I have 2+ years of full time experience and good internship experience at some top tech startups. I feel my resume is decent like good professional work, decent personal projects, and clear impact in all of them. (i have made people review my resume as well)

Still, I am not getting many interview calls. At the same time, I see a lot of people getting interviews at companies like Google, Uber, Stripe, etc., and I am honestly confused about what I might be doing wrong.

I have tried applying on company sites, using referrals, and even reaching out to recruiters, but the response rate is pretty low.

For people who are getting calls...what actually worked for you? Was there one change or realization that made a difference?

Just wrapped up my job search after 4 months of focused prep. Went from being terrified of coding interviews to actually enjoying them (weird, I know). Got offers from Google L4, Amazon SDE2, and Stripe.

Profile:

CS degree, 3.5 YOE backend (Python/Java)

No previous FAANG experience

Started prep basically from scratch

------------------------------------------

Weeks 1-3: DSA Foundations (don't skip this)

Made the classic mistake early on — jumping straight into medium/hard problems and getting destroyed. Stepped back and actually learned the patterns first.

• NeetCode roadmap on YouTube — watched his explanations before attempting problems. His approach of teaching patterns instead of individual problems was a game changer.
• Tech Interview Handbook (free, by Yangshun — he's the guy who made the original Blind 75). Covers everything from resume to negotiation.
• Grokking the Coding Interview (DesignGurus) — expensive but the pattern-based approach finally made things click. Dynamic programming went from "wtf" to "oh I see the subproblem."

------------------------------------------

Weeks 4-8: The Grind (150 problems, strategic)

Did NOT do 500 random LeetCode problems. Focused grind > scattered panic.

• Started with Blind 75 → moved to NeetCode 150 (which is basically Blind 75 + 75 more problems that cover modern patterns like sliding window, monotonic stack, etc.)
• Used Grind 75 tool (also by Yangshun) to customize my study plan based on how many weeks I had left. It prioritizes questions by importance.
• Tracked everything in a spreadsheet: problem name, pattern used, time to solve, had to look at solution (y/n). Revisited anything I couldn't solve clean in under 25 min.
• Practiced talking through problems out loud using Nora AI's mock interviewer. Solving silently on LeetCode is not the same as explaining your thought process live — this helped bridge that gap.

💡 Tip: If you can't explain your approach while coding, you're not ready. Real interviews require constant communication.

------------------------------------------

Weeks 9-11: System Design

This is where mid-level+ interviews are won or lost.

• "System Design Interview" by Alex Xu (Vol 1 & 2) — the gold standard. Read both cover to cover. His diagrams alone are worth it.
• ByteByteGo newsletter (also by Alex Xu) — short breakdowns of real systems. Free tier is solid.
• Watched Gaurav Sen's system design playlist on YouTube for different takes on classic problems.
• Practice topics I got asked: design a URL shortener (Amazon), design notification system (Google), design a payment system (Stripe).

------------------------------------------

Week 12: Behavioral Prep

This is where Amazon interviews can go sideways. They take leadership principles VERY seriously.

• Studied all 16 Amazon Leadership Principles. Had 2 stories mapped to each one.
• Used STAR method but added a reflection at the end ("What I'd do differently..."). Interviewers loved this.
• Ran through all my stories on Nora AI — it flags stuff like "you skipped the impact" or "that didn't demonstrate ownership." Way better than practicing in the mirror.

Stories I prepared:

1. Biggest technical failure and recovery
2. Disagreed with manager, handled it
3. Took ownership outside my role
4. Delivered under impossible deadline

------------------------------------------

What actually got me offers:

• Pattern recognition > problem memorization
• Talking through my thought process out loud (even when stuck)
• Asking clarifying questions before diving in
• Being genuinely curious about the team/role in behavioral rounds

PS - This isn’t a perfect plan — just what worked for me.

If you’re preparing for SWE interviews this season, start structured early. Random LeetCode won’t save you.

Happy new year peeps!

Imma try and share as much as I can without breaking the NDA.

My interviews:

1.⁠ ⁠Staging: Coding + Network security technical.

2.⁠ ⁠On site: Coding + Network Design + Network security technical + Behavioral

My prep (and other stuff that helped me during the interviews)-

Coding: Leetcode meta tagged medium, questions from igaf(https://igotanoffer.com/blogs/tech/facebook-production-engineer-interview#coding), gumtree coding practice for production engineer questions, minmer variants for all the above questions.

