Status: New grad, MS CS Top 20 CS school
Location: San Francisco, CA
Date: February 13th, 2020
Position: SWE Intern at Coinbase

First round: Triplebyte questions

• applied on 23rd December, got a link to triplebytes test for a domain of my choice
• took the test for front end and back end
• 35 questions each
• took the test on 29th December

Second round: Interview phone call ( 30 min )

• HR round
• general questions about my resume, projects, and experience
• asked why coinbase, other offers, how i heard of coinbase

Third round: Screen share technical round ( 1 hour )

• As I had experience in front end, they interviewed me for the same
• code a part of coinbase pro UI using html, css, react
• using codepair by codepen
• faced a few technical difficulties, sent an email, got scheduled for another coding round

Third round part 2: Screen share technical round ( 1 hour )

• this time leetcode questions
• 1 debugging question
• 1 coding question: create a hashmap using array
• design question: e-commerce website

Offer: Got an email asking for the best time to call, they gave me the offer over the phone

• finally got in!!
• mentioned all the details of the offer

Interview experience:

• very positive, the recruiters were always quick to reply
• during the screen share round, my interviewer was very helpful, and made me analyse the efficiency of my code
• I was extremely nervous, she put me at ease

Preparation:

• The moment I cleared the HR round, I had to start studying React, as I was not proficient enough to feel comfortable using it in an interview
• I was relieved when I got the second technical round where I could use python to code
• Went through the reviews on glassdoor and found that a majority of the questions were design based
• had extremely less time to prepare, just went through all the questions and solutions for design on leetcode

Tips:

I am not sure if I am qualified enough to give any tips, I honestly think your communication skills, and luck plays a huge role apart from your technical proficiency.

1. After the first technical round, I was sure I would be rejected as I was not able to complete the interview well, but I persisted and sent them an email within an hour of the interview requesting another chance due to the technical fault ( I was not able to see my code output, which is extremely annoying when you are doing front-end )
2. I always followed back after every round, thanking them for the interview, etc
3. They usually leave 10 minutes at the end of every interview to ask questions. I made sure I had a few in my mind. For eg. I asked about the projects, details of the intern experience, mentoring possibility
4. Let the company know that you are really keen about joining the team
5. I made sure to check out my interviewer on LinkedIn and I was able to ask them a question related to their experience at Coinbase.
6. Do not give up during the interview, even if you are not able to get the solution, keep trying with a positive attitude. They analyse your attitude, not just the solution.

I had almost given up finding an internship after getting countless rejects. When I finally got scheduled for a phone call, I wanted to convert this one really bad and gave it my best shot.

Cheers~