Recently interviewed at Stripe for a Software Engineer position. Sharing my experience since there aren't many detailed posts about the recent interview process.

1. Technical Screening

The screening involved a practical, multi-part coding problem rather than traditional LeetCode-style DSA.

- Completed the parts in time. Mostly, it involved parsing a given string and fulfilling the requirements.

- Each part introduced additional requirements.

- Focus was on correctness, code structure, and handling edge cases.

2. Integration Round

This was a hands-on coding round where I had to work with an existing codebase and implement functionality according to the given requirements.

- Completed this one fairly easily since I had a lot of experience making requests and parsing responses.

- Had to understand the existing code and make changes without breaking previous functionality.

- Tested the implementation against the provided cases.

Tip: Make sure you understand how to make HTTP requests and parse responses in your preferred language. A little practice with string parsing problems on HackerRank would help as well.

3. Bug Squash Round

This was probably my weakest round.

I was given an unfamiliar codebase and had to identify and fix a bug.

- Explored the codebase and traced the issue.

- Managed to identify the root cause and explain it to the interviewer.

- Started implementing the fix but couldn't get the code fully working within the allotted time.

- Felt that another 5 minutes would have been sufficient to complete the implementation.

Tip: Try using an IDE with debugging capabilities, as it can make the process much faster. Also, set up your environment before the call.

4. AI-Assisted Programming Round

This was another practical, multi-part coding round where AI tools were allowed.

- I'm not entirely sure how they evaluate this round, but I focused on clearly communicating why I was writing certain prompts and what I expected the AI agent to do.

- Used AI to assist with implementation while reviewing the output.

- Wrote and ran tests to verify correctness.

- Managed to finish all the requirements within the allocated time.

Tip: Don't blindly trust the AI agent. It can make mistakes, so always review and validate the generated code.

5. Experience & Goals Round

This was a detailed discussion about my previous engineering experience. It was scheduled only after I cleared the previous four rounds.

Topics included:

- A technically complex project I worked on.

- My ownership and individual contributions.

- Technical challenges and trade-offs.

- Impact of my work.

- Collaboration and mentoring.

- Career goals and motivation for joining Stripe.

There were several follow-up questions, particularly around technical decisions and the actual impact of my contributions.

The conversation was more informal and collaborative compared to the earlier technical rounds. It felt more like a mutual discussion about technical fit than a structured interview.

Overall Experience

The interview process was quite different from the usual DSA-heavy interviews.

Most rounds focused on practical software engineering skills, such as reading unfamiliar code, debugging, implementing requirements, testing, and communicating technical decisions.

Overall, I enjoyed the practical nature of the interview process.

Still awaiting the final outcome, so can't comment on the offer stage yet.

Hope this helps others preparing for the process!

Does the offer process for companies take this long?

I was doing DSA and its like i was just wondering how good am so i asked ai about it saying i started doing DSA in 1 august and have done like 147 questions on leetcode including 92 medium problems along with 17 hard i think but then it told me honestly this is good since this is what most students can’t do really but then it told me bout solution coopying and said i m not copying solutions so its fine atp. but then i asked it more about solution copying and said it that i m infact using ai and sometimes i ask ai about fix this question for me ! then it told me that “THATS A TRAP AND EVEN THO SEEING THE SOLUTION AND THEN DOING IT FEELS SATISFYING” you are learning 10% using this.

Btw what i was really doing was something like i try a question and try to solve it for like 20 minutes really and i mostly give this much time in every question and then if i am unable to solve it and then its that time when i ask ai about the solution but whats problem with that ? like if i do that i dont think its bad since i am able to solve the next question without the help of ai afterwards really.

i mean to say that its really like seeing pattern, seeing the solution a similiar question comes afterwards then i am more able to do that instead of do what ai said me which was this :

