Phone Screening:

Question 1: Reverse of this question - https://leetcode.com/problems/string-compression/ where a pattern is given and you match that to given string

Question 2: LRU cache where the question was framed differently

Expected to code both the questions. Did the first one thoroughly passing all the edge cases and second one I couldnt complete the delete functionality. I was really nervous and the interviewer helped me get calm throughout the interview which was really really great.

I was told the result like in 4-5 days and I took three more weeks for the virtual on-site rounds.

Coding Round 1:

Question 1: Boundary of a binary tree

Question 2: k closest points to the origin

Coding Round 2:

Question 1: Diameter of a binary tree

Question 2: Search an element in a grid of numbers where rows and columns are sorted

All the questions, straight out of leetcode. I had bit of struggle in one of the questions but with hints here and there, I was able to frame my thoughts better and coded out the solution.

System Design:

Proximity Server (with rather very simple features)

I was told at the start of the interview that this round should be like a role play where two colleagues are in a meeting room and want to come out with a rather concrete plan on how to go about the whole thing. I have realised that they do give a lot of importance to estimations section which I did pretty decent and overall I made sure I am driving the discussion but still trying to get the pulse from the interviewer. Towards the end, he asked me what if we need to do few enhacements and I think he was trying to see how flexible the design is and I have given couple of options and chosen the more generic one. The most weightage you get is when you do pro con analysis for every choice - data model, data store, async vs sync, websocket vs SSEs (wherever applicable)

Behavioral Interview

Discussions around challenging projects, challenging people and situations. An awesome day at work according to you, scope of your role, all kinds of questions to get to know what kind of a professional you are - I highly reccomend mock interviews with really experienced folks even if you are spending extra cash for this.

I have given an interview for E5 originally but given my behavioral interview, I was finally offered E4 which is pretty decent given my experience and situation.

P.S.: Thank you so so much the Leetcode community who made this whole thing possible.