Recruiter reached out via linkedin.
Currently working as a SDE-2 in MAANG company.
Screening
One online OA where we were asked to solve a problem and its uts with every solve some condition was added to the problem , total there were 4-5 stages i was able to solve all except last.
Problem itself was around building a cache for a db , knowing map and implementation of LRU etc was needed.
Second part was an coding interview with a meta enginner consisting of 45 min , was asked 2 problems
https://leetcode.com/problems/diagonal-traverse-ii/description/
https://leetcode.com/problems/next-permutation/description/
i was able to solve both althou the first problem was new to me so i did take long time in that.
Recruiter informed me i had passed the screening but it was a marginal call since OA did not provide full marks and coding was also considered a Ok signal and not a strong signal.
Main Interview
This consisted of 4 rounds, 1 coding , 1 Ai assisted coding, 1 behaviour, 1 product design, althou i gave 4 days (1 each), it was rescheduled to 2 rounds per day. They were scheduled post 14-15 days from me knowing i had cleared screening.
- Coding (45 min)
Similar to second screening was asked 2 problems in 45 mins
https://leetcode.com/problems/sum-root-to-leaf-numbers/description/
Second problem was not directly from leetcode , it was around stream processing where we had to do operations based on last k elements
The most difficult operation was median similar to this - https://leetcode.com/problems/find-median-from-data-stream/description/
i was able to solve first question within 10 min which gave me ample time to solve second and iterate through various approches
Overall interview finished around 10 min before time and last 10 min was spend discussing about the role.
My verdict -- Strong positive signal.
- AI Assisted Coding (60 min)
Similar to first screening round but we have a weak AI to help us solve the problem.
The interviwer had a thick accent which made understanding from them difficult also post 30 min they stooped communicating at all instructing me to ask AI for any doubts.
Simplied Problem was around - you would be given random 16 cards you need to pick 3 that sum to 15(Ace is 1, jack is 10, queen is 11, king is 12, rest number face value), once done those 3 cards would be replaced from deck. Ideally you should be able to do this 12 times successfully basically till all cards are dealt out. Write a problem to do this.
Interview started out with solving a ut which was failing which i was able to do.
But i was not able to solve the main problem.Would like to listen to others attempt this.
My verdict -- Strong negative signal.
- Behavior round (45 min)
Standard problems, but a key point in meta is focus on negative questions a bit , for example some of questions asked to me
How do resolve conflict with manager or higher ups
How to convince others in team to complete the task/initiative you are leading
project you are proud of.
How do you deal with difficult co worker
Instance where you had to change direction mid execution
Biggest weakness
Tell me about a time you pushed a bug in production or something went wrong because of you. What did you learn?
Overall went pretty well.
My verdict -- Positive signal.
- Product design (45 min)
Question was around building a food delivery website. I followed the standard way of solving shown in vidoes of Hello interview.
Deep dive was done on geospatial index for location based search of finding restaurant, use of elastic search for words based search etc.
Used a cron job for managing notifications when delivery are close etc.
Overall, it went well accoriding to me but inteviwer did not seem fully satisfied probably had something else also in mind althou they did not state that clearly in my attempts to commuicate with them.
My verdict -- Ok to positive signal.
Received information 3 days later that i did not made it through. Only feedback given to me from recruiter was that one of rounds had negative rating ( i assume AI one), and no direct feedback on other rounds even thou i tried twice.
Hope this helps others !
Recent JP morgan experience if interested - https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/7359766/jpmorgan-chase-sde-3-java-full-stack-dev-rxak/