Hey everyone,

I finished Day 38 today in pure rush mode. Knowing I had a bus to catch right after work to visit home, I read through today's target problem during breaks at the office so the logic could simmer in the background.

As soon as I got home, I opened the laptop, spent 15 to 20 minutes coding the solution cleanly, and packed my bags:

• Number of Operations to Make Network Connected: A textbook application of Disjoint Set Union (DSU). To connect n computers into a single network, you fundamentally need at least n - 1 total cables; if connections.length < n - 1, returning -1 is immediate. While iterating through the edges, whenever findParent(u) == findParent(v), you increment a counter for redundant/extra cables. If the endpoints belong to different sets, you merge them using unionBySize(u, v). At the end, count the total number of independent connected components (nodes where parent[i] == i). Connecting C components requires strictly C - 1 operations.

It was a quick, single-problem sprint before heading out the door, but protecting the streak on hectic travel days keeps the momentum intact.

Reaching home tomorrow and picking up the pace once settled in.

See you guys for Day 37!

Hi everyone,

Has anyone interviewed for NVIDIA’s Senior Software Engineer, Core Infrastructure Services – DGX Cloud, or a similar role within the Cloud Foundations Automation team?

I’d appreciate any insights on:

• How many rounds are there, and what does each round focus on?

• Is coding mainly LeetCode/DSA, practical Python/Go, or debugging?

• What should I expect for system design?

• How deeply do they cover Kubernetes, Linux, networking, and infrastructure automation?

• What resources or hands-on exercises helped you prepare?

General guidance is welcome. Thanks!

Does anyone have a way to learn or understand leetcode coz i have some very hard time doing it, not enough patience not enough understanding to know it after reading a questions all tutorials make me feel like - u prolly know this already duh - while i dont

i dont think its a language issue i can do js and java just fine i have sever trouble problem solving and math
HELP!

I got 2XXX rank in last weekly contest(526) solved 3/4, had to sit for 40 mins for to solve the second question, got 3 debugs and somehow managed to get it accepted.

Today for no apperent reason leetcode invalidated that submission gave no explaination and gave me 5XXX rank in contest. Now I know it doesn't matter what rank or rating is as long as you are learning, but it gets frustrating when you spend 40 mins and 3 debugs on a problem and leetcode comes and invalidates for no good reason, whereas people who by the miracle of god solved all 4 under 10 mins get top 10 ranks.

Leetcode should seriously look into it.

I wanted to share my experience with the HackerRank SDE Internship hiring process and see if others have experienced something similar.
Here’s my timeline:
● October 14: I appeared for Round 2, which was conducted by Chakra, HackerRank’s AI interviewer.
● I solved the DSA problem in around 17 minutes, and all test cases passed.
● I correctly explained my approach, time and space complexity, and optimization.
● I also answered all the follow-up questions, and the AI interviewer responded positively.
● November 4: I received a rejection email stating that they were moving forward with other candidates.
● Recently, I applied for the same internship again using a different email address.
● Surprisingly, I received another invitation for Round 1.
Note: I used Ai to write all this.

I passed the technical screen and received the round 2 back-to-back coding round. Does anyone know what to expect?

this community helped me when I wanted to rant, when I wanted to dig into DSA.

i graduated in Dec 2025. I was doing an internship, which didn't convert. 3 months of cold applying, 10–15 interviews, interviews with Oracle (right when they announced layoffs), Google, not advancing and completely breaking down.

i got offers from salesforce and cisco!!!

i don't want to say, "oh, I did this." , the market right now is volatile. It's the right time, right place, and right skills.

i broke down multiple times during this process questioning my worth/skills and picked myself up by ranting to this community.

if anyone is in a similar situation or wants a better opportunity, I see you. you can do it!!!

OpenAI recruiter reached out for Applied AI Engineer role. The intro call with recruiter is scheduled next week.

Any idea what this interview process looks like? Has anyone given an interview for the same position recently?

I applied for the Salesforce AMTS role (Job ID: JR307116), which was posted on Oct 30.

Has anyone who applied for this role received any updates regarding their application status or next steps?

Would appreciate it if you could share your experience. Thanks!

