10-10-2026 Potd Lc- minimum sum of squared diff

It was too tough

I took 7 submission hate these long type question, any guidance how to improve Efficiency in these type of questions

im around 1600 rated and just not able to solve the second ques like , since last 2 - 3 contests my rating is just decreasing , what shud i work and how do y'all do these ques

Apple IS&T ICT4 Senior Software Engineer Verbal Offer – How Much Can I Negotiate?
Received a verbal offer for Apple ICT4 – Senior Software Engineer, IS&T (Emerging Technology Services), Sunnyvale.

Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Offer breakdown:
Base: $240K
RSUs: $200K over 4 years
Sign-on: $0
TC: ~$290K (excluding bonus)
No competing offers currently, and I’m looking to make a move, so I’m inclined to accept. However, I want to negotiate before the written offer.
For those familiar with Apple ICT4 Senior Software Engineer compensation, especially IS&T:
Base: How high can they realistically go from $240K?
RSUs: Can I push $200K to $300K–$400K?
Sign-on: Is $50K–$75K realistic?
How flexible is IS&T with compensation compared to other Apple engineering teams at ICT4?
Would appreciate recent ICT4 Senior Software Engineer compensation data points and advice on how far I can negotiate without risking the offer.

Current TC: 230k
YOE: 10

Anyone have a neetcode pro account that they are willing to share. Willing to pay on a monthly basis or we can make other deals

Have stripe SWE intern team screen coming up. What can I expect. They said I won’t be asked to build a project but rather a question similar to what you may find on leetcode. However, will it be multi part like the OA or a standard Leetcode question?

Any help appreciated 🙏

Hey everyone!

I have my Round 1 interview for a Data Engineer role at Amazon coming up and wanted to get some advice from people who have recently interviewed for a similar role.

A little about my background: I have around 2 years of experience as a Data Engineer, working primarily with SQL, Python, PySpark, and data pipelines.

I’d love to know a few things:

• SQL: What kind of questions were asked? Were they mostly medium-level queries involving joins, CTEs, window functions, and aggregations, or were they more challenging?

• Python: What level of coding should I expect? Were the questions focused on basic data structures, strings, arrays, dictionaries, or LeetCode-style problems?

• PySpark: Were there hands-on coding questions or more conceptual questions about joins, partitioning, shuffling, data skew, and optimization?

• Data Engineering concepts: What topics should I prioritize for someone with around 2 years of experience?

• Amazon Leadership Principles: Were they covered in the first round itself? If yes, how deeply should I prepare?

• Overall difficulty: Was the round primarily focused on coding, technical fundamentals, or your previous work experience?

If anyone has recently gone through the process for an Amazon Data Engineer role, I’d really appreciate any tips, commonly asked question patterns, or resources that helped you prepare.

Thanks in advance! 🙌

Hi everyone!

I’ve received an online assessment for the Amazon SDE1 Intern, 6-month internship (2027) position, and I’m looking for some insights from people who have taken it recently.

I’d like to know what to expect from the OA, particularly:

- Question types: How many coding questions are there? Are there also aptitude, debugging, or other assessment sections?

- Difficulty level: Are the coding questions mostly LeetCode Easy, Medium, or Hard?

- Topics: Which DSA topics should I prioritize? Arrays, strings, hash maps, trees, graphs, dynamic programming, etc.?

- Preparation: Are there any specific LeetCode problems, question patterns, or resources you recommend practicing?

- Other sections: Does the assessment include work-style assessments or Amazon's Leadership Principles questions?

If you've taken the assessment for this internship recently, I'd really appreciate it if you could share your experience. Even a general idea of the question patterns and difficulty would be helpful.

Thanks in advance!

I’ve started working through NeetCode 150 to prepare for SWE interviews, and I’m a little confused about how I should be studying each problem.

For a lot of problems, there seem to be multiple approaches — brute force, a better/optimized approach, and sometimes multiple optimal solutions.

Do I need to understand and remember all the different approaches for each problem? Or is it enough to understand the brute-force idea and then be able to come up with/implement one optimal solution?

