Design:
Spent too much time showing off scaling number calculation (its waste of time in most of interviews i guess)
Didn't spent much time on API design..
directly draw complex diagram without a simple start... (YouTube videos trained like that)
It sucks if you are prepared but can't follow format and get failure. (which means you are not prepared).
I want this post to act like a guide from experienced interviewers and candidates (who failed and then succeeded by learning abt format and time mgmt) in this area.
Please help giving pointers which helps me improve on these aspects .
TC: 220k
comments
For coding I use the following approach:
1. Requirements and constraint - 5 minutes
2. Write few test cases (happy path, corner cases, etc) - 5 minutes
3. Brute force
4. Optimization
The most important thing is not what you write, but how you behave, speak and ask.
Coding round often depends on the expectation... for EMs it is often fine to not to solve the problem, but for IC it is likely nohire.
For the system design round you will be pushed into deep dive in the area which is a core competency of the interviewer.
@OP I would also recommend to check their LinkedIn profiles :))
Weird they complain about coding optimal right away unless you didn't even talk about other slower solutions before implementing. Mentioning slower then implementing optimal is fine