Interviewing Q&A and Videos

Hello community ✋I am going to start interview preparation for SDE-3 roles. Need your suggestions on what should I prepare and how much should I prepare? How much should I focus on DSA, system design, machine coding etc?

I have experience interviewing for SDE-2 roles but attempting for SDE-3 role first time so need valuable inputs from experienced people here.

I'm in my early 20s and started a startup with my friend from college shortly after we graduated. We got into Y Combinator and worked on the company for about 2 years in total before shutting it down recently. I didn't go to a name-brand school, and didn't work full-time anywhere after graduating, but I did a few prestigious internships, one of which being in Deep Learning.

I've heard larger companies and recruiters in general don't like former founders, and I mostly did sales/product for our startup. We built a few web-based products and a few AI infra/AI apps, but nothing crazy and nothing with massive traction. We spent most of our time pivoting and doing user interviews/sales.

I want to get an engineering job rather than PM, because I have internalized the value of being technical when being a founder and don't want to give entrepreneurship up yet. There aren't too many entry-level positions open, and I was hoping to not have to go into an entry-level role, but simultaneously I'm not sure I have enough experience to feel confident in being self-sufficient as an engineer.

Before starting the company, I had a return offer at one FAANG company, and a New Grad SWE offer at Facebook that I let expire. I emailed my recruiter to try to reinstate it, and she implied that I would not be eligible for New Grad since I was too far from my graduation date.

Ideally, I'd like to work in AI at a larger company since that's where all my experiences in college were and where I see the most opportunity (ideally OpenAI or FB). Otherwise, probably back-end/infra at a post-IPO startup/FAANG or worst-case post-PMF startup. I have a few questions:

1. Should I only apply to entry-level engineering jobs, and am I even eligible for them? If not, what level of experience should I apply to and how do I convince them I'm qualified?
2. How should I write my resume/describe my experience+title (especially for larger, more bureaucratic companies which are less open to former entrepreneurs)? Should I even include that I was a co-founder?
3. How custom should I make my resume for each different kind of job I'm applying to (new grad swe, new grad mle, ai eng, at faang+ vs. growth stage startup)?

What is the company looking for or expecting when they ask "Why do you want to work at Meta?"

Is saying something like "I have used Instagram/Facebook for a long time so it would be great to work on a product that I use daily" a good answer?

What is a good answer for this question for Meta and other companies in general?

I have been given the option of a PIP or take a severance fee. I am planning to take the PIP, but if I fail I know I am fired. So when I interview for jobs after my termination, if they ask me why did you leave, am i obligated to bring up my pip?

What differentiates a Senior vs Staff engineers in terms of :

• the design they come up with
• how they communicate in the interview and how they drive the conversation
• how deep they dive in to each area of the design

I just got an interview for a backend role with Big Tech. I'm pretty excited. They informed me that the interview will not be a standard Leetcode DSA Interview. Here is what they said:

We’re excited you’ll be interviewing at Stripe! This interview will evaluate your ability to solve a programming exercise in a readable way, as well as your knowledge in automated testing. We don’t use Leetcode or trivia, or ask trick questions. This exercise is an example of the kind of coding we do regularly in our daily life at Stripe. In fact, every part of our interview process is designed to give you streamlined examples of the kinds of real-world problems we solve day-to-day.

• We recommend practicing timed coding problems. Focus on writing code quickly, ensuring correctness, and explaining your thought process out loud as you work.

• While our interview problems are different from exercises on , , and , some Stripes have found these sites helpful for practicing timed coding challenges.

My question is, other than Leetcode, is there any way I can prep for this? I'm looking for a better way than Leetcode since I won't be asked a Leetcode question.

Thanks!

I'd like to ask for your feedback on my side project - a full-stack simulation of a ride-hailing app such as Uber or Lyft.

App: 
Blog: 

A bit of background first. I've been wanting to publish a personal full-stack project for a while. These were my main reasons:

• I wanted a platform to explore concepts and tools I don't get to work with in my day job, helping me accelerate my learning.
• I've wanted to break into big tech and thought this project could help me stand out among many applicants.
• I enjoy writing and wanted to get better at it.

Why did I choose a simulation of the Uber/Lyft app? I always found something very attractive about these apps - they're visually appealing and dynamic, with colossal architectures behind them. I thought it would be very cool to re-implement some aspects of such an app. I have also been reading the Uber engineering blog and got a glimpse of the complexity these companies are dealing with.

My final goal with this app was to have an animated map with cars picking up customers, driving them across the map and dropping them off at their destinations. Customers would post ride requests and the system would match them with the nearest drivers. The simulation would run on the backend, and the frontend map would show the action in real-time.

I started working on the project last autumn. I've spent around 300 hours working on it and you can see the result in the links above.

My ask

I'd love to get your feedback to improve or extend this app and my blog, keeping in mind my objectives:

• I plan to apply to big tech companies this summer, and I'd like this project to help me with my applications.
• The project targets both recruiters and hiring managers. With recruiters, the goal is to pass the initial screening and get me to the interview stage (of course, I'll also be trying to secure referrals, but I might not always succeed). With hiring managers, this project might help me score extra points in my final evaluation.
• I might be applying to companies such as Uber or Bolt, but this project is not supposed to impress just the ride-hailing companies.
• I prefer not to put much more time into the project at the moment, as my focus right now has to be on the coding interview prep.

