I joined an engineering team at a big tech company a few months ago. About half the team, including the engineering manager (who handles all the hiring), was Korean. I didn't think much of it at first.

Recently, though, we had two layoffs. Both of those positions were filled by two new Korean hires. That now leaves me and one other engineer as the only two non-Korean people on the team.

Alongside that, I've also had to adapt to the team's intense work culture because I don't want to be the one slowing everyone down. It's pretty common for people here to work late into the night or on weekends, and I've found myself doing the exact same.

Everyone on the team is incredibly high-performing, and with layoffs already happening, I 'm worried that if I don't keep putting in these crazy hours, I'll be next.

My family is starting to get worried because I spend too much time working.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: everyone communicates in Korean on Slack. I have to Google Translate almost everything, which gets pretty time-consuming.

Am I overthinking this ? I really can’t lose my job.

Apple's process is team-owned, which means your loop depends heavily on who you're interviewing with. That said, the shape is consistent enough to prep for.

Recruiter + HM screen (~30 min each). The HM screen goes deep on past projects and decisions. Lots of questions about "Why Apple?" and the values of the company .

Phone screen (45-60 min, CoderPad). One or two sessions. Medium LC difficulty. Clean, readable code matters as much as correctness.

Onsite (4-6 rounds, 45-60 min each). Coding rounds have real-world context baked in, not just raw algorithm prompts. System design is platform-informed: backend roles get caching and replication trade-offs, client-side roles shift toward memory and energy efficiency.

One thing I didn't expect: a full round dedicated to a past project I built. The interviewer drilled into why I chose a specific eviction policy, how I handled consistency, what metrics told me it was working. Felt more like a design review than an interview.

After the onsite, expect 2-4 weeks of silence. That's normal.

Anyone else been through a recent Apple loop? Curious how much the system design varied by team.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been invited to complete the HackerRank Operations Specialist Exercise.

Has anyone completed it recently? I’d really appreciate any insight on the question types, difficulty, best preparation methods, or similar practice examples.

Thanks!

HackerRank Assessment (45 min): Two medium problems. I got array manipulation and a binary tree problem. Others in the same cycle got a graph question instead, so they rotate from a bank.

Recruiter Screen (30 min): Background, interest in Airbnb, logistical fit. Fairly standard.

Technical Phone Screen (60 min): Live coding on CoderPad. One to two DS&A problems. Pseudocode is not accepted, code must run.

Onsite (3 rounds): One coding round (60 min). I got a graph traversal problem and a binary search problem, both wrapped in Airbnb-themed scenarios.

One system design round on designing a scalable vacation rental search service.

One behavioral round focused on Airbnb's Core Values, with lots of follow-up questions.

Final Thoughts: Expect a mix of coding, discussion, and code review. Happy to answer questions below.

I interviewed for a Security Engineer role after multiple conversations with the recruiter about compensation.

I was aiming for around $185k, and while they couldn't guarantee that number, they repeatedly told me I was interviewing for a level where that range was very realistic. After 6 interview rounds and weeks of prep, the offer came back at $128k and also for a lower level position than the one I had been interviewing for.

The comp was below what I currently make, so I explained that taking a pay cut just didn't make sense for where I am in my career. Then the recruiter stepped closer to me and told me this was the best decision I could make for my future, and even said I'd probably never get another opportunity like this from another company. It felt very weird at the time.

I ended up declining the offer because I was very frustrated. I had invested so much time into the interview process expecting an offer much higher than what I was already making.

Is this becoming normal at big tech companies lately? (This is definitely wrong, btw)

Also, was the recruiter right? Making 135k/year as of right now but at a much smaller company than Meta.

Applied online. Three to four weeks start to finish. Process moved faster than I expected.

Online Assessment (90 min): CodeSignal, new addition as of 2025. One complex problem split into four progressive stages that unlock sequentially. I got an in-memory database implementation with key-value operations, TTL, and scan.

Technical Phone Screen (45 min): CoderPad. Two LC medium problems back to back. No code execution, so you test line by line yourself.

Onsite (4 rounds): One regular coding round. Two medium-hard problems: array heights visibility from the right, then rebuilding a BST from a preorder sequence. One AI-assisted coding round (rolled out for all SWE roles in 2026). 60 minutes in a specialized CoderPad environment with a file directory, terminal and a unit test runner.

