Summary
I recently interviewed at Epifi for an SDE-1 position and unfortunately, I was rejected after the first technical round. My main challenges were the time taken to solve the DSA problem and my difficulty in explaining the solution's dry run confidently.
Full Experience
I applied for the SDE-1 (Golang developer) position at Epifi by mailing my resume to their HR department, and soon after, I received an interview call.
A little about my background: I completed my B.Tech from a Tier 1 NIT and currently work as an SDE1 at a startup, with 14 months of experience.
Round 1: DSA Problem
In this round, I was presented with the problem Minimum Replacements to Sort the Array. I began by attempting a recursive solution, and during that process, I realized a more optimal approach.
While I did manage to complete the problem, it took me over an hour, which was a significant amount of time. When the interviewer asked me to dry run my solution and present the final array state after the modifications, I found myself struggling to explain it clearly and confidently. This difficulty in articulation ultimately contributed to my rejection in this initial round.
Feedback
I received feedback indicating that I was rejected after the first round primarily due to the excessive time I took to solve the problem and my inability to confidently walk through the dry run of my solution and explain it effectively.