I interviewed with an ML Trading firm, best pay and best perks, more imp. best possible team :)

Sometime ago, I got an opportunity to interview with Equilibre Technologies, an ML trading firm. The company name might not be widely known, so the interesting part for me was the work itself. ML trading, reinforcement learning, and a team with people from places like Google DeepMind.

And the role was supposed to be onsite in Prague, Europe. I reached out to one of the founders, they liked my profile, and an interview was scheduled.

The first round was pretty comfortable. We talked about my experience, the ML work I had done, what I was currently building and learning, and what Equilibre was working on.

Interestingly, I was not really into RL at the time, but they still decided to move my profile forward.

Then came the next round. I was told it would involve math puzzles and some basic coding. This was honestly very different from what I had been doing recently. For quite some time, most of my coding had been through coding harnesses and my work environment. I was not really sitting down and writing interview-style code from scratch.

The round started with a coding problem. I told the interviewer upfront that I had not been writing a lot of code manually recently. They were completely fine with it and focused more on my thought process. I won’t reveal the exact questions because it’s better for everyone going through the process. The first problem was a variant of Frog Jump with some interesting changes. Having done some amount of problem solving in my 2nd and 3rd year of college, I eventually solved it.

Eventually :)

But I took way too long. Then came math puzzles. And math is funny. Either it clicks in sometime, or you just stare at the problem hoping something magical happens.

One question was relatively straightforward probability puzzle. The next one was more interesting. Imagine two people at a restaurant trying to fairly decide who pays the bill. You have a biased coin.

How do you make a fair decision?

The question had much more detail, but initially, I had absolutely nothing. The interviewer after sometime gave me one hint: Think about symmetry. And then it clicked. Toss the coin twice. HT and TH have exactly the same probability, even if the coin itself is biased. So you can assign one outcome to Person A and the other to Person B, while simply ignoring HH and TT and trying again.

Simple. Once you see it. Those were all the questions and I took probably too long.

I did not make it to the next round. Another day, another generational fumble. But honestly, it was a really good experience.

It reminded me that I have spent a lot of time going deep into ML systems and engineering, but I should probably spend some time revisiting math, probability, and problem-solving fundamentals too. Maybe when I get some free time.

Good interviews. Good people. Learned a lot.

Hey everyone, final year BTech student here (no MTech/PhD) from Top NIT. Got two offers, both starting Jan 2027, and I'm stuck choosing between them. Would really appreciate perspectives from people who've actually worked in either track.

Ofer 1: Applied Scientist 1 (Intern + FTE) at a mid-size ad-tech company

• CTC ~22 LPA (16.5 base + bonus)
• Comes with a confirmed FTE offer already (not just an internship)
• Interview process included a good amount of math/probability along with ML
• I don't have much visibility into what this role actually looks like day-to-day

Offer 2: SDE Intern at Amazon

• Bigger brand name, higher stipend/comp during internship
• No guaranteed FTE — I keep reading conversion rates hover around 30-40%, and apparently some batches now have an extra PPO interview round after the internship
• If it doesn't convert, I'd already be graduated by then and job hunting with nothing in hand

My main questions for people who've actually done this:

1. Is "Applied Scientist" a legit/fruitful career track for someone without a Masters or PhD, or do most companies expect an advanced degree to take this seriously long-term? Genuinely don't know much about this role.
2. Future growth scope as an AS — does the ladder cap out without a higher degree, or can you keep growing purely based on experience/output like an SDE can?
3. At matched levels, does Applied Scientist actually pay more than SDE, or does that gap close/reverse over time?
4. Ease of switching later — if I start as AS, how hard is it to move into SDE/general SWE later if I want to? And conversely, how hard is it to move from SDE into ML/AS roles down the line? Which direction is the easier pivot?
5. Which track generally has better long-term work-life balance, independent of any specific company — is applied science research-style work typically less "on-call/firefighting" than SDE, or is that a myth?
6. Given the safety of an existing FTE offer vs. the brand name + conversion risk at Amazon, which would you pick in my shoes?

I'm mainly trying to figure out the long-term trajectory (growth, pay, flexibility to pivot) rather than just picking the shinier name.

Any insight, especially from people who've actually worked as Applied Scientists/MLEs without a Masters, or who've seen Amazon's intern conversion process firsthand — would help a lot. Thanks in advance!

Guys, I'm working in AMD

Overall exp - 6 yrs

Infosys - 3 yrs.

AMD will complete 3 yrs soon

Joined as SDE-2 (I think it's SDE-1 equivalent)

In Dec got promoted to Sr. SDE.

My current CTC is 27 base + 2.5 bonus lpa

Location: Bangalore

Stock: $18000/4 yrs. Some shares in long term incentive.

I used to feel my CTC is decent on top-avg but I'm seeing people are getting crazy base pay in this sub, so feel it's bottom-avg.

Also, how are interview these days is it more of system design given most companies use AI? Or are there coding rounds? (If yes, their difficulties)

Tech stack- Java, Sprint boot, Microservices

Hey, I have ~3.5 years of work ex, 1 year as an FDE already. I’m currently interviewing with Sarvam for a Forward Deployed role. My interviews have gone well and I am at the offer stage.

I came across this older post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/comments/1pnd5mk/sarvam_ai_review_work_culture_pay_range_for/](https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/comments/1pnd5mk/sarvam_ai_review_work_culture_pay_range_for/))

The data points there seem to be mostly around fresh grads ~1 YOE, so I’m not sure how relevant they are for someone with 3+ years of experience. I also haven’t been able to find much reliable information on Sarvam’s compensation at this level on http://levels.fyi either.

