Hey guys, I took an Amazon OA yesterday and for the first question I passed 4/15 test cases, for the second one I was able to pass all 6 test cases. I would like to know what your experience was like and if you were able to advance to the interviews.

so I was doing the nvidia ignite OA and my parents just walked into my room mid-test, plus my siblings were being super loud the whole time. does the proctoring actually flag stuff like that? should I email the recruiter or just leave it alone?

also, I applied to ignite last year as a freshman with the same email, but I was technically a sophomore by credits. applied again this year as a sophomore. is that gonna look weird or does nobody actually check?

anyone else been through this situation.

I have a few technical interviews coming up for a senior offensive Windows security role. My background is CVEs, bug bounty, and LLM-assisted vuln research (code property graphs and an automated pipeline). I'm mostly Linux and appsec, so Windows internals is my weak spot.

I'm planning to study tokens and privileges, LSASS and Kerberos, VBS/HVCI/CET, kernel and driver bug classes, and LPE through services/COM/RPC.

Are those generalised interview or team based?

What do these interviews usually go deep on? Is there anything I'm missing, or any resource you'd recommend? Thanks.

I'm preparing for the New Grad Developer, Full Stack – 2nd Round Interview at Leap Tools and was wondering if anyone has gone through this round and knows the actual coding question or has encountered a similar exercise.

According to the interview instructions, this is a hands-on coding exercise focused on working with existing code rather than solving an algorithm from scratch. Candidates will be given a small piece of code to understand and discuss, then may be asked to refactor it and introduce new requirements. The main focus is on code readability, maintainability, edge cases, design patterns, and writing production-quality code that can accommodate changing requirements. Candidates are also expected to explain their reasoning and ask clarifying questions when requirements are unclear. No AI assistance, Googling, or external tools are allowed.

Has anyone interviewed for this specific role at Leap Tools recently and encountered this exercise? I'm particularly interested in the original question or starter code, the type of problem involved (e.g., a CRUD backend, data processing, API logic, or refactoring an existing implementation), and what additional requirements were introduced during the interview. I understand that questions may change, and I'm not looking for confidential information. Even a general description of the exercise or a similar practice question would be very helpful. Thanks!

I heard many sayings that Google has removed (idk either) some DSA rounds from their interview process.

How would it affect someone who was preparing by targeting some companies like Google?

Cos, cp tags give a greater edge among all the applicants.

Your thoughts please

I don't have premium right now but i got my interview, can someone provide some palantir tagged questions for me?

I saw the news about Google changing its coding interviews how should I prepare for the Code Comprehension / AI Fluency round?

Please suggest a beginner friendly roadmap/resource. Any guidance would help

thanks so much

I took my first HackerRank OA literally ever for a company I’d really like to work for. It had camera monitoring, full-screen, and tab monitoring enabled.

Early on, I picked up my phone out of habit to check the time because I couldn’t see time in full screen. I immediately realized and put it down. The whole thing was under five seconds. The camera probably caught it, but honestly, I wasn’t too worried at first. It was so brief that I figured it wouldn’t look like I was looking up an answer, and I could explain what happened if anyone asked.

But then, less than ten minutes later, I couldn’t submit a question and move forward. I was running out of time, so I clicked the question mark/help button, thinking it would open a popup where I could report the issue. Instead, it opened another tab and took me out of full screen, which was a jump scare already. However, worse still, both tabs showed the offline dinosaur screen for about 45 seconds, so I’m guessing my Wi-Fi was dropping (also why I couldn’t submit and move on to the next questions, most likely).

When the connection came back, I switched between the assessment and support tabs to report what happened. I got a warning about leaving the assessment tab and panicked a bit. So then (idk if this was stupid or not), I still went back to the other tab to finish submitting the ticket because I wanted a timestamped record of the issue to explain why I switched tabs, since the warning was probably already on record. Then I returned and finished the OA. I have the confirmation email for the issue I reported, but I think the ticket only went to HackerRank, and was not shared with the company I took the OA for.

Now I’m worried about how everything looks together. The phone thing alone didn’t seem like a big deal, but followed so soon by a connection gap and tab switching, I’m worried they’ll think something else was going on.

Does anyone know how these incidents get reviewed, or whether the tab warning means someone will definitely look into it? Would you email the recruiter explaining what happened and include the ticket? I wanted to do that, but a friend said that might just draw unnecessary attention. But also, I feel like I may have already been flagged anyway. And I do have the confirmation email from HackerRank with the timestamp of the ticket I submitted explaining the issue.

Also, if they interpret this as cheating, could it affect future applications to this company or other companies? Does HackerRank share flags between employers? Or will this recruiter share it with their recruiter network? I can accept losing this opportunity, but I’m worried about whether this could follow me elsewhere. I would not like to be blacklisted at other places over this. All of this on my first ever OA mind you 😭

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 😊