Writing this since I haven't seen people talk about it anywhere on the internet. Not sure if it's the right platform, but I want to share my recent experiences so that it helps other job seekers here.

Earlier this year, I decided to make a switch, started preparing, & had absolutely no idea what was about to come over the next few months. Before I put out my experiences, let me quickly list down my profile & the companies I interviewed with.

My Profile -

• BTech. in CS passout from a private, Tier-3 college
• 3 years of work exp at a product-based MNC (hardly anyone has heard that company's name)

Few well-known companies I got to interview with -

• Google, India
• Amazon, India
• Swiggy
• Nvidia, India
• Walmart, India
• Zeta (Directi)

Even though the above list looks very attractive, it wasn't really a pleasant experience (surprisingly!) & that’s why this post. Let's talk about each of them in the chronological order.

Zeta [SDE-2]
Zeta conducted a nationwide coding test on HackerEarth & I was able to perform well enough to receive a call for the screening interview. However, no one joined the interview call & later I got an email saying that they'll not be moving ahead with my candidature. Strange!
But this was just the beginning.

Swiggy [SDE-2]
I was referred by one of my LinkedIn connections & 2 months later I received an email with a link to their coding test. After the test, I received no communication for a month & then, one day, got a call saying that I made it to the virtual onsite interviews. I was elated until the recruiter mentioned that all the interviews will happen the very next day & asked me to prepare DSA, LLD, & behavioral questions. Upon requesting for postponing the interviews, got a reply that it won't be possible from their side. It's either happening tomorrow or it's not happening at all. So, I went ahead with it & ended up doing badly at LLD & thus, it was a reject (as expected). I still wonder if it's too much to ask for a few days to prepare for these grilling interviews?

Walmart
I applied & got a call from the recruiter the very next day. They were conducting a hiring drive over the next weekend for the same. I went ahead, cleared the coding test & got my interview scheduled for the morning of next weekend but surprisingly, no one appeared om the call. Later, it got rescheduled for the noon and again, no one appeared. It again got rescheduled later for the same day but since I had to step out for some important work, I requested a reschedule & I didn't hear back from them ever. Nice!

Amazon [SDE-2]
Okay, this one is brutal. Got a call from a recruiter (without me applying or getting referral) asking if I'd be interested to interview for the SDE-2 role. I went ahead, cleared the coding test, & got qualified for the virtual onsite interviews that were supposed to happen after 10 days. Till that time, I prepared as much as practically possible since 3 interviews were scheduled for the same day & I wanted to give my best shot. However, to my surprise, I was sitting clueless on the day of the interviews since I didn’t receive any interview invite from their side; recruiters weren’t responding to me either. They did reached out to me a few days later & rescheduled the interviews a month later but guess what, the same thing repeated again! And this repeated 2 more times over the next 3 months! This has to be the worst hiring experience I've been through till now. Absolutely ridiculous!!!
Anyway, the interviews did happen on the 5th reschedule (surprisingly!) but by that time, I had already lost all interest in this opportunity.

Nvidia
Got a call since I was referred by one of my friends, 4 months back. They conducted 3 interviews & I was told that my final interview will be scheduled soon but it never happened. Even the recruiter stopped responding & I was left clueless here as well. 3 months later, their system finally found me worthy enough to update me on my candidature with an automated email reject. Great!

Google [SWE-L4]
I was very excited at first when I got a text from the recruiter on LinkedIn (I never thought of applying here myself) & soon I had my technical screening call scheduled. The thing I liked about Google's hiring process was that they generously provided me ample time to prepare; this, along with all the prep I was doing for months, made me very optimistic about this opportunity. It seemed to have arrived at a perfect time. However, things turned ugly here as well. The interviewer didn't appear on the call & nothing was communicated. Later, the recruiter rescheduled the interview & guess what (by this time, it shouldn’t be hard to guess), the same thing happened again! Even though this sounds very trivial to read here, it really takes a toll on you. Imagine preparing day & night for over 40 days, sacrificing everything, just to give your perfect shot on this interview just to find yourself cluelessly waiting for the interviewer. Anyway, the interview did happen on 3rd reschedule & I was rejected. Entire story here.

That’s it, these were my interview experiences over the course of last 6 months. When I started out, I never imagined interviewing with some of the top companies out there, let alone experiencing their dark side.

I did end up getting a couple of offers but that’s a story for a different post. Even though the pay & prestige on the offers I got were nowhere near what some of the above companies had to offer, I'm still happy & very much satisfied.

Some key realizations —

1. Recruitment is still a messed up process, be it a startup or a tech giant like Google.
2. Recruiters are ill informed about Software Engineers (literally some of them told to me that I’ll be able to prepare for DSA, LLD, & HLD over the weekend since I’m already a SDE, seriously??)
3. LinkedIn really works, it really does. Use it wisely.
4. Leetcode is the one stop destination not just for honing your DSA skills but also for enlightening yourself by reading the experiences of others.
5. Some channels teaching System Design & DSA on YouTube are far better than any prep material out there on the internet.
6. Mock interviews are much more important than you think.
7. Last but not the least, FAANG is just a buzzword. Don’t fall for it.

If you ever had any similar experiences in the past, do post them in the comments section below. I really want to know whether others also had any similar experiences or is it just me.

Suggestions are always welcomed!
Thanks.