Laid off out of the blue. 60 days started immediately. Emails started coming in after 8-9 days

• Applications submitted: 800+
• Offers: 6 full-time + 1 contractor role
• Rejected at recruiter screening: 2
• Rejected after onsites/full loops: 11
• Processes I withdrew from or declined: 6
• Ghosted/no final response: 5
• Role canceled/position no more available: 1

I tracked about 32 recruiting processes.

AI interviews were the worst one.

Worst coding interview round: Had a brain freeze and couldn't code popMax()

Happy to discuss prep, applications, coding vs. system design, AI-assisted interviews, handling rejection/ghosting.

I’ll keep identifying details and interviewer names private, but otherwise, AMA.

Application strategry: Linkedin past 24h portal only. Not good at asking people for help. Ex-collegaues reached out though and offered that they would refer me. Got not even a single call from the companies they referred me at. Even though last year I had interviewed with the same companies when I was looking to move. Reached out to old recruiters. Surprisingly, that didnt help much just one interview call from previous connections.

How do I really know that I'm ready to apply to FAANG level companies. I'm a backend engineer with 4+ years of experience. Started to prep hard for interviews. Leetcode, SQL, Systems Design etc.

However I am not sure what the end of prep looks like. Any tips or suggestions would be highly appreciated 🙏

CS degree and 2YOE as SWE. I have been grinding leetcode and DSA theory for one month straight doing 30 hours every week and I *think* I have the theory of everything down, after all it was a big refresh of my algorithms course with some small additions, but I went from being able to decently solve mediums and a few hards to not even understanding how to lay down a basic BFS solution...

I feel very demotivated and I definitely think fatigue is catching up on me, but I feel like I cannot stop if I genuinely want to have a chance at it. I do think I have to change my study method though now.

I am at the point I am doing random problems to understand if I get the solution, and I easily get the brute force or a slightly optimized solution, but I then get stuck and my mind goes blank.

I think maybe I need to get better at pattern recognition but honestly I don't know if that's the issue? maybe I am missing some patterns?

How do I prep from there?

I can understand solutions when I read them, but I still struggle to identify the right approach when I open a new problem. Sometimes two questions look similar but require completely different logic.

How did you get better at recognizing which technique to use? It it mostly repetition, or is there a better way to study problems?

I've been learning DSA topic by topic, but whenever I move to something new, I feel like I'm forgetting the older concepts. I don't want to keep restarting the same topics, but I also don't want to rush ahead without retaining anything.

How do you guys balance revision with learning new things? Do you maintain notes, revisit old problems, or use some other method?

Finished my Stripe SWE interviews, Recruiter shared:

- Integration: clear yes, solved 3/3.

- AI programming: clear yes, completed all tasks with tests.

- Bug squash: weak yes. Identified the issue and explained the correct approach, but couldn’t get the implementation working within time.

HM round is also done; awaiting feedback.

Anyone received an offer or rejection with similar feedback? How much does a weak yes in bug squash matter in the final decision, and can a strong HM round help?

Would appreciate experiences from recent candidates or Stripe interviewers.

Hi, I just wanted to rant here a little bit, and seek advice on how to improve.

I recently interviewed for Google SWE PhD Intern role, which involved 2 rounds. First round went excellent (interviewer said all good things, strong hire), I completed the code/complexity/follow-up on time. 2nd round was mixed, and the recruiter asked me for an additional round.

For 3rd round, I got a DP+memoization problem, which I initially solved with DP only, but then on follow-up, correctly implemented the approach. The interviewer liked my final design and we correctly did the dry run. I checked the question later, and my solution/flow was 100% correct.

However, yesterday I got the rejection. I couldn't understand the decision, considering the 3rd round went very well. Is there something I am missing / or how should I improve my performance to make sure I avoid this?

