Since May 2023, "Sum of Total Strength of Wizards" has been my arch nemesis question. The first two weeks I tried 53 times but could never get past a time limit error. Over the next 2 years I attempted it on and off, but never with any success.

I randomly came across this question again last week, but this time I saw the idea immediately. The idea was simple:

We need to be able to add arithmetic progressions to an array, efficiently. For instance [+3, +8, +13, +18, ...]. To do this, I used a lazy propagation arithmetic progression segment tree.

I must have learned this technique some time in between my prior attempts and now. I think it was from the "Polynomial Queries" problem on CSES which uses the same subroutine.

Being able to easily solve questions you couldn't in the past is a 10/10 feeling. Hopefully future Ishaan finds today's struggle problems easy too 😆

The last 7-8 months have been pretty exhausting, and I honestly don't know what I'm doing wrong anymore.

I graduated in 2026 and have been interviewing quite a bit. The strange part is that I rarely get rejected immediately. In many cases I make it to the final or near-final rounds, but I still end up getting rejected.

Here's a rough summary:

• IMC Trading (SWE, Chicago) – Rejected after Round 3
• Optiver (SWE) – Cleared 2 rounds
• Headlands Technologies (Research Developer, New York) – Round 2
• Akuna Capital (C++, Chicago) – Reached onsite rounds
• NK Securities (Python Developer) – Rejected after 3 rounds
• AlphaGrep (Quant research) – Round 2
• Palantir (SDE, UK) – Completed all rounds, then rejected
• Google (SWE) – Completed all 4 rounds, then rejected
• Stripe (SWE) – Completed all 5 rounds, then rejected
• Eightfold AI – Completed all 7 rounds, then rejected
• Preference Model (ML, New York) – Rejected in first round
• PT (Amsterdam) – Rejected after first round
• Theom – Completed 5 rounds, then rejected
• Canonical (Remote) – Rejected in the second-last round
• FINN (Germany) – Rejected after first round
• CE (Dubai) - Completed all 5 rounds, then rejected

There are some more interviews that I haven't listed here.

The thing that confuses me is that I seem to be good enough to consistently clear multiple technical rounds. I usually perform reasonably well in coding interviews. Yet when it comes to the final decision, I keep falling short.

I'm trying to understand what the common pattern might be.

For people who have been through something similar:

• What usually separates candidates who consistently reach final rounds from those who actually get offers?
• Is it communication?
• Luck?
• Something else that candidates often don't realize they're missing?

I'd genuinely appreciate honest feedback from people who've been in the same situation. If you've gone from "always making final rounds" to actually converting them into offers, what changed for you?

At this point, I don't just want more interviews—I want to learn how to convert these opportunities into offers. I'm fortunate to still be interviewing with a few companies and HFT firms, and I want to make sure I don't keep repeating the same mistakes.

Thanks in advance.

So I did onsite recently and want to vent frustration here or am I just bad...

With my background in Java, I transition to code in Python because it helps do Leetcode better. Yet, for both these companies, they didn't ask me to do leetcode but implement bunch of methods call and do POJO/POCO stuff, using dictionary.

What bugs me is that in one hour, we do intro, discuss stuff how to make system that is fault tolerant - I did that and the person looked satisfied. And when I moved to the coding section, it was like 20 minutes left - I had to scramble read bunch of code, deal with editor with no auto complete, recall syntax in Python, like creating http response.

If the coding round has the highest weight in the process, why the fck bother with intro and discussing anything prior?

Or am I just complaining and need to get good? In my 500 problems I have done in leetcode, I did not come across any problem where I had to deal with creating http response, marshalling, unmarshalling -- like the very mechanical part of coding, I never had to do it.

The whole process is so irritating. As I type this, I'm preparing for rainforest and doing 'Koko Eating Bananas'.

But if rainforest asks me, "can you write code to convert dictionary in JSON or create POST endpoint with no auto complete". I'm cooked.

6 yoe in a financial services - in my day job, I'm not coding in my IDE 40 hours a day....

I watched a video about caching which is 30 mins. I want to make a sheet or something which I can refer before the interviews. Have tried making a sheet in excel but that gets overwhelming after adding too many things. Any good suggestions which has helped you?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently learning Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) using Python. Today, I completed the Binary Search topic and learned:

What Binary Search is.

Why it only works on sorted arrays.

How left, right, and mid pointers work.

The iterative implementation in Python.

Time Complexity: O(log n).

Space Complexity: O(1).

I also solved LeetCode 704 (Binary Search) to reinforce the concept.

My goal is to build a strong foundation in DSA for coding interviews and internships. I'm following a structured roadmap and practicing problems regularly.

What topic should I study next after Binary Search? Any advice or recommended problems would be greatly appreciated

I had to take a few weeks off of my daily 3-4 questions to help my family with some health issues. I feel super fortunate that I live near them and can help take care of them. Did ~40 questions on sunday this week to catch up 🙃

I've been recruited by major quant firms in the past and the main roadblock for me was my low undergrad GPA. I just wanted to know if that would still be a roadblock if I could pass their intense interviews?