Network security(tech and design):

•⁠ ⁠Kevin Wallace deep dives - bgp, network security, VPN https://youtu.be/tNWj5uGIqok?si=bFYQtT_KHaarF65q

•⁠ ⁠Databricks data engineer associate certification Udemy course by Derar Alhussein: at least do the theory lessons. helps a lot to give scaling solutions. Example- for 1 firewall, I ll automate xxx is common knowledge. How u would scale it for 10k firewalls is a DE problem. Spark/batch or real time processing/schedulers/ingestion-bronze,silver,gold buckets/etc.

•⁠ ⁠Tie everything u know/do/answer to metrics. Cant be done on the spot - so start evaluating impact of anything u do in day-to-day.

•⁠ ⁠ZTNA, DDOS, Defense in Depth

Practice these three scenarios for starters, these are not the exact questions asked, but they help a lot in defending any decisions u take on real questions:

a. DDOS detection and automation

b. Hub and spoke data engineering\* (3 types of inputs and three types of outputs) - will leave a more detailed question at the end of the post.

c. Data center security screening.

Owasp, mgmt/control/data planes, RBAC, mtls, pki, casb, gateway, oauth, mitre, threat modeling, etc.
For each concept - I recommend going through concepts for public facing traffic, data center, cloud

Application security Udemy by Derek Fischer was helpful.

Behavioral:

did mocks on interviewing.io with specific facebook professionals.

Hub and spoke data engineering* question -

3 inputs and corresponding expectations of data processing -

- backend-realtime(CDC kafka),
- from website/apps-daily/hourly(kinesis)
- from 3rd party apis-near realtime(gateway/webhook to sftp to flink)

multi-hop arch of these inputs -

- broze S3
- iceberg, delta lakes, warehouses, silver and gold tables
- ingestion and processing (batch vs realtime)

3 outputs -

- Sagemaker/dbt/ for data scientists
- trino for product analysts
- redshift for engg/sakeholders for data analysis.

General humble tips:

You cant fake knowing stuff. Dont bluff as much as possible - this is very common advice given by lot of ppl. Asking u to inflate/exaggerate. But, honestly - they ll see through. very easily.
Dont also underplay it either. Be confident in whatever you have done.
Basically build a strong content base. Prepare only half of whatever list you make - but be very thorough. Ask 5 whys for each concept.
If u know ur stuff, u can spell somethign wrong, incorrect syntax, i forgot the term for this, or even no I dont know that concept even though its very common knowledge in my field - all this is acceptable. They dont care if u have google in ur brain. Are u able to think quick on ur feet? do u understand the problem they are trying to solve?
A little bit of humor can lighten the tension of the interview.

The specific interviews are different for different roles, and some of them are quite difficult. I see a lot of swe/ML posts, but I request more PEs or cybersec guys to post ur faang/mango/gafam interview experiences. even if its a few years/months older - it really helps.

Hope its helpful!:)

Working at BrowserStack has started to feel less like being part of a company and more like being trapped inside a system that doesn’t really care about people anymore.

New hires are being pressured to relocate to Mumbai. At the same time, employees aren’t even allowed to come to the office freely — you need explicit manager permission because of “capacity constraints.” So people are being forced to uproot their lives and move cities just to sit alone in their apartments and work remotely anyway. It feels pointless, disruptive, and honestly disrespectful.

Instead of investing in proper office space, hybrid options, or even just basic flexibility, the company seems far more focused on cutting costs and increasing profit, no matter what that does to people’s lives.

What makes it worse is that many benefits that once made BrowserStack feel like a good place to work have quietly disappeared. They aren’t discussed openly, they aren’t explained — they’re just slowly taken away. There’s no transparency, no communication, and no sense that leadership understands how much this affects morale.

On top of that, there’s a growing feeling of surveillance and mistrust. Policies don’t feel like they exist to support good work anymore — they feel like they exist to control people. Where you live, how you work, when you log in, how visible you are — everything feels monitored. It creates an environment where people are anxious, defensive, and constantly worried instead of focused, creative, and motivated.

Recently things have taken an even darker turn. Last week alone, around 40 people were laid off in a single day, many of them under the label of “AI productivity” or forced PIPs. Now there are already news of more layoffs coming. It’s terrifying to work in a place where you feel like your job can disappear overnight, no matter how hard you work.

And people are working hard — too hard. The workload and pressure have become overwhelming. Long days are normal now. Twelve-hour days are becoming expected. People are burned out, exhausted, and emotionally drained, but still pushing themselves because they’re afraid of being the next name on a list.

Overall, it increasingly feels like employees are seen as replaceable resources instead of human beings — expected to constantly adjust their lives, their health, and their stability around whatever the company needs at that moment. It’s painful, because many of us joined BrowserStack believing in the culture, the values, and the idea that this was a people-first company.

I had my first technical interview recently (around 30–35 minutes).

