Losing morale for Hard LC questions. Whats going on with interviews?
Getting seriously frustrated as top tagged #apple #google #uber questions are mostly hard like Text justifiation, max points on line, Word Ladder, Employee free time, Optimal account balancing etc At this point my mind is so saturated that it's hard for me to absorb more questions. Also crashed 2 Apple phonescreen so losing hope for future.... I've been prepping for over a year and perhaps my algo/ds skills needed lots of work so it took me time to learn the basic concepts, did the top 100 LC questions, the 75 LC from team blind etc but yes it really took 1 year for me to get here. My DP, backtracking skills were very poor in the beginning but now I am able to do permutations, letter phone number, word break2 etc. Am I really slow? Or everyone is just flexing that they started prep in April and got 4 job offers in June? How to prepare for these hard questions? Do these companies really ask hard questions and just give 20 mins to code them? Also they ask to run them and a slightest mistake might cause ur code to not work for some testcases. In that cases, do they expect you to memorize?? Is the software engineering process to memorize and replicate code for hard problems in 20 mins flat? I've heard stories that candidates have written the problem code and still failed interview as it was not a good fit or the team wasnt able to get more data. So whats going on? Sorry for the rant-ish post but interviewers, can you share what to do? yoe: 8 #software #engineering #swe #interview #google #facebook #frustrated #advice #tech #bayarea Update: First apple was with a LC medium which I had seen and done before, so I did that in 10 min then it was discussion about teams, project and the interviewer said good things and next week, recruiter said they're going with other candidate. Second apple was tougher. Interviewer was having fun by asking me 'rapid fire' questions as she called it. Asking java questions like what are lambda operators, how to do things in git etc. I was actually a bit surprised with this line but tried my best, then she pulled an extremely fuzzy question just verbally and I just couldnt understand the question and asked for some written examples and she said no.
Dont forget the luck component. Training will improve your odds, but the “wrong” question might catch off-guard even the most prepared candidate. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Why did you crash the two Apple phone screens? Phone screen questions are rarely on the “hard” category.
First apple was with a LC medium which Ihad seen and doen before, so I did that in 10 min then it was discussion about teams, project and the interviewer said good things and next week, recruiter said they're going with other candidate. Second apple was tougher. Interviewer was having fun by asking me 'rapid fire' questions as she called it. Asking java questions like what are lambda operators, how to do things in git etc. I was actually a bit surprised with this line but tried my best, then she pulled an extremely fuzzy question just verbally and I just couldnt understand the question and asked for some written examples and she said no.
I have been prepping for 30-40hrs per week for 6mth nonstop, done 400 LC question and I still can't code an unseen med in 20min or unseen hard in 40min. Fuck this
You aren’t slow. Leetcode is incredibly difficult, many problems are built for people that are extremely good at a specific kind of math, it’s not surprising that it’s hard for a good SWE to ace it. It’s a garbage way to hire and honestly it’s more of a test of perseverance and work ethic nowadays than actual software skills.
thank you, it really does seem like a test of perseverance.....it's hard with companies like Apple as each team is different and sometimes, they ask Java, sometimes, design and sometimes a question without much detail.
Don’t measure yourself against others. You never know the specific situations. Once you did the LC torture and get in the first company, brushing off your skills 2-3 years later is much easier faster.
FWIW - I was asked 2 hard questions in 2 of my 8 rounds at Apple (interviewed with multiple teams) and on both occasions - interviewer helped me with direction and approach. Was able to solve both, in-spite of never having seen them before. Working and passing tests. At least in my anecdotal experience, good interviewers will not expect a 100% working solution without guiding you or helping with ruling out some of the approaches for so called hard problems.
good to know tht you had nice interviewers, mine seemed that they wanted me to show how awesome they were...not really guiding but staying silent :( Which hard problem were u asked if u dont mind sharing please?
If you do enough - I would say it was around 20 for me - you will see common patterns, so the help you would need for never seen before problems is to fit that into a known pattern. A good interviewer should help you with that or in helping you with ruling out those patterns. If he/she is not, it’s your bad luck really. Can’t disclose the specific problems, but they were back tracking kinds with a function to rule out a path to optimize.
Don’t stress out. Treat each problem as a fun puzzle. Relax, play with toy examples, make observations, and solve the problem.
Just keep interviewing . There is a huge luck factor . Also most interviews never ask lc hard . It’s more about accuracy abd speed for lc med
I must be the most unlucky person. So far I was ask lc hard for google, FB, Microsoft
Memorize the hard or have them open on a second screen. Get LC premium and know how to explain them top to bottom and discuss potential modifications to the algo
haha
They wont care about eye movements. Just know how to explain it inside and out. It's not that serious