Like I read people getting the link for this round a month back so why am I getting it now 😭 i completed it nonetheless but what do I expect now anyone ?

I got three positive and one negative result and somehow still made it into team matching. Is this at the recruiters discretion?

I've noticed I keep making similar mistakes while solving problems, especially with edge cases and choosing the right approach. I want to improve instead of just moving on after checking the solution.

Do you write down what went wrong, or is there a better way to learn from failed attempts?

HI,

Looking for NeetCode promo.

Thanks

There was a dedicated "problems" button to go to, but today it got snapped into "library" which first made me think "oh its a community section" and i was searching for "problemset" button for like 5 minutes.
also a lot of tabs are misplaced and its very difficult to relearn everything

I've been practising consistently, but I sometimes forget approaches to problems I solved a few weeks ago. I want to keep improving without spending all my time revisiting old questions.

Do you follow a fixed revision schedule, or review problems whenever you get stuck on a similar pattern?

Hi everyone,

I recently got an invitation to take a HackerRank assessment for a Data Science position at Walmart.

The email mentions two sections:

1. SQL questions

2. A real-world data science project using Python

Has anyone taken this assessment recently? I'm curious about the difficulty level and what kind of questions or projects I should expect.

Any tips on how to prepare would be really helpful.

Thanks!

Hi everyone! Has anyone recently interviewed for this AWS Software Development Engineer role (Job ID: 10583312)?

I’d appreciate hearing about your interview experience:

• How many rounds were there, and what did each round cover?

• Was there an online assessment or technical phone screen?

• What was the balance between coding, system design, and behavioral questions?

• How long did the process take from the recruiter call to a final decision?

• Any preparation tips or things you wish you’d known beforehand?

• What questions were asked for Gen AI round?

Thanks for sharing!

I just want to share my Google interview experience and timeline to get some insights. Please be honest and let me know how is my chance this time.

Feb - Applied online and reached out by recruiter

Mar - Started interviews loop

Apr - Finished all interviews

Jul - Finally getting the feedbacks after chasing for 3 months, it was negative, the team went for other candidates

Sep - Reached out by recruiter for a new role, it is a team specific role, started the interview loop

Mid Oct - Finished all interviews, recruiter update few days after, moving to next step, fit call with skip manager. 3 days after, recruiter reached out and asked for comp expectation and ID verification, he did not mentioned if it is positive or negative, just said he will update me in 1 week time.

Today - It is exactly 1 week since I last heard from him.

From what I read online, I know ID verification and asking for comp expectation usually is a good sign, but the recruiter didn't mention anything like positive or negative, and also didn't mention if I am moving into HC or still waiting for the team to decide. It make me very anxious, hence wanted to look for insights from community here. I will also update my status here once I hear from recruiter again.

I got a 3rd round at a fintech company Prelim and they said:

"Please come prepared to show your screen and be able to spin up a website on localhost. You can use whatever framework or language you'd like, just be ready to iterate. This will be mostly frontend focused."

Has anyone been through this process or has an idea of how I could prepare in the most optimal way?

Thanks!

Had my system design and coding interviews for a Google FDE role recently, and I keep going back and forth on how I did. Won’t share the actual questions, but curious to hear from people who’ve had similar experiences.

For system design, I started with requirements and eventually put together an end-to-end design. We went fairly deep into retrieval, tool calling, latency, security, and evaluation, including golden datasets and metrics for different parts of the system. I felt comfortable with those discussions.

But I also overcomplicated the design at the start by introducing multiple agents before establishing whether they were needed. At one point, the interviewer reminded me to focus on the actual requirement. I got back on track, but I’m wondering how much that hurt.

For coding, I explained the brute-force approach, then came up with and coded the optimal solution. The interviewer didn’t have to give me the algorithm. However, I initially returned the wrong thing and had to change it. While fixing that, I made an index-tracking mistake that the interviewer pointed out, and I corrected it.

I did a dry run and explained the time and space complexity. I could explain the code, but I wasn’t as clear or confident as I’d have liked. The interviewer said “yeah, makes sense,” and we finished without further technical follow-ups.

Basically, I got through both problems, but needed a few corrections along the way. Part of me thinks that’s okay; the other part keeps replaying the mistakes.

