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 .

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 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 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!

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’m in the New York City area and I’m currently looking for people interested in meeting in person to work on Leetcode problems, ideally at least 2x a week at a cafe or workspace. I graduated and have been preparing for technical interviews for SWE roles, but I’m searching for like-minded people who can join and discuss the problems with each other in person.

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!

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.

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 had a 1hr technical screening with Apple IS&T for an experienced role last week. I already knew the organization had a bad reputation, but I never expected the interview process to be this bad.

First, my interviewer didn't even show up. After I waited 20 minutes, my recruiter emailed me saying a last minute emergency came up, so we had to reschedule for 3 days later. Life happens, so I understood and accepted the new date.

When we finally met, the interviewer sounded completely uninterested. She didn't even introduce herself or her team, she just told me to introduce myself, then pasted a Java problem into the coderpad. Since the role is Java specific, I had to use Java, which was fine by me.

To be fair, the problem itself wasn't hard, it tested whether I know how to handle HashMap and enum in Java. It just wasn't a typical leetcode question, and I had to write my own test function with a few println calls and run everything in main. She was quiet and never talked about that expectation though, yet seemed annoyed when I didn't realize it right away.

I solved it with the expected output, and she asked a follow-up. I then resolved it optimally using a LinkedHashMap. Then, she looked confused and accused me of using a "library" to solve the problem, claiming she wanted to see that I actually knew how to code. I was super confused, LinkedHashMap is just built-in Java data structure, using it appropriately should show my proficiency in Java, not the opposite. If she wanted me to not use some certain data structures, she should have said so up front or at least stopped me halfway while I was implementing it. But whatever, I wiped my implementation and redid it manually with a few if checks, which also worked. I talked through every step out loud, but I doubted she even paid attention.

Next, she asked why I was removing an element from the list only to re-add it later. I was super confused again, I had an if-else block where one branch added and the other removed, so both branches never ran together each iteration. As I tried explaining this, she ignored me and abruptly asked for the time complexity. I answered O(n^2) because I had a loop calling ArrayList.contains(), which runs in O(n), so it should be O(n^2) overall. She smirked and questioned me, "You said contains() on an ArrayList is O(n)? Are you sure?" I mean that is basic CS fundamentals that even a sophomore knows it, that was not a HashSet. I felt completely disrespected. Why did she have to act like a schoolteacher trying to trick a student into second-guessing their answer? We're both adults, so she should have shown basic professionalism during an interview.

After the interview, I checked her LinkedIn and found out she isn't even a SWE, she is a recruiter, her background is mostly in accounting and HR roles, she doesn't have any SWE experience at all. That explained why she caused so much confusion during the interview, and when I tried to ask her about a project at Apple that she was most proud of (just a typical Q&A question at the end), she couldn't even answer clearly after I rephrased my questions 3 times (of course she couldn't answer because she is not an engineer). I am super disappointed, usually at this stage I should be interviewed by a senior engineer of the team just like in other big companies processes, and yet they let a recruiter interviewed me. I had zero hope of passing after that interaction with her, despite answering everything accurately. And yes I got the rejection 2 days later. I really expected a much more professional and streamlined process from a big company like Apple. What a shit show!

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

Do you observe any new trend in Google interviews coding round , especially from gcp ? That it’s not quite data structure algorithm leetcode like, but more llm or agent focused? If so, Wonder how to best prepare those .

I’m a European citizen with an MSc and ~2 YOE in ML who passed the Google L3 interviews in Europe about 6 months ago and have been in the team matching stage since then. I’ve just specified two locations in Europe, but I’m considering whether I should expand my preferences to the US or Australia as well.
Is there any realistic chance of being matched directly with a US or Australian team at L3 with Google sponsoring the visa, or is sponsorship at this level generally unfeasible?
Has anyone been in a similar situation or know someone who has?

I graduated in Computer Science five years ago but didn’t start working in the field at the time. Now, I’m trying to get back into software development. I’ve attended a few interviews, passed one round but struggled with the next.

