i have onsite scheduled for fb/dropbox/uber/lyft/amazon(aws) in a few weeks. i am looking for senior position. i did about 50 medium level problems on leetcode. i tried a dozen hard ones but was able to do only a few on my own. should i focus on medium and go fast or focus more on hard ones? not sure what the expectation is. thanks! edit: if you got offer from these companies please share problem difficulty and position offered. also how much system design should i expect?
I did about 20-30 and I did most of EPI book problems. I cleared FB, Amazon and HBO. FB = medium level. Amazon = easy to medium. HBO = easy.
EPI?
Got medium and hard at FB and easy and medium at Amazon. Cleared both (E5 + L6) after doing 150 problems across all 3 levels + CTCI for theory review.
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Always push yourself. Interviews become a piece of cake after a point. In general you need to just be smart for a day and less than an hour per person. Over my career, I realized that I can judge a person's problem solving ability within 15 mins, but it's much harder to determine how good they are at adding value. So my interviews have actually gotten easier wrt CS problems, but now I throw in twists to the problem once the foundation has been laid, to see how they deal with adding unexpected complexity or changes in the problem. E.g. If someone uses a btree, I might ask them how they would deal with several concurrent writes to it, or how would they scale it horizontally for reads, etc. This is where you start seeing if the person has used just a data structure, or thought through why it was a fit and why not another data structure instead. Generally a good hire doesn't just write code in a corner, but also grows to add value and contribute to the team.
I have no idea how to answer any of those btree questions and have never had to in the past two years on the job as an SDE. What's the point of asking shit like that in an interview? In real life, I'd wonder about performance, do a dozen Google searches, roll the results into my own analysis, bring it up with the team if it's a very high impact decision, and then come to conclusions. Lol, interviews are such bullshit. Hurr hurr let's get into a dick measuring contest over who remembers the most about data structures from sophomore year CS!
Yeah... There's too many interviewers who ask obscure questions to feel good about themselves.
Seems like roughly how I was when I was about to do onsites when leaving MS. I suggest grinding as much Leetcode as you can (100+ total is good) and specifically focusing on the problems that are most commonly asked at the companies you are interviewing with first. I failed a bunch of onsites but after focusing on those I passed enough to get some great offers and negotiate.
Why are you still at MS?
Facebook - Medium Google - Medium Hard Dropbox - Medium Palintir - Medium Hard
i was asked hard level in my phone interview with one of the companies. :) it is pretty random...
I got asked a hard (per leetcode) question during my phone screening with Oracle BMC (IC 3/4). At the on-site my first question was also a hard question (per leetcode). I did not know either of them and sweat blood until I could give a solution to the one they asked on-site, didn't even have time to code it fully. I was quite surprised, as everyone is saying OBMC interviews are easy.
People who got in with medium questions now feel the need to hire people better than them. They need to be surprised, excited about you. Only leetcode hard solvers are that I guess. The interview process is a joke
It's more meritocratic than bullshit interviews, less successful at repeat ability. The process sucks because they cannot hire the same smart person the first time itself. Flawed process.
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