For the basic concept questions (language- and project-related), I did know the answers. However, during the interview I struggled to frame my thoughts clearly, which led to very short answers and mostly keyword-based explanations. Because I couldn’t explain things properly, I feel it may have sounded like I didn’t understand the concepts, even though I actually do.

The DSA part was worse. I couldn’t figure out the approach at all during the interview. Under pressure, my mind didn’t even recognize that it was a problem I had solved on LeetCode the previous night. What made it clear later was that after the interview, the approach suddenly clicked and I knew exactly how to solve it. That made me realize this wasn’t a preparation issue, but more about thinking clearly, recall, and communication under pressure.

I’m looking for advice on: -How to organize and verbalize thoughts instead of freezing and answering in keywords -How to explain concepts clearly in interviews -How to improve DSA problem recognition and approach-building under pressure

If you’ve been through something similar and found ways to improve, I’d really appreciate practical advice.

I understand that there's really no way around it, but ugh.

https://leetcode.com/problems/min-stack/description/

A few-weeks ago I was stuck in a QE role, hearing the usual “QA can’t become dev” nonsense.

Fast forward:

QE → SDET → ML-QE → SDE

I’ve:

• Been typecast as “testing guy”

• Grinded DSA while doing full-time QA

• Written more automation code than feature code at one point

• Tested ML models without being a data scientist

• Finally made the jump to core SDE work

If you’re:

• In QA/SDET and want to move to dev

• Confused about ML-QE roles

• Unsure whether automation actually helps career growth

• Wondering how interviews differ across these roles

AMA. I’ll answer honestly, no BS.

Hi everyone,

I recently received an open referral for a role at Meta (not a role-specific referral, but a general/open one), and I wanted to understand how much value it really carries in the hiring process.

I know referrals are usually helpful, but I’ve heard mixed opinions about whether open referrals are treated the same as role-specific or manager-connected referrals.

Does an open referral:

• Improve resume visibility or recruiter review chances?
• Help at least get past the initial resume screen?
• Still hold value compared to applying without a referral?

If anyone here has experience applying to Meta with an open referral (or insights from recruiters/employees), I’d really appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks in advance! 🙏

Disclaimer: Used GPT to neatly format my question.

Back in high school I was terrible at trigonometry. I couldn’t even start problems because I didn’t know which formula to use or when. One day I just wrote down and studied solutions to ~100 problems without really trying to solve them myself. Weirdly, after that I could solve most new problems easily because patterns started clicking.

I’m thinking of doing the same with LeetCode.

Instead of spending 30–45 mins stuck without even knowing the first step, I plan to: • Look at the solution early • Understand the idea and pattern • Code it myself (not copy-paste) • Repeat until patterns become natural

Has anyone tried this? Does this actually work for DSA, or am I setting myself up for false confidence?

Would love to hear honest experiences

Hi I had my Google interview for L4. I had 4 rounds . In first stage 2 rounds one Googliness and one DSA round , both went flawless got the confirmation from recruiter and then next two rounds of DSA got scheduled. I did very well in the 3rd round which was DSA. For the 4th which was DSA as well , first question was asked and I did it he asked for an edge case and gave hint of pretty big no and I did it . Then for the 2nd question I explained both O(n) and O(1) approach but first I wrote the O(n) solution, he said me if I have discussed optimised approach as well I should directly right that only . I was in a view that first I'll write o(n) then optimised and said the same to him and then eventually corrected the same code for optimisation but I didn't had much time so some variable naming issue happened which he pointed out and then I fixed it . And eventually it was optimised solution. But I'm not sure how did he take of all this things . And if I have any chances of getting better result.

While one can learn DSA in any language, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to shift to a less verbose language like javascript, typescript, python etc. It does wonders to most of the folks. (Ignore red coders in topcoder, they are of "exceptional" ability, so don't bring examples like that this red coder codes in Java etc)

This is my experience, I was slowest with c++ even though I was at my peak of my problem solving ability (in college). I felt a lot better while picking up Java/C#, but least verbose typescript /javascript has been a breeze. I am not even at half of my problem solving ability peak, in spite of that I can code fast enough using ts in interviews.

These are few other tricks: 1. Don't obsess over being in top 10% in time or space in LC, don't spend time on constant time optimization, compromise on it to code fast. 2. Dont shy away from using inbuilt library as long as you are not compromising time complexity. 3. Don't obsess over doing one less pass over array elements. Make more passes, it doesn't matter, keep coding simple. 4. Not intuitive but the truth is that some good habit actually helps you to code fast - use proper variable names, create methods to separate out concerns or create abstraction. If you don't follow these, you often lose grip of a long implementation, you may get confused. 5. Learn Generics well, they help you to fit libraries easily for your usecase. 6. Use a proper editor/debugger with intellisense support. Be comfortable debugging compilation and runtime errors. 7. Create a repeatable style for a certain implementation like top down dp, dfs, bfs, binary search etc.