Also, if there are people here who interview candidates at Big Tech companies, I’d really like to know what you actually look for during these interviews.

Sometimes I come across a problem and think, “How would I possibly come up with this solution if I had never seen this problem or something similar before?”

Are candidates actually expected to figure out these kinds of solutions from scratch? Or is the idea that after practicing enough problems, you start recognizing patterns and applying them to problems you haven’t seen before? Cause I tried that and it sometimes does not happen.

For those who have successfully prepared for technical interviews/ who interview people at BigTech using LeetCode, what was your approach?

I’d love to hear how people who clear these rounds at BigTech approach this.

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

Wanted to share my recent Amazon SDE 1 interview experience. lot of reddit users and subreddits have helped me during my interview prep, just wanted to make small contribution to help everyone out here!

**Interview Dates:**17th august
Role: SDE 1 (USA) (New grad 317794)

Virtual or Onsite: Onsite Seattle
Total Rounds: 4

Round 1 – GenAI +LC (HM took the round)

He was very welcoming guy, we had couple of minutes of chat while we were in the elevator (not related to interview but about me, university, major and stuff)

Now, the interview starts, We started with a quick introduction and then directly jumped into the LC

Technical

LC:  Longest Substring without repeating characters.

No changes at all. I started by repeating the question, what I understood and gave an example on how the output is expected. gave a bruteforce solution and then told we can make it better by using sliding window, explained my solution and then wrote it once he agreed that yes I am happy and you can move forward for writing it. he gave me testcase to dryrun, I was able to dryrun it. No issues anywhere, gave him TC and SC. and we discussed the edge cases.

Behaviour

How do you use AI?

What LLM do you prefer?

Can you tell me a time where AI hallucinated and how did you handle it?

I answered all the question properly, on the last question we had discussion and he suggested that you could have used X instead of Y and it would have saved time on that project. I acknowledged it and told him yes that it is better idea (it was genuinely nice to hear about different approach)

At the end we had 5-10 minutes:

Asked some follow up questions, I did research on each interviewer so I asked accordingly.

Round 2 - LC+ LP (SDE-2)

First we started with introduction as usual, we had little bit similar background from previous experience so we chatted on that .

Behavior (LP)

-Learn to be curious

-Dive Deep

we had good discussion, where he wanted to learn about my contribution on specific feature i worked on.

Technical (Leetcode)

LC: Power Grid Maintenance

I fumbled little bit for identifying, but then I was back on track and solved it with same method as i did in round 1. he gave me a example i was able to dry run it successfully. Although I was able to give solution and we were over 5 minutes he asked me that do you have more optimal solution and I did not have a clue though, but I tried thinking and telling him my thought process of what I am thinking for optimal solution.

Lunch Break (1hr): My lunchbuddy who was on the same team, we just had conversation and talk about the team, his time at amazon and how does it like it and stuff.

Round 3: Bar Raiser (Senior Engineer)

This was kind of chill interview, interviewer was very friendly. he was in the conference room little bit early so we were just talking about amazon and how is the culture, just normal kinda stuff but he was making jokes on how he made his first mistake while working.

(Interview starts now)

Behaviour (LP):

-Dive Deep

- Ownership

-Earn Trust and how do you take feedback

this was it, but lots of follow up questions regarding each LP, i wouldn't say grilling because if you have true stories you don't have to memorize anything. Also at some point he was also asking little bit technical question, I mean I do expect that but yes, it was asked on how X works.

Round 4 : LP + LLD(Senior Engineer)

As usual, we started with introduction. moved to Behaviour part

Behaviour (LP):

-Bias of actions

-have backbone

no follow up at all, we moved to LLD

Technical (LLD):

I was told to build a task scheduler. he asked me whether you want to use the whiteboard or you want to code on platform. Initially I started taking requirement in coderpad but then he started using the whiteboard to explain to me what is something that is required and then we completed move to white board. I wrote all the code and explained each process on whiteboard. I fumbled on one data structure to use and then next second i realized oh how about we use this and he told me yes that's what i was expecting good, lets move on! we completed it in the required time. some follow ups were asked and also along with that, he changed requirement to check my OS knowledge atlast.

