YoE: 9
Current CTC: 70 LPA
I was contacted by Okta recruiter about opening for a staff engineer role and they mentioned an expected budget about 90 LPA, for which I accepted after some hesitation.
Rounds:
- Project discussion (30 mins) + DSA Question (Next 30 mins)
Question was related to graph + binary search, which I was able to figure out after some hint.
I coded the solution and explained it. Didn't have to compile or run it. He was okay with the approach overall.
Feedback: Hire
- Another dedicated DSA Round (1 Hour)
This round was taken by a SSE and few other staff engineers were on the call as well.
Question was related to array (medium difficulty)
After going through the sample test cases, I was able to understand the question and talked about the approach.
They were okay with the approach and I coded it up and ran, passed all test cases.
Explained time + space complexity. I was asked to optimize on space complexity which I couldn't fully do at the end since time ended. Although I did explain the approach.
Feedback: Soft Hire
- System Design (HLD) - 1.5 hours
This round was also taken by a staff engineer.
It was actually the best round and had a pretty involved discussion with the interviewer regarding different approaches, trade offs etc.
This round was supposed to be of 1 hour, but it stretched to 1.5 hours.
Loved the overall discussion.
Feedback: Hire
- Hiring Manager Round - 30 Mins
It wasn't a typical hiring manager round actually. All technical discussions related to alternative implementation of one of the projects i worked on in the past.
In the end, he gave me a code snippet to review which I did (I think I highlighted all the issues). The code was related to a thundering hurd issue in a cache impl.
He mentioned that HR will reach out accordingly.
Didn't hear anything for next 10 days. No feedback, nothing.
Totally got ghosted and felt like I wasted my time. Ultimately got a rejection email which I expected anyway.
Feels bad to not get respect for the time and energy I invested in the interview.
The least HR folks can do is to communicate properly about the outcome.
