Last year I spent preparing for FAANG companies interviews I was rejected by all my dream companies and want to share my interview experience :) Some context about me: Backend developer, Java Location - Europe 4 YOE + TC now: ~60k gross USD First 7 months of preparation was mostly grinding leetcode Current stats: Total problems solved: 463 Easy: 171 Medium: 271 Hard: 21 Contest rank: 1600, 5 attended After that was mostly doing mock interviews, both coding and system design - I wasn't able to register on interviewing.io, so decided to just buy some mocks on fiverr. It was quite good, met some really great engineers here. Advise here - pick up some FAANG guys from India - their gigs are not as costy (25-40$), but competition there is huge, so they may be even more experienced than US developers (at least in Algo/DS). For system design - read first part of Alex Xu book, watched a lot of youtube videos. Then just practice - pick up a problem, try to do my own design, then watch solutions of other people. BTW, currently I feel very comfortable at system design, much more than in coding. For coding - Neetcode 150 (2 times), then just solve random popular problems and daily problem. After 7 month of grinding was really tired of coding. After that was solving around 4-7 problems per week. Results: Google L4 (Fitbit) tech screen - passed onsite - rejected googlyness/HM round - easy pass/just couple of behavioral questions + work questions Coding 1 - good, solved problem optimally + follow up Coding 2 - solved optimally original problem, stuck on follow up - provided a solution after a hint, but mentioned wrong time complexity (it was backtracking algorithm) Coding 3 - hasn't provided a working solution, was trying to solve optimally, then figured out my solution doesn't work. As a result, provided a brute-force solution, but with some non-implemented methods Feedback after onsite was rejection, but HR suggested to conduct one more coding interview. During it, solved initial problem optimally, but hasn't provided a working solution for a follow-up even after some hints (coded 90%, but interview time was over) Thoughts: Had mixed feelings after, coding interviews are too important for them. They also determine my seniority by coding interview with algo problem - wtf? Also no system design for L4 is weird. If you want to crack Google - prepare hard for coding, that's the only thing important for them. All initial problems were medium difficulty, all follow-ups - hards. Amazon SDE 2 (Ring) tech screen - passed, algo problem, easy/medium difficulty onsite - rejected HM round was system design - killed it, recruiter told that it was one of the best design interviews HM had during last year Coding 1 - not algo Coding 2 - not algo - bar raiser interview Coding 3 - algo tree medium question As a result, rejected by bar raiser, because haven't clarified all requirements before starting coding. Clarified all cases during coding, but that was obviously my bad. Thoughts: On each interview they ask behavioral questions, was hardly preparing for it - had a google doc of 15 stories prepared for most commonly asked questions. That was more than enough, recruiter mentioned that I did great in behavioral part. Stupid mistake from my side here, they had only one algo round during onsite. Quite realistic to pass interview there. Netflix L4/L5 (Content Engineering) tech screen - system design, passed onsite part 1 - coding (not algo) + HM - passed onsite part 2 - rejected one more HM round System design Org leader interview Culture interview As a result rejected, still waiting for a meaningful feedback. Thoughts: Was thinking I have a good chances here, as I'm good in behavioral rounds and system design. After my initial company investigation, I realised that my behavioral stories from previous interviews are not strong enough for Netflix, thus worked around a week to align them with Netflix culture. To add to that, final round was conducted onsite, so I had to memorize all my behavioral stories + their culture deck. Was really dissapointed, because I really like Netflix culture and the product is great. Still not sure why I was rejected, will edit post after I will have more detailed feedback. UPD: Netflix rejection was due to lack of details in behavioral interviews. That's a bit strange, because for all questions starting with "tell me about a time, when..." I provided a good answer with details using STAR method. But for questions like "how do you communicate with your manager/other teams/etc" I thought I'm not expected to provide an answer using STAR and was just telling on high-level how I work, but looks like that's not the case. Advice here will be - whenever it's possible to provide STAR answer to behavioral question - do that, otherwise you'll be rejected for not demonstrating required behavior. Feel free to ask any questions or suggest any info that will be useful to include in the post. #google #amazon #netflix #interviewexperience
Thanks for sharing and sorry to hear that. Keep at it!
The stars weren't aligned, really. I think you could have gotten an offer on a different day or with different interviewers. At least for Amazon. Just keep at it.
What do you mean by “your behavioral stories were not strong enough for Netflix”. What’s a strong behavioral story?
For example my story about a difficult problem I solved was about introducing a scrum and processes to the team I was thinking that it doesn't good fit for Netflix culture and it wasn't good one for L4/L5 position, so I changed it to solving complex technical challenge At this point of time I tried to do my best to pass an L5 bar
Thanks for sharing
You will get it next time man. ❤️
Working at a faang is not all its promised to be. Pay is good but that's about it. It's more satisfying overall at a smaller company for a little bit less pay. You're spending 10hrs a day at a place , might as well enjoy it.
Amazon interviews are a total crapshoot, but Ring’s are bad specifically. Knew a person who got an l5 offer there with zero leetcode. Trust me, you dodged a bullet
These are the posts I missed on Blind. No stupid humblebrag sh*t. Don't give up op, I know luck plays a big role in faang Interview
Why interview for Fitbit? They had massive layoffs.
Dude you did all this hard work I think it comes down to luck for you. Just bad luck time is not on your side rn so keep trying