Hey everyone,

I'm currently in my final year and preparing heavily for software engineering roles. Lately, I've been grinding LeetCode aggressively—averaging around 10 to 12 questions a day, mostly Mediums and Hards, alongside participating in weekly contests.

While the raw count looks productive on paper, I've hit a point where I'm questioning the efficacy of this approach:

1. Retention vs. Problem Solving: With this volume, I feel I might just be pattern-matching and memorizing solutions rather than deeply internalizing core concepts. Deeper problems require incubation time, and rushing through them feels counterproductive long-term.
2. Diminishing Returns: Contest ratings fluctuate, and solving under time pressure sometimes exposes gaps that high-volume practice was supposed to patch.
3. Balancing with Development: My primary career interest is backend engineering (distributed systems, APIs, database optimization). Grinding DSA all day leaves virtually zero bandwidth to build production-grade projects, contribute to open source, or explore practical engineering fundamentals.

For those who have navigated final-year placements or campus hiring successfully:

• What is a sustainable daily DSA target that optimizes retention and deep understanding over sheer volume?
• How should a final-year student distribute time between competitive programming/DSA and production-grade backend development?
• At what point does extra LeetCode provide diminishing returns compared to building complex systems?

Any perspective from folks who transitioned from intense grinding to actual interview clearance would be appreciated.

I have completed the 4 rounds, have got the mail that I have successfully completed the rounds. The recruiter had asked if I would require a visa sponsorship, I mentioned I would require it along with other details required. They mentioned that the visa process will take approx 2 months and they mentioned that they have applied for work authorization in Germany.

I am very confused about note taking and revising,

The problem is i end up making notes for all the problems i solve and its very time taking, but every problem seems new and teaching some new concepts, so what should i do? how do i revise ? and how do i take notes ?

basically , if i stuck with a problem, i watch videos / solutions and understand and i write notes.

I write the whole algorithm, code, explanation everything on my one,

but eventually, i end up writing notes for every problem since i started solving more medium problems.

i know every problems will be different and use different concept, so how should i revise ? how should i take notes?

Do i need to just keep on solving ? without notes? or should i take digital notes? or comment notes? or what..?

pls help guyss 👀

does anybody have dynamic programming leetcode questions list which are must do problems??like these problems should be the ones which you cannot skip

Two of my application moved to under consideration phase week after I gave OA. What it means ? Do I have chance of getting the interview?

I was able to manage two parts , but have not seen the third part because time was up are there chances of getting into next round?

Position: SWE intern

Did the Meta CodeSignal OA yesterday and got 3/4 questions with all test cases passing (I don't think my second solution was fully optimal since it was O(n log n), and I'm pretty sure an O(n) solution was possible).

The last question completely cooked me though. I thought I had the optimal solution, but it was only passing 3/10 test cases, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

Eventually, I gave up and went with a less optimal solution that passed the initial test cases. However, when I resubmitted, it hit TLE, so now I'm not even sure which submission they'll evaluate.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and still moved on? Is there hope with 3/4 solved? And does and does anyone know which solution they will look at for my last solution?

Position - US
Level - L4

I first gave 4 rounds, 1 behavioral and 3 coding, first 2 rounds virtual and next 2 rounds in person.

After that I got the feedback, there are certain data points missing and I would need additional 2 coding rounds to decide, all virtual.

During this the first recruiter that was assigned, introduced me to the 2nd recruiter and told that they will be taking care of my application from here on.

I gave additional 2 coding rounds, and have been waiting for the feedback, round happened 10 days before, and yesterday I received the email from my current recruiter and there is a new recruiter who will taking care of my application from now on.

All these recruiters have their email ending with @xwf.google.com.

Has anyone experienced the same thing?

Hey everyone,

I finished Day 52 today. I managed to knock out four graph problems, but mentally it was a bit of a tug-of-war. Opening platforms like LinkedIn and seeing peers land great roles sparked the familiar doubt about whether this prep will truly pay off. Instead of spiraling, I got my problems in and chose to step away to reset my head for the weekend.

