Panda Guru LogoPanda
Guru

Coupang L6 - Staff Software Engineer | Phone Screen + Full Loop

Round 1: Phone Screen

Questions: Specific question not provided.

Follow-up Question

Candidate's Approach

No approach provided.

Interviewer's Feedback

No feedback provided.


Round 2: Full Loop

Questions:

  1. System / Product Design:

    • Design one of my projects from resume.
    • Design Search Ranking.
  2. Coding Design:

    • Movie Ticket:
      • Requirements:
        1. Don't store the data in DB, but store it in memory. You only have 1 machine.
        2. Code GET Search and POST Book Ticket.
        3. How do you handle race conditions?
  3. Coding Algo:

    • Split Strings (Easy):

      • Similar to this https://leetcode.com/problems/split-strings-by-separator/ but simpler.
      • Requirements:
        • Get word(s) from a given string after you split it by space.
        • Input: "Aa12$. gg b c" → Output: ["Aa12$.", "gg", "b", "c"]
        • Input: "x" → Output: ["x"]
        • Input: "" → Output: []
    • LFU Cache (Hard):

      • Exactly the same as this https://leetcode.com/problems/lfu-cache/description/.
Candidate's Approach
  • For system design, I designed based on my involvement in the project and utilized knowledge from the search and recommendation team for the Search Ranking design.
  • For coding design, I treated it as a coding algorithm problem and managed to finish on time with pseudocode.
  • For coding algo, I solved the Split Strings problem quickly and addressed the LFU Cache problem despite time constraints and unnecessary debates.
Interviewer's Feedback

Strong in tech, with minor improvement in leadership.


Round 3: Leadership

Questions: Specific question not provided.

Follow-up Question

Candidate's Approach

No approach provided.

Interviewer's Feedback

No feedback provided.


Result

Rejected, no feedback. Either something went wrong with the last round or someone just better.