The first question everyone is asking is, what are the questions? Since I have an NDA, I won't say what they are. But I will say if you are reading this on glassdor, you know exactly what the questions are.
The screener round was a Systems Design interview. Since I knew the question beforehand and practiced that one before, it was relatively easy. The guy was very sociable, gave his undivided attention, was respectful. He saw that my design was what was different than in his mind, so we worked together to clarify any issues he had. Overall, great first interview with a person who knows how to interview.
The first onsite (virtual) was describe a project. Since you are talking about yourself, it was easy. Again, guy was attentive, bounced off ideas, etc. Really cool.
Then there was another System Design. Now, like the first one, I practiced this before since I knew what it was, but I failed the mind-reading part. My guess is that the interviewer was looking for something exact in specific part, and I didn't provide it - no flexibility. Kind of the opposite of the first interviewer. interviewer was very silent, no real clarifying questions until the very end, he just wanted you to guess what he wanted at the very end. And his comments were vague and unhelpful, "do you have anything else to provide?" And that's the random nature of System Design interviewers - you're at the mercy of an interviewer and whether they are open or closed minded. I had one of each and obviously failed the bad System Design interviewer.
The final part was the code interview. It wasn't a leetcode, it was more parse stuff and place it some order (being vague, but the question has been told here on glassdoor). I fully admit I messed up a bit early on, but interviewer also messed up a bit in the clarifying question. Anyway, I was a little slow, but I passed all 3 test cases. It wasn't really a test on knowledge and leetcoding, it was more of a test on just coding fast with someone over your shoulder. It was one of those questions where off -by-1 errors are prominent, and unless you think in arrays 24/7, you just have to walk through. The interviewer was at least helpful and sociable. But I don't know how the question could provide any sort of reliable signal.
Got a reject. The entire process was alright. I did admire the fact that they respected my time by keeping it short. Part of it was kind of amateurish though. Recruiter led me astray by saying to practice Leetcode-eque problems when it wasn't Leetcode-esque at all (no real need to know Data Structure or Algorithms). Also, instead of spending money on Zoom or WebEx, they use Google Meet (you know, that terrible free one everyone abandoned because it's terrible). So, I had technical difficulties and drop-offs even though my Zoom, on the exact same setup, works flawlessly when I work from home.
Anyway, with System Design, it's just guess what the guy exactly wants in a certain piece of the puzzle with no communication. I didn't. That's the nature of untrained System Design interviewers. I've been the interviewer and the interviewee, and I've seen it before. And I think that's what annoyed me the most.
I interviewed for a senior position, and they wanted me to code some array/interval stuff fast. I guess I wasn't fast enough for over the shoulder grunt work. If that's what they want, that's what they want. That's not me unfortunately as seniors don't do much grunt work.
Overall, they gave problems, I gave solutions that I know would work. But in the very end, it wasn't the exact solution they wanted. And it's not too shocking. Most everyone I talked to had less than 6 months of experience there, so they probably weren't properly trained.
Seems like they had a deluge of candidates pre-IPO, and since the questions don't change, they can pick and choose whoever guesses right quickly instead of testing off the cuff thinking and intrinsic knowledge.
Not sure how that will work post-IPO when they aren't the bee's knees and they won't get everyone from Google/Facebook trying to get into a pre-IPO a meme stock.
Overall, it was an okay experience - definitely not the best, but not the worst. Sucks to not a get a job when you felt you did most everything right.