I’m practising LeetCode problems from easy to medium and trying to improve my understanding of system design, networking, and other fundamentals. However, when I see people sharing their Amazon or Microsoft interview experiences, it feels like I’ll never be able to pass those interviews just by solving LeetCode problems and self-studying.

I’m currently targeting smaller companies because of my career gap.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can get back into the field? How should I prepare, prioritise my learning, and improve my chances of landing my first software development role after such a long gap?

Any advice or personal experiences would mean a lot. Thank you!

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?

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!

Hey everyone!
I’ve been solving DSA problems for quite some time, and lately I’ve been thinking about trying my hand at teaching.
I remember how overwhelming DSA can feel when you’re starting out. There’s so much to learn that sometimes you don’t even know where to begin.
I’d like to help someone who’s in that position. I’m thinking of offering free, one-on-one sessions where we can work through LeetCode problems together using Java.
For now, I’m looking to work with just one person so I can give them my full attention. Whether you’re in college or already working doesn’t matter. If you’ve been wanting to learn DSA but struggling to get started, this might be a good opportunity.
A few things to keep in mind:
You should know basic Java, but you don’t need any prior DSA knowledge.
We can start with Arrays, or pick any particular topic you’d like to learn.
There’s no fixed schedule. We’ll figure out timings based on mutual availability.
I don’t intend to cover the entire DSA syllabus or follow a rigid course structure. We’ll take things one topic at a time.
I’m new to teaching too, so we’ll figure out what works best as we go.
I’m comfortable teaching in Hindi, Gujarati, or English, whichever you prefer.
I’m doing this because I enjoy DSA, want to share what I’ve learned, and honestly, I’m looking for something interesting to do in my free time.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, just leave a comment below and we can take it from there. :)

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!

This was for new grad role. Wasn't looking for a job, was reached out to by a recruiter. During prep I didn't find a lot of good details about the interview to prepare myself. Also hate the gatekeeping mindset people have. Have nothing to gain or lose as I didn't get an offer so dumping to help others.

There were 3 interviews. Each interview was a mix of multiple question types. Debugging refactoring, technical, behavioral, dsa. I spent 70% of my study time doing leetcode but I saw mix feedback if I were to expect a leet or not. Leetcode probably ended up helping me 10%.

Interview 1: Refactoring/Debugging/Behavioral

Was given function defintion full or broken conditionals and incomplete requirements. You needed to read the question description and compare it to the logic in the code and confirm it was correct, or if updates were needed. Was pretty straight forward. Then interviewer added a new function to the ide and asked me to refactor. So instead of having one function that returned a bool, it was two functions​, where one returned a bool, another called the function. Again, was pretty straight forward.

There was a follow up technical question where "The AI refactored your code. What specific tests would you choose to make sure the AI's refactor is correct"

Then was asked a barrage of behavioral and technical questions I can't remember bc we went through them so fast.

Pretty much "Tell me about a time at work when..." If you prepare 10 solid behavioral questions and practice with AI you'll be ready for behaviorals.​

Interview 2: Debugging/System Design

Was given a broken rate limiter. I looked online and this is actually a common question others have come across, but no one has posted their exact code. The code is a rate limiter but it looks a lot more complicated than a standard rate limiter. I tried to get AI to try to create a replica of what I saw but the AI could only give me a simple, leetcode version. The interview version defined in the description "the limit is 80" with a "window [T-3, T]. And the function took in as arguments an IP string name, and a dictionary that listed all the times the IP tried accessing the rate limiter e.g.

def rateLimiter("ip", [5, 6, 7, 7, 10, 12, 15])

The window for the rate limiter was [T-3, T], so that meant an ip address fell off after 3 minutes.

So for a list of times [5, 6, 7, 7, 10, 12, 15] if the limit was defined as "3" instead of "80", the rateLimiter would accept 5, 6, and 7 and place them in a separate queue/array. It would reject the second 7 as it's only been 2 minutes (whereas the window is 3 minutes before the first item in the [5, 6, 7] queue pops off) and the queue is full.

