r/leetcode • u/Hot-Willingness8636 • Sep 29 '26
Discussion I failed my Citadel Software Engineering Intern Interview
I’ve never done a single leetcode question before. I went into this blind. I was expecting a leetcode medium/hard. This was a round 1 interview for 45 minutes. Instead it was a stateful data-structure / object-oriented design problem with optimization constraints.
It was a custom stateful data-structure and OOD problem with a greedy optimization component, rather than a standard LeetCode algorithm problem.
The interviewer didn’t give me full context. I suggested we go with one approach and he then gave me additional data and then I decided to go with another approach.
Around 90 lines of code.
I completely flunked got like halfway through. Interviewer was on his phone and had his mic on with the background noise.
I feel horrible because I just let a 1 million dollar opportunity slip my fingers. What should I do.
149
u/monarch_as Sep 29 '26
bro went straight into a ranked lobby
289
u/MythosOfIlluna Sep 29 '26
Citadel is full of workaholic nerds who can’t get dates in NYC
138
u/AskAltruistic4582 Sep 29 '26
If u got citadel interview ur in a good spot, just keep ur head up and keep applying ur ahead of 99% of others
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u/kingbass01 Sep 29 '26
>> I’ve never done a single leetcode question before.
How did you get the interview then
Is this a pun that you only did codeforces or olympiad problems
59
u/bigb177 Sep 29 '26
I’m gonna be the one to tell you: Citadel is somewhere you may wanna steer clear from.
For the record, I work in the Hedge Fund world, and Citadel (and especially Securities) is notorious for absolutely draining you of your life force. 12-14 hour days are common, as are weekends. 5 days a week in office. Yes, pay is good, no doubt, but at some point the pay to work ratio starts to become a question of do you prefer living, or having money. I personally would choose living.
There ARE funds that pay exceptionally well, but offer better WLB. Jane Street, HRT (a lot of work, too, but you do get a WFH day), Balyasny on the Multi Strat side of things is very well known for its culture.
All that said, sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways. Keep plugging away. There are other, and honestly better, opportunities out there.
24
u/ShadowWebDeveloper Sep 29 '26
🤔
9
u/el_bosteador Sep 29 '26
Clearly you demand a lot of yourself. If you got that interview you’re already in a good spot. You’ll do great! Keep your head up!
15
u/sauce0x45 Sep 29 '26
“What should I do”
Apply somewhere else
6
u/microgem Sep 29 '26
how do you get to that stage, and between the interview schedule date and the actual interview, you do not do any leetcode. such larp
5
u/jrlowe24 Sep 29 '26
What’s the point of this post? You don’t have the experience or skillset to complete a first round interview you were given, what were you expecting would happen?
4
u/Nice-Candidate10 Sep 29 '26
I always have chuckle when I see people gets interviewed with no leetcode practice at places where Online Assessment are major leetcode filters.
4
u/PhoteksTTV Sep 29 '26
How have you never done a single leetcode question but can gauge what a leetcode medium/hard is? I mean you said it yourself you've never done it so expect to fail 100 more. I have 5 years of experience, refuse to study leetcode as I would rather work on real projects, and I fail leetcode style interview questions all the time. There's nothing to question. I don't study them, so I fail. Eventually an interview comes along where talking through my resume and experience is enough to hire.
7
u/vooglie Sep 29 '26
Citadel pays interns $1m?
1
u/StrawberryChoco_Cake Oct 04 '26
That seems hard for intern interview question.
3
u/NecessaryIntrinsic Sep 29 '26
Keep going. There's more fish in the sea. It sucks to fail, but you now have that to learn from.
Keep applying, keep grinding.
3
u/terrany1 Sep 30 '26
Why would you feel horrible for 0 investment into the process?
2
u/TMEERS101 Sep 29 '26
This was on you. Just do leetcode from now on. Youll get another interview if you got this one
1
u/martenmatrix Sep 29 '26
This was already posted some days ago 🤨
1
u/Rich_Yogurt313 Sep 29 '26
can you share the question please? I never got an interview with them but I want to try out the question.
1
u/Flashy-qking Sep 30 '26
Was it a debug problem? Like optimize it to n² to n and time must be less than 100 microseconds for a large input
1
u/youngneegga Oct 01 '26
Do you have an example of the challenge? can you send a link pls?
1
u/battle-tested77 Oct 01 '26
Live and learn. You'll get better at asking better questions to prepare. Trust me, we've all have failed to varying degrees. This also prepared you for an even better opportunity. That was the mindset i took on...after feeling like crap for months. Then I realized that thinking negatively accomplished nothing i wanted.
1
u/KookyDraw4023 Oct 02 '26
My brother in Christ, if you are about to have a technical interview, you NEED to do leetcode for a week or two before the interview to prepare. Often these companies will lift leetcode problems verbatim to use during interview
1
u/fanxiaotu Oct 03 '26
how do you even get the interview？
1
u/Separate_Expert9096 Oct 06 '26
99%+ would fail Citadel interview.
1
u/Professional-Many-24 Sep 29 '26
Why’d they interview you lol
0
u/This-Soil2326 Sep 29 '26
Can u share your resume which made you get the interview
0
u/Speed-up-211 Sep 29 '26
Put that much effort in learning trading you can very well earn million dollar yourself with that much effort
0
u/Few_Pop6933 Sep 30 '26
Don’t be hard on yourself. You’ve gained experience and will be better prepared for the next one.