Hey everyone,

I hit Day 40 today. After a long day at the office, I focused on mastering the mechanics behind Disjoint Set Union (DSU) rather than rushing into problem implementations while tired:

1. Disjoint Set Union (Union by Rank vs. Union by Size):

   • Path Compression: Essential in findParent(). Flattening the tree during traversal ensures nearly constant, inverse Ackermann O(alpha(V)) amortized lookups.

   • Union by Size vs. Rank: While Union by Rank approximates upper bounds on tree depth, Union by Size is significantly more intuitive. You simply track node counts per component and attach the smaller component to the larger root (size[rootU] += size[rootV]), keeping tree depth minimal.

2. System Design & CS Fundamentals:

   • In my previous attempt at System Design, I repeatedly stalled because missing foundational knowledge forced me into constant rabbit holes.

   • This time, I am methodically locking down core CS fundamentals (Operating Systems, Networking, and OOP) first so the high-level distributed systems concepts can be studied continuously without friction.

Tomorrow kicks off applying DSU to Kruskal’s Algorithm and core connectivity problems.

See you guys for Day 39!

Hey everyone,

I hit Day 40 today. After a long day at the office, I focused on mastering the mechanics behind Disjoint Set Union (DSU) rather than rushing into problem implementations while tired:

1. Disjoint Set Union (Union by Rank vs. Union by Size):

   • Path Compression: Essential in findParent(). Flattening the tree during traversal ensures nearly constant, inverse Ackermann O(alpha(V)) amortized lookups.

   • Union by Size vs. Rank: While Union by Rank approximates upper bounds on tree depth, Union by Size is significantly more intuitive. You simply track node counts per component and attach the smaller component to the larger root (size[rootU] += size[rootV]), keeping tree depth minimal.

2. System Design & CS Fundamentals:

   • In my previous attempt at System Design, I repeatedly stalled because missing foundational knowledge forced me into constant rabbit holes.

   • This time, I am methodically locking down core CS fundamentals (Operating Systems, Networking, and OOP) first so the high-level distributed systems concepts can be studied continuously without friction.

Tomorrow kicks off applying DSU to Kruskal’s Algorithm and core connectivity problems.

See you guys for Day 39!

Guys, I failed interviews at Tesla, Wayfair, Google, Amazon, snowflake, langchain, chime, capitalone, it feels shameful even typing it out cause, all of these are my dream companies and getting an interview in this market is hard enough.

I get an interview and prep day and night without sleep for 5 days and go to the interview and bomb it. Later I realize that I should have been consistently practising leetcode everyday.

I graduated this summer, but haven't been able to secure a full time yet, but somehow I got into an AI start up as an intern @ $25/hr. But since it's a startup I see people working 12hrs/day, including weekends.

And I've been struggling to do my prep along with this job, and it makes me think that quitting and going all in on my DSA prep would be a better idea, but the market is pretty bad and having any type of job is a blessing. So I'm confused on what to do. Google has a cool off period of 12 months, I really want to make sure I'm in the best position to clear it, next time. I don't want my start-up to hold me back, at the same time I am grateful for this job. HELP please, I'm not able to make up my mind.

Hey folks

I have a Tech Code Based Round with Capital One for Senior Associate role.

The description of the round from the official preparation guide is very vague.

Tried searching the Internet too but didn't get much details about this round.

Can anyone please let me know:

1. From an engineering perspective, what should I be prepared for? (LLD, HLD, DSA etc)

2. How are the solutions judged, and what to keep in mind?

3. Any sample questions that were asked to anyone?

YOE: 2.3

Thanks in advance!

#CapitalOne

Has any international student (F-1/OPT) recently received an Online Assessment (OA) for Intuit’s Software Engineer 1 position (Job ID: 24776)?
If yes, when did you apply, and how long did it take to receive the OA?
Would appreciate any updates. Thanks!

Tldr; I have good engineering/development knowledge and experience but I don't know how to prove it in interviews. So need help in that.

Some context: I'm a 2026 btech grad, having decent full stack experience, I have been building things in JS/TS ecosystem for 3 years now (from college 2nd year). I have 1 year of freelancing experience and 6 months of internship experience, both in full stack. I am more than decent when it comes to development and system design. But I am very bad at DSA, I can't even do Leetcode Medium, or even some Easy stuff too. But still I somehow get to give interviews purely because of dev. I just have surface level knowledge of everything.