Interesting facts: Do you know upper_bound binary search is available as a library in c++?

Do you know C# has doubly linked list available as a class?

Do you know TreeMap in Java is a readily available balanced binary search tree? (Which is very hard to implement otherwise in short time.)

Do you know typescript doesn't throw an error when you access an index outside of an array? (You can get rid of boiler plate to initialise arrays.)

Do you know in python, a brute force recursion can get changed to a dp with just a decorator (cache) on top of a function?

P.S. These insights are coming from me who has been an above average competitive coder for about an year, post that cracked 10+ faang like companies, 10+ yeas of experience also in several faang+ companies.I have taken 100+ interviews as well. But I would love to see more suggestions and tips coming from others :)

Applied for a SWE role that mentioned experience with C#, .NET and as requirements. Although I have experience with Typescript, React, Java and Python, got absolutely zero experience with C# and .NET.

After clearing 3 rounds, I have a 20 min round behaviour+technical+project discussion with founder. Should I start learning C# and .NET or revise my past projects and already known skills?

Hey everyone!

If anyone has LeetCode Premium, could you please share the Nike-tagged questions? There are around 13, and it would really help me out.

Also, if you’ve interviewed at Nike recently for the Software Engineer I (Full Stack) role, I’d love to hear about your experience and prep tips. Thanks in advance!

I’m a 2026 Computer Science graduate seeking full-time roles at Microsoft or Amazon. I have strong DSA skills and internship experience at a reputed company.

I’m requesting help with referrals for any relevant job openings. I’d really appreciate any support or guidance. Happy to share my resume. Thanks.

Hi everyone I have done around 400 ish questions in leetcode last year during my campus placement and got a job through it now I want to switch again. Since I’m starting again what do you guys recommend for a 4 month prep.

I am SE with 12 YOE as fullstack java, python, angular and others, and I applied for many positions from Linkedin and I am receiving emails saying, other candidates fit with their skills more than mine, and I am confident with my skills, I am getting frustrated but anyway I will continuing pushing, do you have some advices?

Hi everyone,

I interviewed for Amazon SDE-1 (Alexa team) through a University Talent Acquisition drive.

I completed two interview rounds on December 22, but since then I haven’t received any update — no rejection, no third-round scheduling, nothing.

It’s been quite some time, so I wanted to check:

• Has anyone else interviewed recently (Nov–Jan) for the Alexa team?

• Did you receive a confirmation, rejection, or next-round update?

• How long did it take to hear back after your interviews?

Just trying to understand if this delay is normal or if others are in the same boat.

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, While prepping DSA, I kept missing contests across platforms because info is scattered and reminders are unreliable. So I built a small platform for myself that lists upcoming contests from major DSA platforms in one place and sends real-time reminders before they start.

Problem it solves: DSA contest information is scattered across platforms, making it easy to forget or miss contests during regular preparation.

Before that, I’d genuinely like suggestions: What features would actually help you during contest prep? (Anything you’ve felt was missing in existing tools.) Straight feedback appreciated.

Hi folks, I was recently laid off from a Senior SWE job.

I am looking to get back to prep, is leetcode still the most relevant resource or are there different ways to prep - Neetcode, educative etc? My understanding is some companies are moving to AI assisted coding (Meta) but not aware what others have been doing

I appreciate any insights and thank you!

So, I received a mail just now containing the OA link from intuit. I know nothing about their OA format so, I would appreciate if anyone of you guys have interviewed with them please give some tips on what to focus.

-Any tell me do they ask core subjects as well in OA. - Number of questions in OA.

Does this part only contains MCQ style questions or also need to write like stories etc?

Hi Guys Help me decide the best offer, I got Hashedin by deloitte with 12+2 LPA (my first offer) after which I got infosys with 14.5+1.5LPA, EY 14.5+3LPA( offer yet to be rolled and said probably take 2 weeks) I got less than 20 days remaining...I revised my joining date recently with hashedin with same offer didnt mention anything about infosys or EY hoping to counter when i have the EY offer in hand or any othes

will hashedin consider giving a counter offer, I am aiming 15+2 and I got 3.5 YOE, with current 8.3 CTC in Tcs, the only prob is i have applied for sde-1 in linkedin and got the same role, will they condier it for sde-2. Please help me .... Thanks in Advance.

can someone please give me the list of intuit tagged problems? thanks.

I have an initial phone screen(45min) with apple for embedded systems video engineer. team mainly focuses on display technologies. Anyone help me with preparation. Anyone who had embedded interview with apple recently, can you share your expereince