One system design or product architecture round, depending on the role. Infrastructure roles get distributed systems and scalability questions. One behavioral round. 45 minutes. Questions I got: how do you align requirements across teams, what is the biggest mistake you made at work, and one values-alignment question.

Happy to answer questions below.

The required me to take part in the Karat interview first, what kind of questions will they ask?

What's next If I move forward?

I had an interview today for a SWE position.

I showed up a few minutes early and checked in. I was told the hiring manager would be with me shortly. After waiting about 9 minutes with no updates or apology, I got up and left.

The office also seemed pretty disorganized, which didn't exactly give me confidence. Also, the salary didn't exactly fit my expectations. Part of me feels like I should've waited longer. But another part thinks if a company can't respect my time during the interview, that's probably a bad sign and won’t be a valuable job anyway.

For context, I’m 24 and I've been unemployed for the past 3 months. Am I crazy for this?

I applied through LinkedIn's careers page and heard back a few weeks later. From the initial recruiter outreach to the final decision, the entire process took around three to six weeks.

Communication was consistent throughout the process, and the recruiter kept me updated between each stage.

Recruiter Screen (15-30 min): Background, motivation, quick overview of the process. They share resources if you ask.

Technical Phone Screen (60 min): Live coding on HackerRank. One LC medium problem. The expectation was to explain logic clearly, not just run the code.

Onsite (5 rounds, 45–60 min each): Two coding rounds with one medium and one hard problem each (40 minutes total). Topics included graphs, heaps, arrays, linked lists, nested list weighted sum, and BFS shortest path.

One system design round (design a distributed rate limiter). Senior candidates may get LinkedIn-specific designs like a recommendation engine or social graph.

One behavioral round with the hiring manager focused on conflict, ownership, and ambiguity.

One project deep dive covering technical decisions, cross-functional collaboration, and communication with non-technical stakeholders.

Team Matching: Came after the loop. A separate conversation to align on which team fits.

Happy to answer questions below.

Hi all — I just moved to the final technical round for a SWE role at Axon. Recruiter details:

• 60-minute live coding interview over Zoom, with one of their engineers
• Language: C#
• Focus: "real-time problem-solving and technical thinking," core CS fundamentals (DSA)
• They mentioned it's a two-way interview — collaborative culture, encouraged to think out loud and ask questions

A bit about me: I'm a CS student about to graduate, decent with DSA concepts but not super sharp on execution speed, and I don't code in C# day-to-day (more comfortable in Python/Java/JS), so I'm brushing up on C#-specific syntax too.

Would appreciate any insight on:

1. Has anyone interviewed with Axon (or know their engineering interview style)? What kind of problems came up?
2. For a 60-min slot, is it usually 1 harder problem or 2 medium ones?
3. Any C#-specific gotchas people got tripped up on during live coding (LINQ syntax, nullable types, etc.)?
4. Tips for "thinking out loud" effectively without rambling or looking indecisive?

Any help/insight is much appreciated — trying to make sure I don't blow this one. Thanks!

Hello

So, I'm a fresh cs grad and I applied for a web dev role where I got an interview. Apparently, the interviewer is an AI, it'll ask questions and give me a coding exercise with the following focus areas: JavaScript & Core Programming Fundamentals, Problem Solving & System Thinking, Frontend Architecture & UI, Backend & API Design

Has anyone done an interview like this before? What should I expect? How do I prepare? Do these kind of interviews allow using AI for the exercise?

I haven't practiced any leetcode or problem solving in a while and I got used to using AI in web projects. I can fix bugs and edit code easily, but I don't think I can write from scratch anymore.

Advice?

The interview is in 2 days🥲, should I spend them reviewing concepts and practicing js?

I spent 5 years at Meta as a software engineer, and I've been looking for a new role for the past 4 months without any luck. This job market is so much harder than whatever I've had to deal with back in 2020.

Meta is my only full-time experience. I spent my first 2 years as a new grad engineer before being promoted and working another 3 years as a software engineer. I'm mainly targeting Big Tech or companies with similar compensation (around $150k+).

I'm actually getting interviews though. I've made it through 5 full interview loops over the last 4 months. I just received my last rejection email after the final round today. For context, I'm solving 6–8 LeetCode problems every day and applying to at least 20 jobs daily. I also graduated from a top college.

Is there anything wrong with my approach ? Tips from people that have been in my position are super appreciated,

Hey everyone,

I am genuinely losing my mind with manual applications. Just today, I saw a job posting that went live 5 minutes ago, and it already had dozens (if not hundreds) of applicants.

