LinkedIn Sr SWE - Systems and Infra | Phone Screen + Onsite | US | Reject

Phone Screening

The phone screen started with a deep dive into one of my projects. We then moved onto Java and OS-related questions. I also had a code review and enhancement task on a 10-line code snippet. For the coding problem, I solved a variation of the "Number of Islands" problem optimally.

On-Site

Coding 1

In the first coding round, I was asked two problems. First, I had to determine the number of connected components in an undirected graph, which I solved optimally. Second, I was challenged to design a hash map from scratch; this was a new problem for me, not found on LeetCode, but I managed to solve it optimally.

Coding 2

The second coding round also had two questions. The first was to find the number of subsets in a given array that sum up to a target. I solved the main problem optimally, but struggled with the follow-up, which involved handling negative numbers and duplicates in the input array, and couldn't solve it within the given time. The second question involved an N-ary tree: I had to prune all the leaf nodes and add them to a list, resulting in a list of lists. I solved this optimally.

For all coding questions, I dry ran my solutions and clearly explained both time and space complexities.

Hiring Manager (HM) Round

The HM round involved deep dives into 3-4 anecdotal experiences. I was also asked a real-world scenario question based on Kafka, which I unfortunately couldn't answer well. I made sure to ask some quality questions to the HMs at the end of the interview.

Complex Design (System Design)

This round focused on System Design, specifically designing a system for metrics aggregation and visualization. I felt I drove the discussion for most of this interview.

With 4.5 years of experience, I am absolutely gutted by the rejection. However, I remain determined and will continue grinding and pushing forward. Thanks to this community for the support.