Possible additions or improvements include:

• Splitting the system across multiple machines (perhaps 3), making it truly distributed.
• Adding various components used in large-scale systems such as load-balancer, rate limiter, or message queues. Indeed, these components are not actually needed for the app to function. But by doing so, I could demonstrate my ability to work with them (albeit not necessarily demonstrating deep expertise).
• Adding comprehensive documentation with system diagrams and explaining the choices I made.
• More rigorous testing by adding integration tests (right now, I only have unit tests).

As for my previous background - I've been an engineer for ~4.5 years, most of my experience is from a small startup (series B). I consider myself a full-stack engineer but going forward, I aim to specialize more in the backend. Therefore, the project should strongly communicate my backend skills. For my next role, I also prefer backend positions to full-stack ones.

Recently I watched the great masterclass from Rahul and Alex on side projects. It made me realize that while my project might be interesting from a technical perspective, it has no users. In fact, this app doesn't allow any user interaction by nature. However, what I'm lacking in terms of users, I'm hoping to make up with the degree of technical complexity. Please also share your views on this aspect.

Many thanks if you've read this long post to the end. I'll be very grateful for any tips on how to make this project more appealing 🙏🏼

In prepping for interviews, how do I find the right balance between mocks and Leetcode? I just interviewed with a company this week and got feedback that my communication was good, so that's a relief. Also, of the 2 questions I was asked, one I had already done exactly, while the other was a variation of one I did (n-ary vs binary tree post-traversal). So that suggests I should keep doing Leetcode, but I'm still aiming for at least one mock a week. Wondering if I should up it.

Also, is it better to mock with the same partner consistently or have different partners? Is it better to only mock with FAANG engineers (since that's my target) or people in a similar position as me or even less experienced than me?

Additional insight is always appreciated :)

Hi,

I have recently received an E5 offer from RL team as part of the dev-infra org working on developer tooling infra such as debugger, code editor. I have received this offer after a long 2 month wait in TeamMatching. Given the long wait time in team-matching, the recommendation in general is to accept the first offer regardless of your preference and then do an internal hop later.

I have a safe and secure job at Msft L62 right now(about to be promoted in the next quarter), working in developer tooling as well.

Team structure: The team is comprised of 4 sub teams with each sub-team focusing on a vertical and containing 6-8 members. My manager has 25 reportees under him and we have a tech-lead who is overseeing the whole product.

1. Any advice/gotchas in general about work-culture, leadership for the org?

2. Being an infra role, I wanted to know if there would be enough scope for me to succeed in this role ?

3. I see there is less diversity in my immediate team, except me all the other team mates, tech-lead, skip manager are Asian, my manager is Indian. P.S I am not against any race, but wanted to get some perspective if I would be isolated and if I could an impact and survive there.

4. I see that some of my peers are L6 at Amazon and I wonder if it would be difficult to compete with them and have decent job security. P.S: I am on H1B visa

Thanks!!

YOE:9

For those who've done tech interviews around holiday season - is it generally preferable to do onsites in November or January? Trying to schedule for Meta onsite targeting E5 and weighing the timing options.

I can schedule either:

1. Late November/Early December (3-4 weeks prep time)
2. January (post holiday break)

Current situation:

• Have other interviews in pipeline (I didn't apply exhaustively, wanted to focus on meta, and see how it goes, comfortable extending the search to early next year)
• Currently not working, so can dedicate full-time prep for next few weeks
• I feel 60% ready at System design , 60% ready at DSA, 60% ready at Behaviorial
• Meta is top choice

Before Holidays

Pros:

• Results before year-end - can enjoy holidays knowing it's done or shifting priorities to focus on other companies.
• More time for team matching if successful
• Potentially less competition?

Cons:

• Tighter prep schedule

After Holidays

Pros:

• Ample prep time
• Potentially easier team matching with new headcount?

Cons:

• Risk of tight timelines with other offers
• January competition surge? Headcount change?
• Longer uncertainty

Would love to hear experiences/suggestions from those who've been through either timing! Or if you've been on the hiring side during holiday seasons, would really appreciate your insights on process timelines and any advice

Thanks!

Hello Community,

I've been struggling to get interviews for a while now. Here are some things I've tried.

• Cold Applying
• Cold emailing recruiters
• Applying with referrals
• Networking

Nothing seems to be working. What can I do/improve to land more interviews?

I received a couple of offers from companies when I applied for positions but there is always this thinking: "I haven't learned enough things here; I will wait for a better moment to change jobs". How do you all deal with it?

I just graduated college this May and have no job lined up struggling in this really tough market.

Struggling to land a job in this market has me feeling like a failure/I'm doing something wrong even though I did all the "right" things when starting college (get good grades, do LC, get internships, do projects, network)

So fellow members of Taro, do you have any advice on how not to feel down during these trying times? Especially when seeing few classmates land jobs and I'm still struggling here

I hate to make posts like these since its depressing but there's people with far more wisdom than me and I would really appreciate any wisdom you can part :)

A meta recruiter reached out to me and I asked for study materials and he sent back materials for IC6. What level is this and is there anything special I should study for this role besides DSA?