Up until now, I have been filling out every single application manually. The result? Absolutely zero interviews. I am realizing that by the time I type out all my info, clear the captcha, and hit submit, I am already buried at the bottom of a massive stack. I don't want to keep making the same mistake and falling behind.

I am ready to look into paid or free tools that help speed up the actual application filling process. To be clear, I can handle tailoring my resume on my own separately, so I don't need a heavy AI resume writer. I just need something that acts like autofill on steroids so I can get my foot in the door before the application window slams shut.

What is actually working for you guys right now to speed-apply? Are there specific extensions or platforms that are worth paying for?

Appreciate any recommendations or advice. Thanks!

I recently completed the full interview process for Palantir's New Grad Software Engineer role, from the initial recruiter call through the hiring manager conversation and did receive an offer at the end.

Online Assessment (HackerRank): Three parts. One coding problem, one SQL query, and one REST API task. The API question had me use a REST endpoint to find TV shows produced in a specific period.

Only place I used InterviewCoder.

Virtual Onsite: Back-to-back rounds, coding and system design plus a debugging round. The debugging round gave me a pre-written codebase of over 250 lines with subtle logical bugs to find and fix. One of them was a double-counting issue in a HashMap.

Hiring Manager Chat: The whole call went to my biggest failures and what I learned from them.

Update (Talked with another applicant): His OA was 2 medium-easy LeetCode questions plus a REST API design, and his technical round was designing a round-robin style system with a hashmap and lists.

Happy to answer any questions below.

I recently received a Akuna Capital OA 2nd round assessment and I see it says approximation question. What should I expect and how can i prepare for approximation specific questions? Is it similar to Leetcode?

Which would you take?

Disregard moral implications FOR BOTH companies.

If you had to choose one to better your career & life, which would you take and why?

Went through the Datadog new grad SWE loop for the 2026 cycle. Application to decision took about 5 weeks.

Online Assessment (HackerRank, 90 minutes): 3 questions of increasing difficulty, LC easy to medium range. You get a full IDE and can run tests, but no access to docs or external resources.

Recruiter Call (30 minutes): Behavioral questions and logistics, nothing technical.

Technical Phone Screen (about an hour): 5 minute intro, one coding problem for about 40 minutes, then my questions at the end. I had InterviewCoder on my second monitor, it does not show on the screen share, and I checked my edge cases against it before running my tests.

Final Round (three 1 hour interviews, back to back): Coding: a time based key value store, then a follow up variant on top of it. Design: new grads get a simplified prompt, mine was a rate limiter allowing N requests per minute. The last hour was the hiring manager, team fit plus STAR questions.

The offer came 6 business days later. First year total comp lands a bit over 155k with base, equity, and bonus.

Update (talked with interns from the same cycle): For them the HackerRank was the hardest stage, and their final was 3 LC style questions with one engineer, no design round.

Sharing this because I prepped distributed systems for weeks and the new grad design round turned out to be the simplified version.

Ask anything below, I will answer what I can.

I’m prepping for low-level interviews(kernel,Embedded & firmware) where I have to use pure C. My main worry is managing my time during a 45-minute coding round. If a question needs me to do something basic first, like sorting a list, merging sorted arrays, or using a hash map before I can even solve the actual problem, I have to write all those helpers and data structures completely from scratch. In Python or C++, those are just quick one-liners, but in C, it feels like I would spend the entire interview writing a custom hash table and handling collisions instead of actually solving problem. How do you actually handle this under pressure? Do interviewers expect you to write out all those helper functions and data structures line-by-line first, or is it better to just write a fake function to show your main logic?How can I practice handling this on LeetCode too, since the platform actually expects you to submit fully compilable and working C code? I'd love to hear how people manage their time and structure their code in these situations. Thanks!

I'm sooo pissed rn.

I applied for a Founding Engineer role at a YC startup run by a bunch of 20-year-olds.

For context, I'm 34 and have spent the last decade building products at FAANG. I was looking for something smaller, faster, and more exciting. I went through their interview process. Every technical question was ridiculously easy, and I passed every round.

A few days later, I got a rejection email saying I didn't have enough experience for the role. Wth does that even mean ?

If 10+ years shipping products at FAANG isn't enough experience for a founding engineer role, what exactly are they looking for?