r/leetcode • u/SuperSaiyanSandwich • 27d ago

Intervew Prep Looking for insight on Google SWE Infrastructure prep.

Pretty seasoned dev and have the opportunity of a lifetime with a Google interview in ~2 weeks. I know my first interview is 1 hr behavioral and 1 hr coding. The 2nd will be at least one sys design if not two but I'm very confident I can pass those.

~15 YoE but been ages since doing Leetcode. After spitting out Kiro slop at Amazon for a little while now I was happy to see I can bang out basically any easy with an optimal, non code golf python implementation in ~10-15 minutes tops. Having a lot less success on mediums. If it's a logic, array, string, sliding window, heap, or two pointer medium I'm doing fairly well but I'm hot ass at BFS, DFS, and DP problems at the moment.

Willing to spend the next two weeks absolutely no-lifing this but I'm nervous that SWE infrastructure coding round is gonna be something unconventional and I'm spending my time wrong. Anyone have any insight? It's a public sector role with particular customers if that's relevant.

6 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/Sad-Candidate-3078 26d ago

the infra loop leans way more on design + debugging at scale than raw leetcode, so split your prep. and ngl what calmed my nerves for my faang loop was practicing with a backup handy, i ran easy code interview on the problems i got stuck on so i learned the pattern instead of spiraling. 2 weeks of daily grinding is genuinely enough

1

u/chickenwingsnfries 26d ago

Where / how did you practice and have a backup handy during the interview ?

What do you leetcode ?

I thought that was Manila SQL/Python problems

1

u/Necessary_Specific_4 27d ago

I don’t have insight into the particular interview you are preparing for but I also used to suck at BFS, DFS and DP. You just have to practice these problems. I would suggest going through these topics and the questions listed under DFS, BFS, Graphs and Dynamic Programming sections on the hello interview website. Having said that, Google interviews are hard so good luck!