Which tech companies in the Chicago area use System design and Algo/DS in their interview process?

New
techdude11

New

techdude11
Sep 1, 2020 20 Comments

Based on the posts on Blind it appears that most of the companies that use System Design and A/DS are all in Bay area. FANG doesn't have presence in the Chicago area.

I have 12 YOE in small companies and I'd like to start interviewing for SWE roles in bigger companies. My understanding is that most of the companies here focus on previous projects, whiteboarding (not from LC) and domain knowledge.

TC - 150k
YOE - 12

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TOP 20 Comments
  • Really ?
    Sep 1, 2020 6
    • New
      techdude11

      New

      techdude11
      OP
      @NotFermat - You hit the nail on the head. I've switched 6-8 jobs during my career and have never once encountered a random BFS/DFS questions - a lot of OOP concepts and design patterns, and none of the coding questions that we see in LC. Honestly I hadn't heard of LC until recently, thanks to Blind.
      Sep 1, 2020
    • New / Eng
      NotFermat

      New Eng

      NotFermat
      Glad to know there are others like us in this echo chamber. I know right now I couldn’t get a SDE1 position at any FAANG company as I don’t remember DS / Algorithm specifics. I also wouldn’t do too well on the systems design as (a) the systems I do get to design are too constrained on the technologies already in place and (b) they are not to the scale of millions of requests per day. I think the latter is something I can more easily bridge the gap as it’s just verbalizing what I’m already thinking.

      Don’t get me wrong; I would love to work for the likes of G and M based on what I have read here. I wish this community was around when I graduated ~15 years ago. I actually did interview at M back then and never got leetcode questions so it’s amazing to see how they have evolved over time.
      Sep 1, 2020
  • Grubhub
    Sep 1, 2020 5
    • Google
      β‰Μ΄ΝΜΏΜ«ΜŸ

      Go to company page Google

      β‰Μ΄ΝΜΏΜ«ΜŸ
      Technologies and, here specifically, languages/frameworks are just tools to get the job done. Of course expertise in one is great but those skills generally translate to other stacks. Big companies work with many technologies and expect you to learn whatever you need to learn to be productive. So saying β€œI’m only this kinda guy” really limits yourself and it’s more the typical speak of smaller companies.

      Also at 12 yoe I would expect OP to be doing much less coding day to day and more design/leading work - even more reason the specific technology specialization, something as broad as .net, starts to matter less.
      Sep 7, 2020
    • New
      tchdde

      New

      tchdde
      Thanks for the explanation. Does that mean that the employee is expected to pick up the technologies used by the company or they'll find a team/project that's based on the employee's skill set
      Sep 7, 2020
  • DocuSign / Eng
    |πŸ™ŠπŸ™ˆπŸ™‰|

    Go to company page DocuSign Eng

    |πŸ™ŠπŸ™ˆπŸ™‰|
    DM if interested in DocuSign. We are hiring.
    Sep 1, 2020 3
  • Facebook, Amazon, Google and Uber have several openings in Chicago. Majority of these roles are support/consultancy or Data Science related.
    Sep 1, 2020 2
    • New
      techdude11

      New

      techdude11
      OP
      Agree. I'm looking for SWE roles though, not really interested in support/consultancy roles. Thanks for the response
      Sep 1, 2020
    • Try Google Madison, WI office. They pay good.
      Sep 1, 2020