Round 1: Phone Screening
Questions:
- Two DSA medium questions: one heap-based and one using two pointers.
Candidate's Approach
Feedback was positive.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Round 2: Onsite DSA 1
Questions:
- Min-Max Stack and a hard tree-based question. Discussion focused on the choice of data structures under various circumstances.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate discussed the approach but was unable to provide a foolproof solution covering all cases.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Round 3: Onsite DSA 2
Questions:
- Ninja Training (Dynamic Programming) problem, followed by a problem on normal subsequence sum. The interviewer asked the candidate to write the recurrence relation and repeatedly inquired about how the recursion would work.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate initially explained how the recurrence would function but got confused when the interviewer repeated the question. They attempted to rephrase their answer, but the interviewer seemed frustrated. The candidate then drew the entire recursion tree and discussed intermediate states, which seemed to satisfy the interviewer.
Interviewer's Feedback
The interviewer expressed frustration, stating, "You don’t know anything about how backtracking works."
Round 4: Technical Communication Round
Questions:
- The candidate explained a complex business context and how it was being solved technically.
Candidate's Approach
This round went well.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Round 5: Design Round
Questions:
- Asked to design a real-time analytics board.
Candidate's Approach
This round went well.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Round 6: Hiring Manager Round
Questions:
- Usual round.
Candidate's Approach
This round went well.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Overall Verdict
- Below average performance overall.
- Positive (hire) feedback in the last three rounds.
- Positive enough (soft hire) in DSA 1.
- STRONG-NO-HIRE in DSA 2.
- Final decision: Reject.
The candidate plans to improve by learning to draw backtracking trees and related concepts.