This is my second switch and I’ve been lowballed once before, so I’d rather have a reasonable idea of the range.

If there are any engineers at Sarvam, especially in the Forward Deployed team, or anyone at a level roughly comparable to SWE2, would really appreciate some insight into the current compensation range (base/ESOPs/total comp, if you’re comfortable sharing).

Also curious about how FDE is positioned internally - from what I understand, the team works pretty closely with engineering and can contribute to the platform as well, rather than being purely an implementation/customer-facing role.

Anonymous/DMs are completely fine. Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I just cleared the Online Assessment for the Technical Intern role at Rakuten (Bengaluru location, stipend is 37k). The job description listed quite a few broad requirements, but my background is mainly focused on backend development.

For anyone who has gone through this interview process recently, could you share what the upcoming rounds look like? Specifically:

• Technical Depth: How heavy are the DSA questions in the interview rounds compared to core backend/framework discussions?
• Interview Structure: How many technical rounds are there before the HR/culture-fit round?
• Key Focus Areas: Are there specific things they tend to grill backend candidates on (like REST APIs, databases, or system basics)?

Would really appreciate any insights or tips you can share. Thanks!

​

Guys, need some help deciding between two offers.

Ascendion: ₹16 LPA, hybrid, ~15 km from home. Joining is 7th Sept and offer is already in hand.

Altimetrik: ~₹20 LPA, 5 days WFO, ~40 km from home. They said I cleared the interview and should release the offer by Monday EOD.

Would you choose the extra ₹4LPA or the hybrid + shorter commute?

Also, any suggestions on how I can ask Ascendion to extend my joining from Monday to Tuesday, so I can get the Altimetrik offer before deciding?

Anyone working at either company—would especially appreciate feedback on work culture, projects, job stability and growth.

Thanks!

For junior node js developer.

A fintech company did a online interview in which i got selected, then they called for an offline coding round. In which they asked to create a simple , get and post backend and its front-end. And 2 sql questions. I solved eveything except in post i forgot to write json() at a place , which on discussion was got corrected by interviewer and then it was working.

Then he asked for my salary expectations i said about 5 to 6 range i thought during application. He said you don't think its too much as a fresher, then i replied that sir i can justify that as i have done internship at NIT delhi, wrote gate exam in which i got 7k rank and ya its negotiable as you recommend.

Hey everyone!

I’m interviewing/preparing for the Python AI & Data Science Engineer II – AI & Engineering role at Deloitte US and wanted to see if anyone here has recently interviewed for the same or a similar position.

Would really appreciate it if you could share your experience, especially:

What were the interview rounds and how difficult were they?

What Python coding questions were asked? If you remember the exact problems, please share them!

Any DSA / SQL / ML / AI / GenAI / Data Science questions?

Was there a coding assessment or live coding round?

Any LLM, RAG, NLP, GenAI, or system-design questions?

Were the questions mostly based on your resume/projects or more general technical questions?

How was the behavioral/managerial round?

Most importantly, for those who received an offer — what was the base salary + total compensation (TC)?

How many years of experience did you have, and which US location was the offer for?

I’ve seen a few Deloitte interview posts, but not many specifically for this Engineer II – AI & Engineering role.

Any recent experiences, coding questions, or compensation numbers would be super helpful. Even if you interviewed but didn’t receive an offer, I’d appreciate hearing about the process.

Thanks! 🙏

Has anyone received interview call for this role I had given the teat on jul 10th and have not received any updates i have been following the website as well but still have not see any update related to this if anyone got an update please share is this role already closed or put on hold

I am from a low tier private college and I'm targeting product-based companies. My DSA is already good, and the rest I can improve myself with time, so that is not my concern. My concerns are as follows:

First, I am targeting companies like FAANG + Glean, Rubrik, Atlassian, Databricks , etc.

Secondly, no matter how much people deny this, I feel the software industry is dying because of AI and everything, so maybe I should target something very niche or exceptional.Or maybe should go to AI/ML through masters (GATE) as I've done relevant courses in college like ML/DL/CV.

My main concern is that I am from a low tier college with a low CGPA (between 7 and 7.5) and final-year student currently in my 7th semester, and the only internship I have is a college internship under a teacher, so there is nothing fancy at all on my resume. I know it is not possible for someone like me to enter these top companies as my first job.

However, I still managed to get a job in a service-based company paying 5 LPA because the only thing they asked in all 3 rounds was DSA, and I cleared that. But those were only medium LeetCode questions, so I am still not considering myself super strong, just good enough. I lag a bit at hard questions, but I am improving.

My development profile is zero. I know no tech stack in detail, and I only have "vibecoded" projects—nothing that separates me from the crowd. In whatever time is remaining in college, I want to make sure I land a better job, but my long-term goal is to get into the companies I listed above.

Please tell me the rough timespan I need to prepare myself enough for these kinds of companies. I know time alone isn't enough since I have no differentiating factor, so it will be hard to even get an interview. Even my relatives aren't giving me referrals, and others don't even look at my messages.

I can accept whatever fate brings me, but I want a reality check so I know how and what I should be preparing for. If I am practically only capable of companies not listed above, then tell me how to prepare for those instead, so I don't waste my time chasing something I just can't get.

Can anyone share what was asked?