Interview experiences

Waymo Software Engineer in Mountain View: two robot grid problems, a Street View style infrastructure design and Expressive Words

Two grid/robot problems, an infra-flavoured Street View design, an Expressive Words variant, then team matching. No exact LeetCode for the grids.

Confluent Staff Engineer: Time Based Key-Value Store screen, Metrics Monitoring design and two tough coding rounds

Time-based KV store on the screen, then 4 onsite rounds incl. metrics monitoring design and a nasty function signature matcher. Offer.

By Kenji Santos

Stripe Senior Fullstack in NYC: notification system LLD, a three-part REST API and map task, debugging and a React filter

Fullstack loop in NYC: notification system LLD, a 3-part REST API + map task, a debugging round, a React exercise, then hiring manager. Offer.

AMD Mid-level Engineer: Memory Allocator LLD, WhatsApp design and two DP questions

Memory allocator LLD, design WhatsApp, then two DP questions with the hiring manager. Glassdoor was right about the DP. Declined on comp.

OpenAI Senior Engineer in San Francisco: Decode String, a GitHub Actions system design and Stream Parsing and Sliding Windows

Decode String live, design GitHub Actions (queue fairness, noisy neighbours), then two coding rounds + behavioural. Accepted. Grind and you can do it.

Capital One Software Engineer: CodeSignal OA, recruiter screen and a four-round Power Day

CodeSignal OA (4 questions), recruiter screen, then a Power Day with system design, a business case with CSVs and a 3-step OOP problem.

Wise Senior Engineer: Merge Intervals OA, circuit breaker pairing and a payment gateway with distributed transactions

Merge Intervals OA, pair programming on a circuit breaker, payment gateway design that goes deep on distributed transactions. Accepted.

By Daniel Khan

Arm New Grad: OS concepts screen, then Reverse Bits, a Rate Limiter design and caching questions

New grad, 3 stages in 3 weeks. OS questions, then Reverse Bits + rate limiter design + caching. Offer the next day. Prep OS and caching.

Tesla Software Engineer: Codility OA, a React infinite scroll screen, an onsite with Trapping Rain Water, an OTA fleet update LLD and a telemetry pipeline, then Evidence of Excellence

Codility OA, React infinite scroll screen, 4-round onsite (Trapping Rain Water, OTA update LLD, telemetry HLD), then the Evidence of Excellence write-up.

Anthropic Staff Engineer: Word Break II, a message ingestion pairing round, a Distributed Task Scheduler design, then a rejection after the hiring manager round

Word Break II, a brutal pairing round on message ingestion, task scheduler design, then hiring manager. Rejected. Have a view on AI safety.