Online Assessment
Questions:
- Two questions (Medium-Hard)
- First question: Based on string and hashing (exact details not remembered, but all test cases passed).
- Second question: Hard question based on sliding window algorithm (10/11 test cases passed, 11th got TLE, couldn't optimize).
Candidate's Approach
No approach provided.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Telephonic Round
Questions:
- Discussion over system design of TinyURL.
Candidate's Approach
No approach provided.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Round 1: Coding
Questions:
- Leadership principles.
- Serialize and Deserialize binary tree.
- Initially provided a solution with left and right subtrees in parentheses.
- Asked to remove redundant spaces in the serialized string.
- Provided a BFS algorithm with O(N) space complexity.
- Asked to optimize for space and provide a DFS algorithm, which was eventually figured out.
- Follow-up: Serialization and Deserialization of n-ary tree.
- Conducted a dry run over the previous solution logic.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate initially struggled with the serialization and deserialization problem but eventually provided the expected DFS solution after some guidance.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Round 2: Coding
Questions:
- Good grind on leadership principles.
- Count maximum area of island.
- Provided a BFS-based solution and discussed the code.
- Follow-up: Assume the grid represents a globe.
- Took time to understand the question, then made changes to the previous solution and conducted a dry run.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate provided a BFS solution for counting the maximum area of the island and adapted the solution to account for the globe representation.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Round 3: HM (System Design)
Questions:
- Good grind on leadership principles, struggled in a scenario.
- Design of Pastebin services.
- Had 25-30 minutes for design.
- Noted down requirements independently and started writing services without asking some important questions.
- Explained the end-to-end flow and components used.
- Asked for feedback on improvement.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate explained the design flow but missed asking critical questions regarding text size and capacity estimations. The interviewer noted that some aspects should have been addressed upfront.
Interviewer's Feedback
The interviewer mentioned that while the candidate's performance was acceptable for 3.5 years of experience, the role typically required someone with around 5 years of experience.
Round 4: Bar Raiser
Questions:
- This round was rescheduled; the candidate joined the wrong link initially.
- Question: Word ladder.
- Provided a BFS solution but got confused about using a priority queue and settled on a simple queue-based solution.
- Follow-up: Print all ladders of minimum length.
- Explained the approach to find the minimum length and print all paths using DFS, optimizing when the path length surpasses the minimum.
- Discussed scenarios for leadership principles.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate provided a BFS solution for the word ladder problem and outlined a DFS approach for printing all minimum-length paths.
Interviewer's Feedback
The candidate mistakenly repeated a scenario already discussed in earlier rounds, which the interviewer noted.
It has been around 4 working days without any update or communication from the recruiter. If anyone has experienced a similar interview loop, please comment on the chances of success.