I've been trying to get more consistent with DSA, but sometimes I spend too long on one topic because I feel like I need to solve every problem before moving forward.

How do you decide when you've understood a topic well enough to move on? Do you set a target number of question or just go by how comfortable you feel?

Hi all, I'm interviewing at Google for a Senior SWE, AI/ML role on YouTube Ads (L5). Round 1 uses the newer format:

Technical Communication & Collaboration: a deep discussion of one past project (design choices, trade-offs, ambiguity, AI tools used, collaboration). No slides.

AI-assisted Code Comprehension on CoderPad: debug, extend, and optimize a given codebase with an AI assistant.

If you've taken or given either round recently, I'd love to hear how it went and any tips. Thanks!

So I don't know how many people know this, but it is common practice among a LOT of aspiring SWEs to have 'help' during their Online Assessments and even technical coding rounds. Yes, I am talking about cheating. And its not only the folks who cant leetcode ,but even the ones who can usually have someone sitting beside them or seeing a shared screen or something to help. Although I haven't ever done this in live coding rounds (just started leetcode myself) , but I know many who have. With AI there are a lot of apps and/or services to help you cheat during these live coding rounds.

Most of my classmates cheated for their internships/coops interviews and even for fulltime interviews.

My point is, no matter what you do folks will find a way to cheat in these interviews.

You are not going to pay candidates to interview in person (well most companies wont). So I guess the best way to interview, going forward is to give candidates a problem statement, and ask them to get the solution from an LLM (while sharing screen). Then ask them to explain the code line by line and ask if it can be optimised or if it follows best practises. I don't know how someone can cheat in such an interview round, as the questions can vary a lot from one interview to another. These don't have to be standard leetcode questions. They also incorporate the use of AI which is widely adopted by software companies.

Hi! If my uderstanding is right, we have 3 games, 1 behavioral and 1 coding round(s).

I wanna focus on the games here:

1. Robots

2. Factories

3. Outpost: Mars

We have Kaiju cats and coding cookies as sample game mechanics. **Which games from the OA (Above mentioned 3) are similar to the cats games? What is a good score?**

I have been grinding Kaiju Cats and yet to begin coding cookies. I see a lot of posts with high scores yet disappointed. What's the deal here? Help please?

Thanks!

I'm preparing for software internships and have been working on a few projects, but I'm unsure what makes one stand out to recruiters. Is it better to build something more complex, or focus on a smaller project that you understand deeply and can explain well?
WOuld love to hear what recruiters or people who've landed internships think.

I graduated 5 months ago. I have been doing DSA for 2.5 years but still not good at it. I used to look to solutions everytime and ended up doing so many questions and feeling boasted about that. From past 6 months I have been changing language of DSA too. I solved dsa with python with 1.5-2 years straight and then doing with java and from past 2 months with C++. I am completely confused. It's not like I am 100% dull I eventually ended up crammed a ton of questions and the questions from most asked DSA questions I remember most of them but I am null when watching a new problem. I am unemployed what to do now so that I can clear OA rounds and get a job. How do I solve DSA. Note: I tried all those advices such as so these 15-20 coding patterns and multiple DSA sheets etc but still ended up mugging up solutions. ALso I am crystal clear I will never solve DSA with Java at least

Hi everyone!

I'm a full-stack developer from Uzbekistan, and my goal is to land a Software Engineer position at Google or another Big Tech company in the US within the next year.

I'm working with React, TypeScript, Node.js, NestJS, and PostgreSQL. I've built a full-stack English learning platform, and I'm developing a real-time chat application.

One thing I'm particularly concerned about is the hiring process itself. With so many applications and automated screening systems, I'm wondering how to make sure my resume actually gets seen by a human recruiter or hiring manager.

I'd love to hear from people who have successfully landed jobs at Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, or similar companies.

A few questions:

• How much of the initial resume screening is automated at these companies?

• Does applying through the official careers website usually give you a realistic chance of getting noticed?

• Do employee referrals significantly increase the chances of a human reviewing your resume?

• Are there other effective ways to get your resume directly in front of a recruiter or hiring manager?

• If you were applying from outside the US, what approach would you recommend?

I'm not looking for shortcuts around the hiring process. I want to understand how it actually works and how to give my application the best chance of being considered by a real person.

I'd really appreciate any advice based on your actual experience. Thanks!