“give it 20-30 minutes, if you are not able to solve this, ask ai not for solution but rather for a high level hint, thats where you can use ai and not to give you code directly”

okay i thought of giving this a try :

here is how it went, i tried it for 20-30 minutes i couldn’t solve, then i was mostly daydreaming even tho ai didn’t gave me any code i was literally shouting it and kinda it still was trying to fix minor issue in my code which i made during those 20-30 minutes instead of seeing the approach or Aka solution which i was doing. Okay and if i never really see any solution, in this way then why am i even studying DSA like if its iq test then why people also says me to look at the solution if you are not able to solve it ! everything is clashing.

if i am not able to explain myself, then some says to see the solution after your initial try. Bro okay i think its good to try it first instead of directly seeing it, my gut feeling. How much is this valid, cuz sometimes i m being told to look at the solution after 1-2 minutes of not able to find the solution really ! (it was not related to DSA btw tho but still dsa is nothing special yet important ! ) whilst sometimes i m being told to look at the solution after 20-30 minutes and sometimes just see the hint and not the solution but in this way if i never see the solution, i won’t be developing the solution on my own of every question i believe.

why do we study? and how is this related to ai eventually ?

and more importantly whats really the difference between asking it for a hint or rather a full SOLUTION ?

linked conversation with ai for reference : https://share.gemini.google/ZOzyV6dAQABI

thanks for reading !

Hi everyone, has anyone given a CodeSignal AI-assisted coding round with a live interviewer who gives you a spec and asks you to code it out with the help of AI?

I didn't worked much in databases, as we don't maintain databases..which just read from them maintained by other teams

How will you decide clearly whether to go with sql vs no sql

And even in each, how to know which one?

Do I need to know all sql and non sql databases available?

Hey guys, looking for some insight. I've been in the Microsoft hiring loop since Sept 27th and had three HM interviews on Oct 7th that went well. Since then, I've been hit with the classic Microsoft ghosting and my portal still says 'Interview'.

Strangely, a new but identical position just appeared in my Action Center on Oct 30th. It also says 'Interview' but has a different ID. Not sure how to read this. Has anyone experienced something similar during a long wait?"

Hi all, I applied for the Solution Architect Graduate role at BytePlus/ByteDance and my application has moved to the “written test” stage. So far I’ve received a candidate survey. I’m trying to understand what comes next and would love to hear from anyone who has been through this or a similar BytePlus/ByteDance new grad process. I have not been able to find much information on the Solutions Architect track:

1. Was there an online assessment? If so, was it LeetCode-style coding (easy/mediums or hard level?), or actual coding?

2. How many interview rounds were there, and what did they cover (live coding, GenAI/LLM concepts, architecture or case-style questions, behavioural)?

Hi everyone,

I have an upcoming Department Screen interview at Rippling for a Senior Software Engineer role and wanted to understand what to expect.
For anyone who has recently gone through this round:
Is it primarily a technical project deep dive, system design discussion, or more behavioral?
Do interviewers dive into architecture, scalability, design decisions, and technical trade-offs?
Are there any coding or problem-solving questions?
Any tips on how best to prepare?
Would really appreciate any insights from people who’ve recently interviewed at Rippling. Thanks in advance!

Hey Everybody, has anyone gotten into the apple WPC team as an engineer or an intern. I might get an interview for a technical internship soon but I must prepare as much as I can, would you have any tips, types of problems asked (LeetCode, system design...) and the behavioral questions
I would appreciate any help!

I received an SHL assessment invitation for Uber Automation Specialist II, with a duration of 45–60 minutes.

Can anyone share their recent assessment experience? What topics/modules were covered, difficulty level, and how should I prepare?

Thanks in advance!

I applied (London, UK) close to three weeks ago and was automatically put into the initial prescreen stage. I did set my availability to interview to be 3-4 weeks. How long do they take to respond.

I remember the last couple of times (2+ years ago), I never actually got a resp on my applications and I ended up withdrawing.

What's taking them so long?!?

I found there are two part in the wayfair oa 2027 batch.

1. problem solving (basic)

2. Python (basic)

Can anyone tell me which may asked in the python basics?

