ServiceNow | Staff Engineer | Interview Experience | Hyd | Data Analytics Team
Summary
I applied for a Staff Engineer role at ServiceNow in Hyderabad. While I performed well in the initial two rounds, the third round was disorganized and ultimately led to a frustrating experience, resulting in no offer.
Full Experience
I applied for the Staff Engineer position at ServiceNow in Hyderabad through LinkedIn, bringing 10 years of experience to the table.
Round 1: Technical Interview
This round began with questions about my current work and projects. For the DSA part, I was given a problem focused on finding disconnected components in a graph, which I successfully solved using DFS. The feedback from this round was positive.
Round 2: Technical Interview
The second round also started strong. I was asked a DSA problem to find the number of paths from the top-left to the bottom-right of a grid with obstacles, which I solved using DFS. Following this, we moved to System Design, where I was tasked with designing an analytics platform. The requirements included moving data from various sources like MongoDB and RDS to an OLAP database for analytical queries. We discussed data ingestion pipelines, ETL processes, and strategies for query optimization. I received positive feedback for this round as well.
Round 3: Technical Interview
Unfortunately, the third round did not go as smoothly. The interviewer seemed unprepared and lacked clarity on what they wanted to assess. They randomly asked questions about ACID properties and various database concepts, frequently jumping to new topics before I could fully complete my answers. About 20 minutes into the interview, they asked me to design a Web Crawler. I had practiced this problem before and knew the approach, but the interviewer wasn't actively listening to my proposed solution. Instead, they kept asking unrelated questions that didn't align with my design. Every time I tried to clarify the requirements, they would move on to the next question without fully understanding my point. Midway through, I started to lose interest and stopped engaging fully due to the disjointed nature of the discussion.
Interview Questions (4)
Find and identify all disconnected components within a given graph.
Given a grid that may contain obstacles, find the number of unique paths from the top-left corner to the bottom-right corner. Obstacles block paths.
Design an analytics platform capable of moving data from diverse sources such as MongoDB and RDS into an OLAP database for efficient analytical querying. The discussion should cover data ingestion pipelines, ETL processes, and strategies for query optimization.
Design a scalable and robust web crawler system.