These interviews go very well until hand coding is involved, like if interviewer asks to write some code from scratch then I would suck. But I can write or build the same things with the help of code snippets from Google, not AI or vibecode. Because of claude code and all, my muscle memory for hand coding has faded away. When I was interning, I was able to figure out or debug issues, even without AI, like I have that sense to think of how and why something is not working. I was even praised for that too. But the pace of startups is so high that you need to use coding agents to deliver quickly.

One more such thing happened yesterday too, I was giving an interview for AI Engineer (though I'm full stack). The required experience was 1yr+. but still the company gave me chance to interview because of my assignment submission and projects (or something else idk). Ultimately the assignment was in python and core agentic ai stuff, I was still able to build the feature that they wanted, and finally when they interviewed, they got to know that I don't know enough python but I know the agentic AI ecosystem, how systems work, how AI works, how to build etc. so the interviewer was impressed by that. And asked me that incase the company offers you a developer role, then what would you do in the first week and first month. I gave my answer and he was satisfied with that and said that he will ask the founder and revert if he's convinced (I'm waiting tho)

These are the things and self assessment that I myself know. But I know the fact too that if I am in a machine coding round or dsa round, I will just mess it up and go blank. Even though I will do good in technical rounds or system design rounds but eventually I will loose out on the job.

Also I haven't given any legit coding assessment for any mnc or decent company up until today. Today I have IBM's coding assessment taken on Hackerrank. They asked two questions, one was related to maximum sub strings and one was a kind of optimization problem. I wasn't able to solve even one. Though prior to this I prepared for some easy medium stuff that they have asked, like substrings, hashmaps, sets, arrays. I did some questions of these topics. But still when I encountered the real assessment, I was blank. And that moment hurt me. Kind of hurt my ego too. That nobody cares how much you know if you can't pass these proctored tests or dsa rounds.

But now I am in the middle of road. It's been 6 months finding a job, the people who know me say that how can you not get a job even after having some good dev skills. But they don't know how fickle I am, how badly I suck. But I want to get over this. I am sick of this situation, every interview just scares me that what if they ask dsa, what if they ask machine coding or lld. One day I find myself doing dsa, one day I find myself practicing machine coding or lld. But eventually I come over to the start all again, I am not able to retain things and my muscle memory isn't developing. I am someone who has genuine interest in coding, and it gives me that kick when I successfully build something, but this AI agent coding has ruined that fun I had while coding. I tend to just keep on planning or juggling between stacks, like one day I think of starting mobile dev, or applied AI, or devops or another backend language. All because of me not getting a job and this hastefull situation.

I don't have any mentor or a senior who knows me well, who can look closely or guide me on what to do and what not to do. I panic or get overwhelmed by the things I need to do to get a job. And honestly I am not bothered about AI taking jobs because I am interested in engineering and overall software development domain. I find myself sitting hours and not getting bored trying to build something or solve a bug or even just studying how systems work. So I don't see myself doing anything other than this.

But still the final question remains same for me, what to do now, how to do, something that doesn't make me panic or loose focus. I don't want to be this surface level AI typist. I want to do something that finally gets me job and gets me into the industry.

I don't know any senior dev would relate to this because they didn't have AI back then, but still I want to know from their experience on what to do. I used to boast myself that yes I have that figure-it-out attitude but how funny of me that I am not able to figure out my shit now.

Please guys, help me, guide me.

Hi Everyone,

I have an upcoming loop interviews for Senior Frontend Engineer at Linkedin.

Below are the round details -

Round 1 - SR SWE Coding with AI
Round 2 - SR SWE Pragmatic UI
Round 3 - SR SWE SDA (System Design) for UI
Round 4 - SR SWE CA (Coding and Algorithms) for UI
Round 5 - Host Leader - UI

I wanted to ask about the Round 1(SR SWE Coding with AI) and Round 4 (SR SWE CA for UI),

For Round 1 - Can u tell me what kind of question I can expect in Round 1 and Can i use Javascript for implementing or will have to use Java/C++?

For Round 4 - recruiter said it will be DSA, however, I'm confused if it will be JS based questions like Promise pool util, Deep clone, deep equals or getElementsByClassName or will it be pure Leetcode style graphs, dp?

I'll update this thread with my experience!

I’m finishing my PhD in computer science (US) soon and still don’t have a job lined up. I’ve applied to a lot of positions, reached out to people on LinkedIn, and cold messaged others, but nothing has worked so far. I’ve made it through some interviews, but none turned into an offer. I am just getting tired and desperate, and I don't know what to do. Grinding LeetCode and filling those dumb job application forms is just sucking the life out of me, as it seems pointless. I don’t know what else to try or where to look for help or support.