Hi everyone,

I recently completed my Google L4 SWE phone screens.

My recruiter shared that:

• Coding feedback was positive/Strong.
• Googleyness feedback was borderline.

Despite that, they're moving me to onsites, and the recruiter mentioned that a hiring manager is interested in my profile and wants to move quickly, so they're asking me to complete the onsite within about 3 weeks. I'm currently working full-time, so preparation time is limited.

I was wondering:

1. Has anyone received similar phone screen feedback (positive coding + borderline Googleyness) and still gone on to clear the onsite?
2. If so, did the earlier Googleyness feedback have any impact later in the process (hiring committee or team matching), or are the onsite interviews evaluated independently?
3. Since I only have about 3 weeks while working full-time, would you spend almost all of that time on DSA, or is there anything else you would prioritize for onsite preparation?

Would really appreciate hearing about your experiences. Thanks!

I need to vent because today was honestly one of the most frustrating interview experiences I've ever had.

I had an SDE Trainee interview at Godrej Capital. Reporting time was 11:30 AM, and I reached around 11:20 AM.

From there, things just went downhill.

Most candidates who came with me had their interviews finished by around 3 PM. Some were sent home after one round, some had two rounds, and a few even completed three rounds.

Meanwhile, another candidate and I just kept waiting.

Hour after hour.

No updates. No explanation. Nothing.

Finally, around 6 PM, we were called for our first interview. And here's the absurd part. It was conducted over Microsoft Teams from inside the office. From what I could tell, the interviewer also appeared to be in the same office building, though I can't confirm that for certain.

The interview itself felt completely different from what everyone else described.

Almost everyone I spoke to was asked resume-based questions, DSA, SQL, project discussions, and technical concepts.

But both of us got asked the exact same four generic questions, word for word. The interviewer didn't ask anything from our resumes. It honestly felt like he didn't even have our resumes in front of him.

It felt scripted, rushed, and more like a formality than an actual interview.

If the decision had already been made, I'd honestly have preferred they just told us instead of making us wait the entire day. Time matters. Candidates make plans around interviews.

The worst part? I had my ZS Round 3 technical assessment due by 9 PM today. Losing an entire day sitting in a waiting area added unnecessary stress to something that was already important.

I'm not even upset about getting rejected. If that happens, it happens. What disappoints me is the lack of respect for candidates' time.

Has anyone else experienced something similar with campus or off-campus hiring? Is this becoming normal, or was this just an exceptionally bad day?

Hi everyone,

I recently received an invitation for an in-person Amazon SDE interview (US), which includes a 4-hour interview loop. The recruiter mentioned that the interviews will be mostly coding-focused.

For those who've been through the process, I have a few questions:

• Is practicing Amazon-tagged LeetCode medium problems enough, or should I also spend time on hard problems?
• I assume Leadership Principles (LP) questions are mandatory. How much depth should I prepare for those?
• Should I also prepare for Low-Level Design (LLD), or is that typically not part of a coding-focused loop?

Any preparation tips, resources, or insights into what to expect would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Got this question in my OA. I answered it, but I haven't heard back yet. I'm assuming my approach is wrong. Can anyone help me understand why?

Problem:

You are given a string S consisting only of decimal digits (0–9). The string represents a non-negative integer. You may delete any number of digits from S while preserving the relative order of the remaining digits. Your task is to construct the largest possible number such that every digit appearing in the resulting number occurs an even number of times.

Test case 1: 12121
Result: 2121

Test case 2: 121212
Result: 2121

My approach:

Deleting a digit with an odd frequency more than once is not optimal, as it would decrease the length and not maximize the answer. I used a monotonic stack based approach where I check if the top of the stack is smaller than the incoming digit and has an odd frequency. If yes, I delete that digit, as it will be replaced with a larger digit and help maximize the answer.

Once I'm done with the first pass, I do one more scan to check if I missed any odd-frequency digits that have a lexicographically larger digit in front of them, and delete their rightmost occurrence.

I was able to pass the sample test cases and submitted it on the Codility platform, but I was rejected. :(
Code:

def maximise_number(number):
    stack = []
    f = Counter(number)  # Frequency counting
    for num in number:
        while stack and stack[-1] < num and f[stack[-1]] % 2 == 1:
            stack.pop()
        stack.append(num)
    res = []
    while stack:
        if f[stack[-1]] % 2 == 0:
            f[stack[-1]] -= 1
            stack.pop()
        else:
            res.append(stack.pop())
    res.revese()
    return res

Hi everyone, What are the common patterns Google is following these days for L4 interviews? What is the typical difficulty level of the coding rounds? Are interviewers mainly focusing on topics like trees, graphs, and dynamic programming, or are they also asking questions involving advanced data structures such as segment trees, Fenwick trees (BIT), and square root decomposition?

I recently had a one-on-one interview with a hiring manager. The behavioral portion went well, and then we moved into an unexpected HackerRank live-coding problem. My recruiter had told me the interview would mainly be behavioral with a few technical questions, so I was not expecting a LeetCode-style problem.