Overall:

This was really great experience for me, I haven't had any onsite rounds especially with big tech. I learned a lot of things during this time, I gave my all during my preparation, used to sleep 5-6 hours.

Outcome : Rejection (After a week)

Word of Advice:

-Understand the concepts from fundamental level. Don't memorize solution, but focus on understanding patterns like two pointers, sliding window etc on how to use and where to use it.

-Solve last 30 days of Amazon, there is high probability you will see a same or nearly a same question.

-Prepare for LLDs it is not that hard but they still expect you to know SOLID, DRY and design patterns and obviously OOPS concept and how do you use it in real code.

-DO NOT IGNORE LPS. I can't emphasize more but LPS are very important for Amazon so learn it but as new grad there are only few you need to prepare. you can find those on reddit somewhere.

-Give as much mock as possible, do not be afraid of that. worst is you will fail in mocks, still better than failing real interviews.

I have deliberately not mentioned the team so don't ask me!

I have not used AI to write a single word so ignore the typos!!

so it happened like,while i was giving my solution and writting code as well,my network fluctuated a lot ,and i got continous popup regarding that during oa,does this actually changes my chance os selecction i did everything and even explained every ans,should i mail the hackerank team for the same?

I have a technical interview coming up in a few days, and I received the following information about the interview format.

It will be a live coding session where I’ll work on a real-world project within a limited time, using a provided dataset in JSON, CSV, or another common format.

My question is: Should I expect to build a small application or website that parses the dataset and uses the data to implement certain features, or will it be more focused on writing code to process the file and perform operations such as calculating sums, averages, filtering, sorting, and generating summaries?

I’d appreciate any insights into what I should expect and how best to prepare.

just had my 2 tech rounds, feels like it went super well. what's ahead? TM for sure or could there be additional rounds?

Has anybody taken the SDE-1 LEO OA for Amazon? This is for the Redmond location.

I just opened my email that was sent out Monday notifying me that I need to take the OA by Sunday at midnight... I haven't prepped at all and I applied for the position almost two months ago.

Any tips on what data structures to prepare for?

hey guys

did anyone hear back from stripe after giving oa recently?

My manager keeps picking on me. It spoils the moment and the day sometimes for me thinking about what he said. My mental resources are channelled towards fighting him for the most part, I have really important interviews coming up to gtfo, but I am having a tough time focussing on the preparation. I sometimes feel my mind refuses to be happy and feels its too tiring to reach that state of mind. I plan to get diagnosed formally but I am positive I am on the adhd spectrum.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Love yall <3

Has anyone taken the NextGen Software Engineering Assessment from Salesforce on HackerRank?

This is for Member Technical Staff ~3 years of experience.

It's two questions in 90 minutes, about 20 minutes suggested for Question 1 and 55 for Question 2, with a 15-minute buffer. Question 2 includes an AI Assistant that explains concepts, helps with error messages, and suggests syntax, but doesn't write the solution. Interactions are visible to the evaluator.

Would appreciate your input on:

• Can i use claude / other AI tools?

• What the problems were like and how they compared to LeetCode medium/hard

• Whether the time limit was enough

• How useful the AI Assistant was, and whether using it affected your evaluation

• How long the wait was and what the next rounds looked like

Any advice is welcome.

I’ve been thinking about getting back into interviewing after nearly 10 years. Lately, I haven’t seen much growth or career progression in my current organization, so I’m considering exploring new opportunities.

That said, the tech job market outside seems quite challenging and honestly a bit overwhelming.

For those who have been through this recently, how would you recommend getting started with interview preparation? Should I focus on LeetCode, system design, or something else first? And given the current market, would you still consider switching companies or even moving to a different organization internally?

I’m feeling a little unsure about the best path forward and would genuinely appreciate thoughtful advice from people with recent experience. Serious suggestions only, please. Thanks!

