I have joined Blind since 2019 and following since then. A bit of my journey. I have more than decade experience on financial domain, I have been financial software engineer doing backend stuff. I was a part of the investment banking bandwagon victim, however I enjoyed all time in this domain. It was a black hole I was trying to move from financial IT to Tech. I prepare like hell and finally settled with small I have been leetcoding for 3 years on/off due to personal and work load commitments, however I determined to move to tech companies . Despite the break I resumed the hunt. My interview journey as follows Fb 2020- phone screen failed. Nervous wreck. I had good conversation with the interviewer. I have got follow up phone screen but I couldn’t clear it. Bloomberg 2020- completed full on-site interview loop but no offer Startups 2021- I made on-site in few interviews but again no offers. Fb/meta 2021 ( December 2021) Phone screen- solve two problems optimally. Strong hire. I asked for two months time for virtual on-site (VO). System design preparation. —————————————— I looked at grokking only for format purpose, thought it will not help me to clear the interview as the interviews are very hard nowadays. I followed Mikhail , Narendra YouTube channels and tons of qcons and infoq channels. Once I was comfortable I did mock interview with Blind folks with reasonable charges Meta VO 3 coding rounds- neither straight question nor top 100 qs. I managed to solve optimal. After the interviews I couldn’t rate it because I took 1-2 hints from the interviews thought it would go against me. Actually I was given strong hire on all three rounds ( one of them is for training) System Design round. I met with tough interviewer, the question is well known for me( not from grokking) . We decided to skip capacity planning and data modeling. I touched on APIs , and wanted to spend more time on high level. I was stuck 7-10 minutes on the API, the person was so precise. Next we moved to high level, we discussed Reliability fir around 20 minutes, we went so deep. Throughout the interview I was constantly interrupted, ended up incomplete design. I thought the game was over however it was borderline line hire and required follow up round. This round had negative impact on me, it was kept on echoing on my mind. Damn! What an unfortunate situation. I had lost a momentum Follow up system design. The question was well known. Initially the interviewer wasn’t engaged but later he was engaged . However I ran out of interest and I just wanted to complete the round . I should have shown full intensity but it wasn’t. I was given E4 offer due to lack of leading in the follow up design. I was upset but I accepted the offer . Had I have another offer things would have been different. Coding rounds- I always treat the interviewer as my co-worker and Every question I first clarify input/output , boundary condition and then proceed with design trade off. Mostly I first agree on test cases . Until interviewer says “code up” I don’t proceed . Also I am stuck I will let interviewer know that I’m stuck and need help. Thanks Also I posted good questions during the chat time. What product the interviewer working, challenging situations, priorities etc. This have fetched some brownie points for me. Again I broke my rule and settled for small but meta on my resume will open doors for me. Tech companies have very low profile towards banking folks 😫. Many start ups and big tech auto rejected me 😣 Finally I would like to thank Blind folks to getting me through. I wish everyone good luck with your interviews. Current TC: peanuts 🥜 New TC: 280k per year
Congrats! Also TC & YoE
Congratulations! PS: All blind wants is your TC!
Not all of us. I enjoyed reading the story
So did I, but without TC it’s like without an ending..(I am this^ right person now.. will let blind know how it ends)
Congrats! From my understanding the behavioral has higher impact on leveling than system design. Source: I got bumped up to E5.
Hm ok. Thanks.
Congrats! And good tips!
How do you ensure the services are stateless and request are processed successfully.
What sort of reliability things did you guys dig deep on?
Joined blind in 2009?! That’s a long time ago.
It was 2019