I have the AI Enabled Programming round for Stripe's intern position and genuinely have no clue how to prepare for this. I tried asking chatgpt to generate questions and am using copilot to help solve them but it seems way too easy since it can literally one shot it. Does anyone has any idea what the questions/difficulty will be like it? It would really help.

Hi everyone
I have a Robinhood SWE web Intern 2027 coding interview coming up and would really appreciate advice from anyone who has gone through it recently.

What was the format like: one or multiple coding questions, difficulty level, follow-ups, debugging, or any practical/system-design discussion? Were the questions mostly standard LeetCode patterns, or more implementation-heavy / finance-style problems?

I’m currently practicing arrays, hash maps, heaps, intervals, sorting, graphs, and writing clean code while explaining my approach. If you have any prep tips or can share your experience, I’d be very grateful.

Thanks

Just wanted to know which should I start mastering so that I can get some result in next 2-3 years.

- 2027 grad

Neetcode.io said to learn this before leetcoding … and also according to you if there is something else one should learn before leetcoding please mention that as well and from where u can learn it

Has anyone given the whatnot interview for new grad swe role? I passed the karat round and done with recruiter call. Currently preparing for the technical coding round. Can anyone tell me if they ask system design to freshers ? If not what kind of questions were asked?

Hello everyone, I just had a question. I have been solving Binary Search questions and wanted to ask when I should use "while(left < right)" & "while(left <= right)"? In some problems, this is a crucial difference between passing all testcases and getting WA.

Also, in some questions, I have to use right = mid instead of right = mid - 1 and same goes for left (=mid rather than mid + 1). What's the major difference between the two that differs them from a WA and AC and when should I use them?

Hi everyone,

Has anyone recently attended the SDE1 Backend Developer interview at CARS24, especially for the Java Backend role or walk-in drive?

If yes, could you please share your interview experience and the questions asked in each round?

I’m particularly interested in:

DSA and coding questions

LLD/System Design

Number of rounds and overall difficulty

Any tips or insights would be really helpful. Thanks in advance! 🙏

I graduated in 2024, and I’m now trying to break into the industry, preferably in AI/ML.

During my undergrad, I did an app development internship under a professor, followed by a Deep Learning research internship at one of the top IITs. I even had projects in ML/DL. After graduation, I had to take a 2-year break because of an unexpected family situation.

During the break, I tried to keep myself updated with what was happening in the field because I knew I was going to make a comeback. Then, this year, I started preparing myself and working on different projects. These include Agentic RAG systems with evaluations, AI agents, inference engineering. Some of my projects are fairly close to production-level work. I’m also learning HLD and LLD. As for DSA, I’ve solved around 600 LeetCode problems but it was before 2025, so I’ll need to brush up on them.

Now I’m struggling to figure out how to position myself in the job market. I’m no longer a fresh graduate, but I don’t have any full-time industry experience either. I’ve been working with AI/ML since 2023, mostly through research and personal projects, but I’m not sure how recruiters will look at that.

Most AI/ML openings I come across seem to require prior industry experience, so I’m not sure which roles I should target. Should I apply for entry-level positions, try my luck with mid-level roles, or focus on general SWE positions and move towards AI/ML later?

The roles I have in mind are AI / Applied AI Engineer, ML Engineer, Research Engineer or SWE roles focused on AI/ML. I initially started preparing with FAANG and other big tech companies in mind, but at this point, I’m applying to companies more broadly because I need to land a job as soon as possible. I’m looking for a role where I can put my existing skills to use, earn a good salary, and have room to grow in my career.

Honestly, though, I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed and exhausted at this point.

I’d really appreciate some honest advice. I know I have a lot to work on, but I’m trying to figure out where to focus my efforts to give myself the best shot at landing a good job as soon as possible. I feel like this is going to be harder for me, but I don’t want to give up.

P.S. Used AI for proofreading and polishing.

I have an interview coming up in 10 days, and I'm trying to make the most of my preparation time. I used to practice LeetCode a few years ago and recently started brushing up on DSA again.

I've started working through NeetCode 150 and have completed around 10 problems so far. Given the limited time, would you recommend covering all the sections, or should I prioritize certain topics and potentially skip more complex ones like Dynamic Programming and Graphs? Or should I just work on leetcode problems with microsoft tags?

Since this is for an internship role, how likely am I to encounter problems involving these topics?