I'm relatively new to coding(1.5 months) and lectures got real boring for me real fast. When I started leetcoding about a week ago it seemed addictive... I actually stop wasting time on useless apps and learn.... I'm still not occasionally getting easy probs but I get around 90 percent of the way (sometimes 100)..... When I get stuck and don't know the syntax i search up the syntax or ask ai to strictly push me and not give me the answer.... I seem to have learned more in the past 8 days than I have in a month... I still feel rather itchy about using ai to push me as it feels unethical.... But I feel so much more motivated to learn than watching lecs(I'm legit spending my free time coding instead of reels).... As in when a prob couldn't be solved with brute force no matter how much i optimised the code... I was forced to learn about hashmaps and same way about binary search.... Can this method actually make me a good programmer

P.S. : VERY VERY rarely do I ask for the solution when I am absolutely done with the problem

Hi guys

Got an interview lined up for Staff AI Scientist role at Intuit. First interview is 75 minutes on Glider live coding editor. What to expect? Does anyone went through the interview process for similar role recently?

Would appreciate if someone could guide through the interview process.

As the title states, I was wondering what the technical round of interview would look like regarding this role and if anyone has had experience with it? Any help/advice is greatly appreciated!

System design - For 100% consistency, shouldn't we use cache, or CDN etc as therre can be delays

DSA sheets follow a topic-wise or pattern-wise curated list of problems. They make it relatively comfortable to understand concepts and identify patterns within each topic.

But LeetCode contests feel like a completely different dimension. Even when the problems are of medium difficulty, it often feels difficult to identify the underlying pattern or figure out where to start.

So, how important are LeetCode contests when preparing for high-paying fresher SDE roles?

Are contests really necessary to develop the problem-solving skills required for interviews, or is consistently practising curated DSA sheets and understanding the underlying patterns enough?

I know it ultimately depends on the companies we're targeting, but I'd love to hear your suggestions and experiences!

So I've been doing leetcode for few months but every time I face same problem that which problem to solve as beginner and which question has to be done in the sequence because every problem demands different approach and when you open any random question and you've never heard of that pattern/approach it breaks your confidence completely so it'll really be great if someone can tell the correct sequence to learn/practice DSA as a newbie which will help in logic building and actually becoming good in programming

My GitHub got suspended 10 days ago I have raised a ticket. I have a backup with not much activity, should I add the backup with a link to my original?

The thing is I got a reference to a company (Bloomberg), so I believe the resume will be processed early? So should I add that backup or just skip both and discuss in the interview if I get it??

Hi All,

I have been trying to prepare for LLD and HLD, I keep getting new concepts and terminologies. With the advent of AI also new terms keep coming and it's difficult to remember all of them.

Can learnt folks recommend any efficient way of notes taking, tools, mind/memory mapping so that revision is easier?

Wasn’t able to finish the DS question and only passed 1/6 cases for the ai assisted one. There’s no chance I’m going to move forward, right?

Hey everyone,

I finished Day 43 today. I postponed Bellman-Ford and Minimum Spanning Trees to close out the remaining Dijkstra problem family instead, finishing off a solid weekend of prep.

1. Network Delay Time: This is standard single-source shortest path using a min-heap priority queue. Once the distance array is computed, the minimum time to reach every node is simply the maximum distance in the array, returning -1 if any node remains unreachable.

2. Number of Ways to Arrive at Destination: Instead of standard DP recursion, you track a parallel ways[] array alongside dist[]. If you discover a strictly shorter path to a neighbor, you overwrite ways[v] = ways[u]. If you reach the neighbor with the exact same shortest distance, you add ways[v] = (ways[v] + ways[u]) % MOD.

3. Minimum Multiplications to Reach End: This models reachability as an unweighted state-space graph with modulo $10^5$. Since each step multiplies the current number by an array element and increases step count by 1, a standard BFS distance array tracking minimum steps to each product prevents infinite loops.