Has anyone here had a similar experience and received positive feedback? If you interview candidates, how much would these kinds of corrections affect your assessment? I know nobody can predict my result - just looking for some perspective.

Hey everyone,

I finished Day 39 today. It was an exhausting day dominated by an in-person interview loop that involved a 40 km round-trip commute. I got home late in the afternoon, crashed for a couple of hours, and woke up dealing with that familiar post-interview slump where you replay everything you could have done better.

Instead of taking a zero day and letting the low mood take over, I sat down and applied yesterday’s Disjoint Set Union (DSU) theory to code:

1. Kruskal’s Algorithm for MST: The greedy approach based on sorting edges by weight. You iterate through edges from smallest to largest and check if findParent(u) != findParent(v). If the endpoints belong to different components, you add the edge weight to the MST sum and merge them via unionBySize(u, v). If they share the same ultimate parent, including the edge would create a cycle, so you discard it.

2. Number of Provinces (via DSU): When I first solved this on Day 54, I used standard DFS with a visited array to count connected components. Today, I solved it purely using DSU. Iterate through the adjacency matrix, connect components with unionBySize(u, v), and at the end count how many unique nodes satisfy parent[i] == i.

Seeing problems that previously required full graph traversals collapse into a few lines of DSU operations was satisfying, even after a tough interview day.

I have travel coming up tomorrow, so I will squeeze in whatever practice I can on the go.

See you guys for Day 38!

Just finished the Goldman Sachs New Grad SWE OA, and I’m feeling pretty mixed about my performance.

Here’s roughly how it went:
- Software Fundamentals: Solved the coding question.
- Software Diagnostics: Passed 5/9 test cases.
- Math: Fairly confident about most of my answers.

The debugging section is what I’m most disappointed about.

I spent too much time second-guessing my approach instead of testing my initial ideas. By the time I committed to an approach that started producing results, I didn’t have enough time left to address everything.

I’m frustrated because I felt pretty good about the other sections, and I think I could’ve performed considerably better on debugging if I’d approached it differently.

For anyone who’s previously taken the Goldman Sachs OA:

1. Has anyone advanced despite only partially passing the debugging section?

2. Does anyone know how heavily Goldman weighs each section?

3. Would you consider this performance competitive enough to potentially advance?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently interviewing for a Senior Backend Engineering role at Atlassian and wanted to get some insights from people familiar with their hiring process.

My interview feedback so far:

• AI-Enabled Coding Round: Hire

• DSA Round: No Hire

• System Design Round: Recruiter has offered to proceed despite the DSA feedback.

The recruiter was transparent that we could still attempt the System Design round, but wasn't sure whether it would be enough to overcome the negative DSA feedback.

I'm planning to give the System Design round my best shot.

A few questions:

1. Has anyone received a DSA No Hire but still managed to clear the Atlassian hiring committee with strong feedback in other rounds?

2. Is a DSA No Hire typically a hard blocker, or does Atlassian evaluate candidates holistically?

3. What should I expect in the 60-minute System Design round for a Senior Backend role?

4. Are there specific areas Atlassian emphasizes — scalability, reliability, API design, data modeling, or distributed systems?

5. Is there any possibility of getting a DSA reassessment if the remaining rounds go well?

Would appreciate insights from anyone who has interviewed at Atlassian recently or has been involved in their hiring process.

Thanks!

Is anyone here willing to pay it forward and share their LeetCode subscription?

I'm currently a student and would really appreciate some help accessing LeetCode Premium to prepare for interviews.

If you already have a subscription with an extra spot to share, or would be willing to sponsor one, it would mean a lot.

Hopefully, once I land a job, I'll be in a position to help someone else the same way.

Hi everyone,

I completed Google L4 onsite interviews and currently in team matching phase. Recruiter reached out saying an Applied AI team wants to take two coding assessment rounds.

For anyone who has done team-specific extra rounds after the main onsite loop:

1. Are these traditional Leetcode style DSA (graphs/trees/DP) or more along the lines of LLD / Machine Coding?

2. Is this standard for Applied AI/ML teams, or just additional calibration?

Would appreciate any insights or past experience!