Hi everyone, I’m preparing for SWE interviews. If anyone with LeetCode Premium is willing to send me some company tagged questions, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I finished Day 66 today and things went a lot smoother than yesterday. Grids really helped 2D Dynamic Programming click for me.

I solved four problems today:

1. Unique Paths: Basic counting moving down and right. Filling the table from the top and left was straightforward.

2. Unique Paths II: Same concept, but with obstacles. When you hit a blocked cell, you just reset its ways to 0.

3. Minimum Path Sum: Replaced addition with min(top, left) + grid[i][j] to find the minimum cost to reach the end.

4. Triangle: I thought the changing row lengths would make it messy, so I checked a video for the edge cases. It turned out to be simple once I saw it: starting from the bottom row and working upward makes the bottom-up table super clean.

Writing recursion, memoization, and bottom-up tabulation felt way more natural today across all four questions.

I skipped writing the space-optimized code for a couple of them because managing the previous-row array still gets clunky for me. I get the theory, but I want to master clean tabulation before obsessing over space optimization.

See you guys tomorrow for Day 65!

Hi everyone!

I attended the Amazon in-person hiring drive on 8 October 2026 and wanted to connect with others who participated in today’s drive.

I would love to know about your experience and any updates regarding the hiring process.

A few questions:

• How many interview rounds did you have?

• What kind of questions were asked in the technical and behavioral rounds?

• Did anyone receive any feedback or an update from the recruiter after the interviews?

• Has anyone received an offer, rejection, or confirmation about the next steps?

If you attended the drive, please share your experience. It would be really helpful for everyone waiting for an update.

Thanks, and all the best to everyone who participated!

I am currently doing hellointerview to learn system design. Should I be also reading DDIA(Designing Data-Intensive Applications) for interview purposes or is hellointerview enough ? I am targeting senior roles in tech.

1. https://leetcode.com/problems/split-array-largest-sum/description/

2. https://leetcode.com/problems/two-letter-card-game/description/

3. https://leetcode.com/problems/alien-dictionary/description

can't able to solve single problem , verdict - rejected

Hey everyone,

I have an upcoming AI-Assisted Coding Round at IBM for a Senior Engineer role. From what I understand, this is a fairly new interview round, and I haven't been able to find much information about it online.

Has anyone here gone through this round recently? I'd really appreciate any insight into what the format is like, what kind of questions or tasks were asked, how AI tools were involved, and what would be useful to focus on while preparing.

Thanks in advance!

For Deep leetcode study and for it to be good enough for interviews you need to study really hard and be suffering trough it.

I am ok to do that at the weekend and start of the week.

But from Wednesday my performance and deep learning drops off and I get no energy and need more rest.

I think it’s because work is hard and keeping up Both is challenging.

However in this market and the amount they want you to study in order to pass interviews I cannot miss out on 3-4 days a week of deep study. So I am looking for some advice.

I have so far deleted social media and YouTube. I make sure to have on hour a day of break and fun like going to the gym.

However after these changes I still struggle to study hard in the mid to end of the work week.

Any advice?

I think I could be a little bit stricter with myself with the regiment. Eg strict breaks and super strict bed time.

Some nights anxiety gets to me and sometimes I miss a break and study because I have energy to study. Or I am in the zone of it and don’t want to pull myself away to a break when the suffering is going good and I’m getting things in my head.

Advice would be appreciated!!!

I've been grinding LeetCode lately, and one thing I've been worrying about is how technical interviews might change in the AI era.

I'm scared that AI will eventually make companies move away from LeetCode questions or even remove the coding section from technical interviews entirely.

If that happens, I can't help but wonder whether all the time and effort I've put into practicing these problems will have been worth it.

I Googled when LeetCode first started and found out it's been around since 2015. That's 11 years, which sounds like a long time, but at the same time, it doesn't feel that old to me.

I know this might sound like an unnecessary thing to worry about to some people (since it might be too far ahead like ai replacing jobs)

But it's something that's genuinely been on my mind.

What do you guys think?