Offering free SWE mock interviews/general interview guidance

Amazon
fWiX20

Go to company page Amazon

fWiX20
May 22, 2020 17 Comments

Hey blind, I recently wrapped up all my interviews and am in the final stages.
I've got not much to do over the long weekend and thought I'd give back to the community by offering some interview prep to anyone who is also having the time of their life doing virtual onsites

I firmly believe that interviewing is a game that can be solved. Feel free to post questions here regarding general interview prep and approaches, or anything tangentially related. Dm me if you would like an interview session. I'm open to leetcode, sys des, or behavioral. However I'm mostly FE/full stack so I will be of little use if you're looking for distributed sys design. Idk how many I can do but I'll get to whoever I can over the coming week

Cheers

Offers I have received over past couple months: goog, fb, twit, uber, lyft, pins, ddash and a buncha other late stage startups. all sr or staff

current tc: 430k/7yoe
new tc: have not yet decided but 400k-600k range

#interview

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TOP 17 Comments
  • People in blind say that there are not that many patterns. Yet i feel that some of the problems especially google tagged ones are far out of the box thinking and not mostly related with pattern tho.

    What are your thoughts in google tagged leetcode questions bring tough and how to get prepared for it ?

    For Facebook, I guess its about speed and solution. Where as google even if it has bug there is a slight chance for consideration.
    May 22, 2020 2
    • Amazon
      fWiX20

      Go to company page Amazon

      fWiX20
      OP
      LC meds are pattern matching. LC hards are no longer pattern matching, but problem solving. The ability to think out of the box is exactly what it is. I would not consider google to be pattern matching at all.

      I think if LC doesn't come naturally to you, lc hards are often not worth it. It's a huge time investment, very mentally challenging, and Google is really not the holy grail of companies.

      That said, if you do want to crack it, I used to do 1 lc hard every day for a month or so and now I can do any lc hard with ~90% confidence rate. Take any one lc hard, and focus on it for 1.5-2hrs. Think about all the various possibilities, tackle it from every single angle possible, try random transformations, approaches, etc. Also I usually find that I forget an LC hard approach after 3 months or so, so by then it's up for me to give it a shot again. Just training your brain to think clever

      And yes, FB usually asks 2 lc meds per round so it's more about speed
      May 22, 2020
    • Thanks for all the inputs. So what's your best advice for Google L4 interview prepation ?
      May 22, 2020
  • Amazon
    FOtF70

    Go to company page Amazon

    FOtF70
    Thank you for the post and congrats! Mind sharing level and position in Google and FB? With your yoe and tc it's hard to imagine they didn't ask for system design even if you don't have much distributed system experiences. How did you prepare them?
    Also given your yoe and tc, I would normally imagine companies will focus more on behavior and designs instead of LC, do you feel the same? What do you think the level of difficulty for algorithm questions from Google and FB?
    Thanks!
    May 22, 2020 2
    • Dell
      LUHV04

      Go to company page Dell

      LUHV04
      Interested in the system design portion as well
      May 22, 2020
    • Amazon
      fWiX20

      Go to company page Amazon

      fWiX20
      OP
      Fb e6 g l5. I took frontend interviews so I did frontend oriented system design interviews

      LC is still important. You have a little bit more leeway but it's not much. Though if you absolutely destroy system design + behavioral for l6 I'm sure you get even more leeway. But I wouldn't neglect it and assume that you have a free pass due to your seniority

      G is 1 lc hard per round fb is 2 lc meds per round, with some variance depending on luck
      May 23, 2020
  • Uber
    uTabb

    Go to company page Uber

    uTabb
    Nice job. How do you manage interview anxiety? No matter what I do, as soon as I enter the interview my brain becomes foggy and it's hard to work through a problem. If I look it at right after it's really easy.
    May 22, 2020 1
    • Amazon
      fWiX20

      Go to company page Amazon

      fWiX20
      OP
      I think I'm naturally quite personable and comfortable being under the spotlight so it doesn't bother me. But in general I think mock interviews help as you simulate the environment. Also, doing a lot of public speaking actually helps surprisingly
      May 23, 2020
  • Lyft
    hmmm1244

    Go to company page Lyft

    hmmm1244
    Thanks a lot for offering help
    How many LC?
    Any special advice
    May 22, 2020 1
    • Amazon
      fWiX20

      Go to company page Amazon

      fWiX20
      OP
      I have about ~300LC accumulated over many years. I usually just do 1 lc hard or a couple lc meds once a week or two and that keeps me brushed up over the years.

      If you can do a random LC med presented to you with a 90% confidence interval you are ready for most interviews, except the harder ones like pins/g/f/etc. If you can do a random LC hard presented to you with a 50% confidence interval you can think fast enough for all of them

      The only other piece most people miss is communication. I have failed to optimally solve LC problems yet have never failed a LC round. If you can speak your thought process well and communicate clearly that will go much further than pulling out some code-golf optimized solution in 10 min
      May 22, 2020
  • How different was Goog vs FB in terms of difficulty? What was the ratio of medium/ hard problems asked in each?
    May 23, 2020 1