The hiring manager read the prompt while I followed along. I understood the problem and started coding, but I made one major mistake: I did not explain my approach out loud. I became locked in on solving it and worked through most of the problem silently.

We debugged the code together, and I explained the time and space complexity. She then tested my solution against multiple test cases, told me it was good, and asked whether I had anything else to add.

That was when I realized I had never clearly explained my thought process. I mentioned it to her, and she said, “It’s always best in coding interviews to explain your thought process.” I told her I had become so focused on solving the problem that I forgot to communicate what I was thinking.

The lesson I learned is that solving LeetCode problems is only part of interview preparation. You also need to practice communicating your approach while you solve them. Even when you understand the problem, explain what you are considering, why you chose your approach, and what you are checking as you write the code.

Unfortunately, two business days later, I received a rejection. I cannot say for certain that my lack of communication was the deciding factor, but it reinforced the lesson for me: solving the problem is important, but clearly communicating your thought process matters too

Been working for just over 2 years out of college, haven't been consistently prepping and not sure how to get back into the jist of things. Any advice on studying plans now some companies are doing AI-assisted interviews?

Hey everyone, I’m currently going through the Google hiring process. I'm super confused about where I actually stand right now.

Back on April 2nd, I had my initial recruiter chat. Then around May 5th, I did my first two interviews—one technical and one Googliness/leadership round. After that, it was completely radio silence for basically two months.

About three weeks ago, I emailed my recruiter asking for an update. She wrote back saying: "I am working on your team matching and will follow up as soon as I have an update." I haven't heard a single thing since.

I have two main questions for anyone who has dealt with this:

First, is it normal to go straight to team matching after just two interviews? Did I somehow skip the rest of the interviews?

Second, how long does this stage usually take? It’s been three weeks since her email and almost three months since my actual interviews.

Hey guys,

I recently received the screening email for a Google SWE III (Mountain View) role. I passed the online assessment and have also completed the questionnaire.

For those who have recently interviewed for this role, which DSA topics should I prioritize the most? I am particularly curious about the chances of DP being asked. From what I have seen in the LeetCode discussions, the interviews seem to focus more on arrays, graphs, trees, BFS/DFS and related topics.

If you have recently gone through the Google SWE III interview process (especially for US) or received an offer, I would really appreciate any insights on the most important topics to prepare.

Thanks in advance!

I have an upcoming interview at kreditbee on friday and the first round is 2.5 hours ai coding round. I don't know what they're going to ask in that. They want me to build a feature or build a service from scratch ? What should prepare for ? I know I need to know the LLD but I'm not sure if I can make the service since I don't remember the framework syntax of fastapi. Does anyone know about these rounds ? Please help me out

basically title. I mean ofcourse, if you want to revisit a topic there ARE going to be some questions you have to revisit. But is spaced repetition really necessary? Can't I just encounter a new problem after a new problem and slowly build up that intuition until I decide to revisit the topic? And if I did have to practice spaced repetition, would I have to revisit the same exact question, or just re-explore the same questions of the same topic (like spaced repetition for the specific question or any questions you did under a said topic?)

Hi everyone,

I'm a recent graduate and I'm currently working as a Competitive Programming Instructor. My DSA is one of my strongest areas—I have an Expert rating on Codeforces and am comfortable solving algorithmic problems.

On the development side, I still have room to improve. I'm currently comfortable with backend development using Node.js and Express, and I have a solid understanding of core CS fundamentals (OOP, OS, DBMS, CN).

My goal is to prepare for Amazon SDE roles. Given my background, what should I focus on next? Specifically:

- Which development skills or projects should I prioritize?

- How much emphasis should I place on low-level design and system design?

- What level of backend knowledge is typically expected?

- Any roadmap or resources that helped you crack Amazon?

I'd really appreciate any advice from people who have gone through the process. Thanks in advance!

Note: I used ChatGPT to help improve the wording of this post.

Has anyone given interviews for this role last week and heard back? I haven’t got any status update. I emailed the recruiter too and didn’t get any reply

Hi all — I have an upcoming interview loop for a Data Scientist position at Bloomberg. First round is a 30min coding screen with Engineers.”

Has anyone gone through this specific round? Trying to get a sense of:
• What kind of problems come up (arrays/strings, hashmaps, trees, DP, etc.)
• Difficulty level and whether it’s usually one problem or two in the 30 min
• Whether it leans more toward classic algorithm patterns or something more applied/data-specific
Any insight on the patterns you saw would be super helpful. Thanks!

Is anyone using Claude to do mock HLD interview rounds? If so, how do you set it up for such experience?
I tried using it but ends up getting into too much depth of a lot of things that I believe won’t happen in actual interviews.

Hi all,

I have just had the googlyness interview and I was wondering, how important is it? Is it essential for getting hired? And if you fail it will the hiring process will be discontinued ?

Also, does it count for LH/NH/SH? Will recruitor told you if the interviewer liked you or not, will give you feedback or do you have to ask explicitly?

Moreover do you have any tips/materials that should I study for the technical interview? I have it on the 19th of August.

Thanks✌️