Here is what I worked through today:

1. Cycle Detection in a Directed Graph: Unlike undirected graphs where parent tracking works, directed graphs require tracking nodes in the current recursion call stack (pathVisited). If a neighbor is both visited and currently in the path stack, a cycle exists.
2. 0/1 Matrix: Classic multi-source BFS. You initialize the queue with all cells containing 0 at distance 0 and radiate outwards to calculate the shortest distance to every 1.
3. Surrounded Regions: The boundary-traversal pattern. Instead of traversing from the inside, you run DFS/BFS from the 'O's on the border to mark non-flippable cells, then flip all remaining unvisited 'O's to 'X'.
4. Number of Enclaves: Reused the exact same boundary DFS logic as Surrounded Regions. Any land cell connected to the boundary is visited first, and you simply count the remaining isolated land cells.

I started looking at Word Ladder I toward the end of the session. My initial thought was exploring all paths to check reachability, but generating paths recursively gets messy. Since it asks for the shortest transformation sequence in an unweighted graph, it boils down to standard BFS where you transform words one character at a time using a set for O(1) lookups.

Rather than rushing it while tired on a Friday night, I paused so I can implement it cleanly tomorrow.

See you guys tomorrow for Day 51!

Has anybody done their proc? Need some insight on their technical interviews 🙏

See i have been learning dsa since a year it took me months to choose the language after which i started completing you tube playlist . started doing leetcode's question 3 months ago i m not consistent and have done only 35 questions.

Right now whenever i see a question i am able to build logically what the solution will be but it always end up having some syntax error or null pointer exception what should i do to rectify my mistake and increase no of questions solved.

I am thinking of applyinh to a internship in 2 months or so and i want to be prepared

~2.5yoe as a Software Engineer 2 at Big Tech (starts with Ora*).

I want guidance on preparing for an interview at Google.

I used to do Competitive Programming in my college days when it was actually a thing so had worked on my problem solving skills (and DSA).

Currently, I find myself confused between starting with HLD/LLD or refresh my DSA skills.

What is expected from a candidate like me at this level ?

At this point I find myself at a crossroads as if I'd be able to get a new job or shall focus on my current one.

How is the hiring currently at Google, is it still achievable ?

Got my Google SWE intern interview in a couple weeks. What DSA topics come up the most? Trying to figure out what to prioritize with the time I have. Any must-do problems or patterns would help, thanks 🙏

Anyone gave amazon OA and had codebase question with ai assistance? If yes, how it was? Someone used the C++ option?

My profile got shortlisted for uber swe II and I got a hackerrank online assessment and I did pass both the questions with all the test cases, I’m just waiting for recruiter to reach out

Anybody know what the interview is like?

Anybody did new Google iOS interview format?

It says there will be 2 rounds:

1. iOS + DSA
2. Behavioral

Can somebody tell me what can be asked in "iOS + DSA" round? Will it be same as traditional Google DSA rounds or they will ask you to build an iOS app?

Hi all,

I recently passed the assessment stage for a Software Engineer role at Canonical focused on distributed systems with Python/Go. I’m now moving into the early-stage interviews

So far, I know one of them is a Python deep dive, and I’m guessing another will be a Linux-focused round.

If you’ve gone through this a similar interview loop at Canonical recently, I’d really appreciate any insight on:

1. **Python deep dive:** How deep does it go? Language internals (GIL, memory model, asyncio), design and architecture discussion, or live coding?

2. **Linux round:** What topics came up? Processes and signals, filesystems, networking, debugging tools, containers?

3. **Third interview:** What was it in your case?

4. **Written interview follow-ups:** Did interviewers dig into your written answers?

5. **Location:** Did anyone apply through a region-specific listing (e.g. MENA) while living in another country? Was that an issue later?

6. Anything you wish you’d prepared for but didn’t.

Thanks in advance, any experience helps!