Phone screening

1. Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array
2. Two Sum

System Design

Wikipedia Crawler

Variation: we want balanced data storage over our 10k machines, and we don't want our crawler to be discovered (we are haxxors).

Note: every interviewer takes a known problem and changes something to make it unique.

A very bad experience. The interviewer was one of those idiots that are full of themselves only because they work at FAANG. After I drew the high-level design and explained the workflow, he kept diverting the discussion toward a specific point, without giving me hints. I spent the rest of the time trying to figure out what he wanted me to tell, which prevented me from discussing other important topics (load balancer and processing queue). He really wanted me to fail. However, my design was good, and I satisfied half of his requirements, so I would rate my performance 3 out of 5.

It's so stupid that such an important round may be compromised because you have the misfortune to meet a very bad interviewer. I told the recruiter that I was concerned about this round because my interviewer was not well-disposed toward me. She replied with useless fluff.

On-site Coding 1

1. Nested List Weight Sum
2. Merge k Sorted Lists

On-site Coding 2

1. Remove All Adjacent Duplicates In String
2. Robot Room Cleaner

I solved the second problem with both DFS and BFS. I also mentioned A*, which impressed the interviewer.

Behaviorals

2 rounds. One with a potential colleague, one double interview where an engineer interviewed me, and a team manager took notes in background (with camera and audio off). Very typical questions.

Result

Reject notification after 3 days. No feedback provided, but from what the recruiter wrote me, I understand that the team manager (the one who took notes during the second behavioral) thinks that my PhD is not relevant to his team. The recruiter also told me that the team was impressed by my performance and that she will be in touch in case other positions that make sense for me will pop out. Note: I did not apply for this job, I was contacted by another recruiter.

Apart from my system design round, I did everything flawlessly, and I am more than qualified for the position, so being rejected because the team leader doesn't like my background is quite questionable. It's fine if you want more homogeneous people, but be honest! Both parties would have saved time if this was clear from the start.

My case may be quite uncommon here, however if something similar happens to you, don't be discouraged: it's not your fault.

I'm in the loop for Bloomberg, and hopefully soon with Google too, if my referrals work. This process was relatively quick (~1.5 months), so I see it as a good exercise. Bloomberg will be a breeze, and Google less hard than expected.

EDIT: I just started my loop with Google, and I can't be more excited! Wish me good luck. :)