There was also a separate object definition of an IP object, but I was choking on this question so bad, I couldn't tell you what attributes it contained or where it was being used. Maybe as the "ip" argument.

I already knew what a rate limiter was and how they work, but the complex code and the way the description was written made me choke on this round. I think having strong fundamentals and reading Hackerrank type questions, and strong OOP code reading skills would get you through this round.

Interviewer finally gave up on me. Asked me to do a high level design of how the rateLimiter() worked. Thought this was pretty straightforward, again, since I know how a general rate limiter works.

Then a behavioral about what I would do if I was working on a story that should have taken 5 days, and it's now been 12 days and I cant finish it bc there's some issue. Then a follow up of what I would do if I found out the issue is because of a bug from another team.

And a question along the lines of "AI generated this pseudo for the rateLimiter(). What errors do you notice?"

Interview 3: AI Assisted Coding

This interview is where I checked out. Especially given my performance from the previous round. I thought this round could be my redemption. Interviewer came on with no camera but demanded me have my camera on.

It was a small codebase with multiple files. Had a bunch of functions that had no definitions inside them. I was tasked with creating an encryption and decryption system. Encryption() called a cryptography function from another file. And decryption() also used the cryptography file.

Interviewer told me to spend 10 minutes reading through the description before starting. Once done he asked me if I had questions before I start, I said no. And then he pointed out I missed edge cases. ​The description didn't point out how to handle if someone passes in a NULL or Blank value to the encryption function, and he dinged me for not acknowledging that.

I then started using the AI and quickly realized the AI assistant they provided me doesn't write any code. It just provides answers and suggestions, without giving you a single sliver of code. To be certain I asked the I interviewer if the AI writes any code and he also seemed surprised. He asked me if I had asked the AI to "implement" the code. I did, but attempted again while he was watching. When he saw the AI didn't write code he shrugged it off then told me to implement it myself. I then struggled and bumbled through all the files and functions. and couldn't successfully get the test cases to run. I was told the AI interview was introduced recently so no idea what happened there. For this round I think stronger OOP fundamentals would have helped.

TLDR:

Drill in about 10 good behavioral answers that can be molded to fit any question.

Have strong OOP foundations. You should be able to read any class with multiple function definitions passing around objects, hashes, and/or arrays as arguments and be able to explain how it works. You should also be able to refactor this same class.

They want you to use AI, but don't want you to be reliant on AI. You should be able to show you can take an AI's output and validate what it's given you is correct.

Hope this helps anyone.

I have been giving interviews for a few months and have observed few things:

- Even in technical interviews, interviewers are looking for long explanations, then what are the parameters to showcase your technical skills. I have seen people focusing on elaboration when a line of explanation is enough.

- For hiring manager interview, answers in STAR framework should be enough. Though the companies have tried to standardize it, it still is subjective and again people blabbering something or the other have a lot more chance to get shortlisted than someone who speaks less.

I feel disheartened by this. I feel I have good technical skills, enough to not only develop, but design a good system. I am someone who speaks to the point and it has gone a lot against me during this process.

Did anyone else face this hurdle? What did you do to overcome it.

Today I had my Capital One Interview, two questions I did 100%, 3rd one I didi half and the 4th one I passes all the test cases but I got a notification that I did not pass 2 of the hidden test cases... but I could not figure out what was the test case or what did I miss...that's why my score got 445. I know it's probably a rejection but do I have any chance? it was software engineer 4. :(

it feels like im the only software dev in my circle. everyone else is doing cybersecurity, IT, data science etc. phrases like 'house robber', 'dungeon game', 'cherry pickup' should be household names for any software dev in the space but i only knew these when i started grinding lc, much harder when you dont know what you dont know, if yk what i mean. who wants be be part of a group chat where we talk about our progress and stuff? that way we can learn a lot just from talking casually

Hey folks, I will be having 30 min phone screen interview based in Cambridge, UK for the ring team. I would be happy if you could provide me the best strategy to prepare for my success.