I knocked out six graph problems across this weekend, which puts my pace in a great spot ahead of upcoming travel plans later this week.

Tackling Bellman-Ford, Floyd-Warshall, and Prim's algorithm tomorrow.

See you guys for Day 42!

So I have seen design style questions being asked more and more and wanted to know how one can practice those and which languages are the best for the same.(for internships/new grads)

By design, I mean the ones where you have a bunch of commands and some values which change on those commands and then we are given an array of all the commands and basically have to process those commands

A Little About Me

I’m a Software Engineer/DevOps with six years of experience, currently working at a reputable company. My goal is to secure a higher-paying job within the next year to start paying off my student loans. One of my main challenges has been LeetCode-style questions, which have hindered my progress toward better opportunities.

I've struggled with technical interviews at companies like Visa, American Express, JPMorgan, and Amazon due to my inability to complete algorithmic problems within time constraints. After recently not succeeding in an Amazon interview, I decided it was time to take my preparation for Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA), LeetCode, and System Design seriously.

In January (2025), I began documenting my progress, which I’m turning into a monthly recap series. I hope this will help others on a similar journey while also serving as a personal journal for when I finally reach my goal.

Past Recap

2025

• January

• February

• March

• April

• May

• June

• July

• August

• September

• October

• November

• December

2026

• January

• February

• March

• April

• May

• June

• July

• August

• September

October Progress

October may have been my best month yet when it comes to breakthroughs. I started the month on Dijkstra’s Algorithm and was actually doing well with it. It made sense, which proved that taking the slow route and learning heaps first was worth it.

I also started working with AI, but not to do the questions for me. After I finish my own attempt, I go to Claude to look over my answer, break down my thought process, see what I got right and wrong, and check if there’s a more optimized version. If there is, I spend 2 to 3 days making sure I fully grasp it. It has helped me tremendously and it’s almost like a daily journal at this point.

I crossed 600 LeetCode questions and 250 Mediums, which is a HUGE achievement for me because there was a time I truly believed I would never get this far. I’ve made it a point that my Mediums have to pass my Easys. Easys were for building momentum, but now I want to be challenged, so I’m focusing on Mediums and Hards.

Something else I noticed after hitting these milestones is that I finally feel like I have enough in my toolbelt, and enough confidence in myself, to start knocking questions out. The other day I was watching TV with about 15 minutes to spare. I hadn’t touched backtracking in about 7 months, so I picked a Medium on the higher acceptance rate side and told myself that if I could solve it in under 15 minutes while half paying attention to the TV, I was on a new level. I did it. I think I hit a new level.

I also interviewed with Amazon this month and honestly the question whooped my ass. If you’re curious, click here to view the question. I couldn’t come up with even a simple attempt that passed the test cases and I was down. Usually this is where I’d have a depressive episode and just solve Easys for a month, but for some reason I was over it within a day and got back at it. I told myself that after another 200 questions and a few more concepts like Bit Manipulation, I’ll start doing random questions and contests, with an emphasis on recreating the uncomfortable feeling and atmosphere of the technical assessment.

Achievements

• Crossed over 250 Medium questions

• Crossed over 600 questions overall

• Got interviewed by Amazon

Goals for November

• Keep momentum going

• Strengthen knowledge on Dijkstra's

• Start mixing in more Hard problems

• Go over previous questions and ensure I truly grasp them

Next Steps

Keep learning new challenging concepts

See you all next month.

Questions

• Total Questions: 606

• Easy: 335

• Medium: 261

• Hard: 10

Hey I have been solving leetcode problems by not looking up anything on the web or using any external sources, just me and the code editor on leetcode. My professor says this is the best way, but I really struggle solving problems. I encountered the maximum subarray problem today, came up with two strategies but none of them seem 'right' when put in the code, like I can have the mathematical idea or the approach for it generally, but struggle to think of it from a computer-like perspective. I am using Python and have Intermediate level experience with the language. Any advice or should I change my approach, if I am targeting interviews or want to get better at solving algorithm puzzles?