LinkedIn L2 Backend Screening round Experience (verdict: Reject)
Summary
I had a L2 Backend screening round at LinkedIn with two interviewers. I fumbled a design follow-up and both easy DSA problems, resulting in a rejection.
Full Experience
There were two interviewers, both asked for intro and one project detail each. One asked a design related follow-up which I fumbled. Each gave one DSA problem both easy (Again fumbled both)
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A variation of https://leetcode.com/problems/can-place-flowers/description/ in place of flowers it was people
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Given the standard mapping from English letters to digits on a phone keypad (1 → "" 2 -> a,b,c 3 -> d,e,f 4 -> g,h,i 5 -> j,k,l 6 -> m,n,o 7 -> p,q,r,s 8 -> t,u,v 9 -> w,x,y,z), write a program that outputs all words that can be formed from any n-digit phone number from the list of given KNOWN_WORDS considering the mapping mentioned above. KNOWN_WORDS= ['careers', 'linkedin', 'hiring', 'interview', 'linkedgo'] phoneNumber: 2273377 Output: ['careers'] phoneNumber: 54653346 Output: ['linkedin', 'linkedgo']
Was able to come up with approaches for both but was a bit slow in identifying edge cases, there was no way to submit the problems and run against test cases on LinkedIn platform(they use coderpad). Asked to specify space and time complexity for both.
Interview Questions (2)
A variation of the 'Can Place Flowers' problem where instead of flowers, it was people. (Refer to LeetCode problem: https://leetcode.com/problems/can-place-flowers/description/)
Given the standard mapping from English letters to digits on a phone keypad (1 → "" 2 -> a,b,c 3 -> d,e,f 4 -> g,h,i 5 -> j,k,l 6 -> m,n,o 7 -> p,q,r,s 8 -> t,u,v 9 -> w,x,y,z), write a program that outputs all words that can be formed from any n-digit phone number from the list of given KNOWN_WORDS considering the mapping mentioned above. KNOWN_WORDS= ['careers', 'linkedin', 'hiring', 'interview', 'linkedgo'] phoneNumber: 2273377 Output: ['careers'] phoneNumber: 54653346 Output: ['linkedin', 'linkedgo']
Preparation Tips
Advice: Please have a proper sleep, I pulled an all nighter and fumbled on basic discussions too(not an excuse I know), also focus on easy to easy-medium questions for screening(I guess). I was grinding LC hard/medium(graphs, DP and all) and fumbled on easy stuff embarrasing myself.