Interview Experience

The recruiter reached out through Linkedin and shared with me the interview process. I asked for two weeks to prepare for the phone screen. Don't know what happened(maybe because I was from a reputed company), but the recruiter skipped the screening round and scheduled 3 coding rounds after two weeks( I had 1 month for prep)

I was already in the flow of giving and clearing coding rounds, so didn't prepare much for these rounds except going through the patterns to revise. And went through the previous Google interview experiences which helped me to get an idea about the type of questions being asked. In this stage, I was confident that I can easily clear any medium difficulty level coding problems, but not so confident about the hard ones and gave up on the preparation of those.

My mindset at this stage was if it is meant to be it will be Also, some of the interview experiences had really hard questions, which I couldn't solve without hints, so didn't care to prepare. And I was also in the final stages of interviews in a few startups, so didn't have the motivation to practice problems.

Round 1 I was asked to design and implement an Iterator type of data structure in this round, which I did. Space, Time complexity related discussions, then scenarios of Time and Space complexity boundary conditions. Then I was given a problem in next greater element pattern. Actually, the question was a bit more complex than this, solved this and gave TC and SC. result - Hire

Round 2 The problem I was asked in this round followed Islands problem pattern. Bit more complex than this, had lot of smaller problems that needed solving. I tried to give a solution using DSU algo. But can easily be solved by DFS. Also, I made a few logical mistakes in implementing the code. The result was Leaning No Hire in this round.

Round 3 This round was given a problem with a mix of both the Merge Intervals pattern and the Top K elements pattern. Solved it in the given time. Took a bit more time than stipulated to explain and code, TC and SC discussion. But felt positive about it. result - Hire

All this while, the recruiter was in constant touch with me, wished me luck before each round, and shared feedback on each round. Actually, the recruiter had more confidence in me than I did. Also since the feedback of the second round was not up to the mark, asked to take another coding round as HC might ask at the later stages.

Round 4(coding) The problem looked similar to this but with reduced complexity. so solved it easily. We had more time, so did dry run with two examples. This round went well. result - Hire

System Design I took two weeks to prepare for system design, also the recruiter shared a few online resources to prepare. And this was a medium level System design problem, I drilled down to Low level and High level design of the solution, using Async processing, Caching techniques and usual data storing techniques. All in all, this was a positive experience. After the interview, I felt that it was more of an experience related than preparation. result - Hire

Felt good to have come this far in the interview process. By this time I had 2 offers in hand, also the threads about the hiring freeze and team match stucking left me with not so much confidence about the process to offer conversion even if I clear HC. The recruiter prepped me for the GLS round and scheduled the same.

Googlyness and Leadership Round The usual behavioural/Bar raiser/Leadership principles related questions. I am very bad at these interviews. Managed to make a positive impression I guess.

And then followed the team fitment call with a manager, and found myself fit, I also liked the product. So from here the process was blazing fast, got an offer within 2 days, signed and going to join in two weeks. The recruiter was very helpful and proactive in all communications, I am grateful for that.

Prep I started my problem solving , on and off I've solved around 500 problems, around 300 medium ones. This helped me crack coding rounds in most companies. For system design and GLS, there is no better prep than experience, doing good work in the current company, and side projects. Always give your 100%. Even if you're not appreciated in the current place, some doors will open in the future and your experience will act as a key. Hope to make big and hope to see you there as well. Thanks and All the best.