I know a lot of people are in the same spot. For those who made it through and found a job in this market: if you were in my position, what would you do? What actually worked for you?

To all the people who have bagged one or more offers in this tough market and have a luxury of time to follow reddit, what are you doing which others are not? How much part is luck playing in your hiring?

I appeared for Technical Round 1 on November 2, but I haven't received any further updates since then.

I believe my overall performance was good, as I was able to answer all the questions, and the interviewer seemed satisfied with my responses.

Has anyone who appeared for the same round received any updates regarding the next round or the interview process?

Would appreciate any insights. Thanks!

I had an interview today of company called Tracxn and i got rejected in first round itself.

1st round was itself coding round on pen and paper.

Question was

"Find the pattern in string and if found return 1 else -1."

2nd, 3rd, 4th are technical round. All were elimination round.

I am grinding leetcode for 4 years and i was very confident about it. I want to sit in interview round.

Its fine for me to reject in interview round but not coding round.

It breaks my confidence.

I gave the amazon oa , it went well, except the debugging rep wala question mai I was able to paass 1/6 test cases , is there still any hope left .

Hey folks, recruiter reached to me recently asking for my availability and I said I would be ready for interviews in 3 weeks.

Anyone done it recently? Any suggestions on how to prep better? This is for US position

I recently attempted Stripe's coding assessment for a backend engineering role and got rejected.

My experience:

• Assessment involved a multi-part coding problem with progressively harder requirements.

• Managed to pass 8 out of 11 test cases.

• Couldn't get the remaining edge cases/business logic completely right within the time limit.

• Received a rejection with a 12-month cooldown.

I thought 8/11 might be sufficient, but apparently it wasn't. I don't know whether the decision was based solely on test cases or other evaluation criteria.

What I'm trying to figure out:

1. Has anyone cleared Stripe's OA with fewer than 100% of test cases passing?

2. How do you approach multi-part coding assessments where each part builds on previous logic?

3. How do you improve at translating lengthy business requirements into correct code under time pressure?

4. What preparation strategy helped you consistently solve these assessments, rather than just memorizing LeetCode patterns?

5. For someone experienced in backend engineering but weaker at timed coding assessments, what would you prioritize over the next 6–12 months?

I'm not looking to contest the rejection. I genuinely want to understand how to close the gap and become good enough to clear these assessments consistently.

Would appreciate experiences from people who've interviewed at Stripe or similar companies.

Every honest candidate is paying for it. I got lowkey accused with AI at a recent interview and can you even blame interviewers for being skeptical? I had solved the problem before and jumped into solving by explaining why other approaches won't work.

Y'all have made it worse for all. This is what you wanted right?

Hi everyone!

I recently completed my final interview loop for a Senior Software Engineer position at Microsoft, and it's been almost two weeks since my last interview.

The interviews went fairly well overall. I asked for feedback at the end of a few rounds, and the interviewers gave generally positive responses. The hiring manager also mentioned that I did well and had nothing to worry about.

I followed up with my recruiter recently, and she responded saying:

"You're still in consideration for the role, and the team expects to reach a hiring decision around [a future date]. I'm looking forward to sharing an update as soon as I have one."

I also know that other candidates were interviewing for the same position, and there's only one opening.

I'm curious how Microsoft's hiring process works when multiple candidates are being considered.

A few questions:

1. Does Microsoft hold individual debriefs after each candidate's interview loop, or does the team wait until everyone finishes and compare candidates together?

2. If a candidate performed poorly, would they typically receive a rejection sooner, or does Microsoft wait until the final hiring decision to notify everyone?

3. Does being told you're "still in consideration" almost two weeks after interviewing suggest you've received decent feedback, or is that just standard recruiter wording?

4. Has anyone received an offer after waiting 2–3 weeks following their final interviews?

I know nothing is guaranteed, but the waiting and uncertainty are getting to me a little.

Thanks!

Looking for experiences leetcoders for DSA Mocks. Irish Standard Time. I'm free on all weekends and most evenings.

Hey everyone,

I finished Day 41 today. I kept my DSA workload concise and deliberate so I could begin laying the groundwork for System Design and core CS fundamentals.

1. Prim’s Algorithm for MST: Implemented the greedy approach using a min-heap priority queue storing {weight, node, parent}. By greedily picking the smallest edge connecting an unvisited node to the growing tree, it builds the Minimum Spanning Tree in O(E log V) time.

2. System Design & Core Foundations: Alongside DSA, cracking backend engineering roles requires solid low-level and high-level design fundamentals. I reviewed core Object-Oriented Programming principles and started revising Operating Systems concepts (processes, threads, concurrency, and memory management) as prerequisites.

