Context
YOE 5
No-CS degree
Self taught scripting monkey
Rounds
- 3 coding rounds (1 strong yes, 1 weak yes, 1 no hire) (2 no hires when I tried in 2019)
- 1 behavior (no hire) (I was a strong hire when I tried in 2019)
- 1 design (no hire) (hire when I tried in 2019)
Practise done before interview
- 200+ LC
- grokkkkking the system design interview skim through
Feedbacks and my thoughts
- One small but fatal mistake in 1 coding question out of 6, bad signal (it's about binary search, find first in duplicates)
- Not fast enough, spend too much time coding, bad signal
- In summary, you need to be fast and accurate
- For design round, I was given a problem from grokkkkking the system design interview, but I didn't follow the original answer, rejected. (lesson learnt: just be stupid and follow the textbook, don't be fancy or practical)
- For behavior round, you need to know what the interview is looking for and "feed" them the right answer. be honest but be tactical too.
Summary
- It's a stupid game you need to play/fake well
- They want the "right" answers, and need it on the spot, not your thought process
More After Thoughts
- Let's be honest, no one solves Trapping Rain Water in O(n) time and O(1) space first try under 15 minutes. I was asked that question and I actually solved it becauase I prepared for it, not because I really know my ds/algo.
- For behavior, I talked about real failures and conflicts, where I actually failed and dealt badly, and learnt a lot. But my feedback was really bad and clearly no hire, it looks to me that they clearly want an example where you successfully turned the winds. So you need to be honest but be tactical too. Prepared that right answer, maybe fake it a little bit.
- Do more LC, I think it really helps, I think the minimum bar for someone like me without a CS-degree is about 400. (I am at 200+, felt I have improved a lot, but clearly not meeting the bar yet)
- Doing your job, passing the coding interview, starting a tech business are weakly linked skillsets.
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