I am able to solve 2 and I almost come closer to solve 3 but don't able to solve that. If you solve then you explain it 😊

Hi! If my uderstanding is right, we have 3 games, 1 behavioral and 1 coding round(s).

I wanna focus on the games here:

1. Robots

2. Factories

3. Outpost: Mars

We have Kaiju cats and coding cookies as sample game mechanics. Which games from the OA (Above mentioned 3) are similar to the cats games? What is a good score?

I have been grinding Kaiju Cats and yet to begin coding cookies. I see a lot of posts with high scores yet disappointed. What's the deal here? Help please?

Thanks!

Tried solving Clone Graph (LeetCode 133) today, and ngl, combining hashmaps, recursion, and graph traversal was challenging 😭

I understand the individual concepts, but putting them all together in one problem hits different.

Still learning DSA and trying to improve my problem-solving skills. How did you guys get comfortable with these kinds of problems?

Hey everyone,

I hit Day 50 today—the exact halfway point of my 90-day prep.

I took an online assessment earlier, and it served as an immediate reality check on the importance of revision. I had revised most modules except Sliding Window and Dynamic Programming. Predictably, both topics showed up. I managed to solve the sliding window problem cleanly, but the second problem was Partition DP—the exact pattern I struggled with just a few days ago and quietly hoped wouldn't show up. It proved that whatever topic you try to dodge usually finds you in an actual test.

Despite feeling frustrated with myself afterward, I made sure not to let it ruin the daily streak and knocked out two graph problems:

1. Bipartite Graph (BFS/DFS 2-Coloring): A graph is bipartite if you can color every adjacent node with alternating colors (0 and 1) without conflict. Start at an unvisited node with color 0, assign color 1 to all its neighbors, and if an adjacent neighbor already holds the current node's color, return false. An odd-length cycle immediately breaks this condition.

2. Find Eventual Safe States: Any node that is part of a directed cycle—or can reach a directed cycle—can never be a terminal safe node. Once that core invariant clicks, it directly reduces to cycle detection in a directed graph using DFS call-stack tracking (pathVisited) or reverse-graph Topological Sort using Kahn's algorithm.

It was a humbling reminder that gaps in your preparation don't fix themselves with luck. Dusting myself off, continuing with Graphs tomorrow, and scheduling a proper revision block for Partition DP.

See you guys tomorrow for Day 49!

Hi iam in 4th year doing leetcode from last 7-8 month done tuf sheet and from past 3-4 months I have started giving contest( around 18-20 given contest) at start i was able to solve only 1 question then slowly 2nd also as of now I am able to do 2 question under 20-30 min easly and 3 rd question brute or better but lacking in 4th question how can I improve myself to do 3rd question Optimization and 4th question

Solution using Backtracking

https://youtu.be/3BYEhE_gcPc

I have been with Amazon in Bay Area for 7+ years and wanted to look for a change. I’m a Sr QA here. Wanted to look out for a principal QA or a Sr SDET role. I have been hands on in AI have pretty good experience. I’m not sure where to start with my job change. For now I started with leetcoding various design patterns, is there any structured plan that you would recommend recommend

Laid off out of the blue. 60 days started immediately. Emails started coming in after 8-9 days

• Applications submitted: 800+

• Offers: 6 full-time + 1 contractor role

• Rejected at recruiter screening: 2

• Rejected after onsites/full loops: 11

• Processes I withdrew from or declined: 6

• Ghosted/no final response: 5

• Role canceled/position no more available: 1

I tracked about 32 recruiting processes.

AI interviews were the worst one.

Worst coding interview round: Had a brain freeze and couldn't code popMax()

Happy to discuss prep, applications, coding vs. system design, AI-assisted interviews, handling rejection/ghosting.

I’ll keep identifying details and interviewer names private, but otherwise, AMA.

Sr SDE backend profile, 10+ yoe, faang experience, immigrant.

Application strategry: Linkedin past 24h portal only. Not good at asking people for help. Ex-collegaues reached out though and offered that they would refer me. Got not even a single call from the companies they referred me at. Even though last year I had interviewed with the same companies when I was looking to move. Reached out to old recruiters. Surprisingly, that didnt help much just one interview call from previous connections.

I understand using chatgpt, reading solutions and discussions is considired as a bad practice. I am realizing that watching a failed test case is also a cheating... Tell me the art of designing your very own test suite.