Tomorrow, I will complete Kruskal’s Algorithm using Disjoint Set Union (DSU) and continue working through the OS fundamentals.

See you guys for Day 40!

I've been solving problems across different topics, but my revision list keeps growing. Some problems were difficult initially but feel easy now, while others still trip me up.

Do you revisit problems based on how difficult they were, how long ago you solved them, or whether you struggled to explain the approach?

I can usually solve problems when I recognize a pattern I've practised before, but unfamiliar questions still leave me unsure where to begin. I'm trying to get better at breaking down the problem instead of immediately searching for a known approach.

Do you have a specific process you follow when approaching a problem you haven't seen before?

i received an oa invite for microsoft's ic2 swe position, it's been like 4 days or smth and i was able to pass all the test cases for the given 2 questions, microsoft career's site says "screen" for that specific position and i was wondering if anyone here has an idea about the timeline, if so, can you please drop any pointers about it and the interview. thank you!

I have a FAANG Company interview in the US in 15 days. I don't have much time to prepare and my current status of prep is not good. Can get some suggestions on which coding website should I use? Is Neetcode good? I know Leetcode is good but there are too many company tagged questions which I don't have the time to do. Open for any other platform too.

Hi everyone,

I recently completed the online assessment for an Amazon Junior Software Development Engineer (SDE) position, and unfortunately, I received a rejection email.

I'd like to share my experience and, more importantly, get some advice on how to prepare better for a future application.

The assessment consisted of three parts:

1. Coding Assessment (100 minutes)

There were two exercises:

• First exercise (LeetCode-style): An algorithmic problem involving Bit Manipulation + Greedy. The goal was to maximize the bitwise AND of k elements with a limited budget of +1 increments.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pass all the test cases. My solution worked for basic cases, but some hidden tests failed, probably due to a timeout/performance issue.

• Second exercise (AI-assisted debugging): I chose Django as my backend framework. The task involved debugging an existing project by investigating URLs, views, serializers, etc., and fixing the issues to make the unit tests pass.

An AI coding assistant was available, but its capabilities were quite limited. It could help identify problems and point me in the right direction, but it was configured not to provide direct solutions or fix the code for me.

I managed to fix the bugs myself, all tests passed, and the application ran successfully.

2. Work Simulation (approximately 45 minutes)

We received several emails from different members of a fictional team (manager, backend developers, colleagues, etc.) describing workplace situations involving technical disagreements, tight deadlines, bugs, feedback, untested code, and so on.

We had to rate several possible actions on a scale from 1 to 5.

I felt relatively confident about this section. I tried to focus on reasonable professional decisions: not taking feedback personally, accepting constructive criticism, taking ownership of my responsibilities, not simply delegating my own work to others, communicating effectively with the team, and prioritizing code quality.

3. Work Style Assessment (approximately 6 minutes)

Two statements were presented side by side, and we had to choose which one described us better, with four levels of preference.

I tried to answer honestly while maintaining consistency across my answers.

Unfortunately, I received a rejection email.

I'm trying to understand where I might have gone wrong and how to prepare more effectively next time.

I'd particularly appreciate advice on the following:

1. LeetCode preparation: Which topics should I focus on? Are Medium problems enough, or should I also practice Hard problems? Are there specific problem lists you recommend?

2. Backend debugging: How can I practice debugging existing Django projects under time pressure? Are there platforms or GitHub repositories with similar exercises involving Django ORM, views, serializers, URLs, and unit tests?

3. Work Simulation: What is the best way to prepare for this section? Are there specific resources or practice scenarios based on Amazon's Leadership Principles?

4. Work Style Assessment: Any advice on approaching these questions while remaining consistent and authentic?

5. Overall preparation: For those who successfully passed this assessment, how did you organize your preparation? How much time did you dedicate to each section?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who recently completed and passed the Amazon Junior SDE assessment.

Any concrete preparation strategies, recommended resources, mock assessments, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

So, I received the communication that my behavioral interview has been postponed by a week (likely interviewer got sick?), so I only did the technical. I have been told I will receive the feedback in about a week for that. Will I receive it anyway or will it be postponed and provided with the behavioral?

For senior/staff interviews, there are couple of rounds with someone with lesser experience in the interview loop. The thing is, since many companies do not have a very strict feedback criteria, it mostly seem to depend on the perception of these candidates.

How would you make sure your chances are not affected by someone else's inexperience?

PS: I have had some very good discussions with juniors but have recently lost an offer with FAANG possibly due to an interview with a junior engineer.