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Archive of tech interview questions of Google, Amazon, FB, Samsung and et al.

70 points by ramoji564 6y ago

Bahamut 6y ago
> Fixing grammar, typos and formatting only is complete non-sense. And non-sense is highly discouraged. This comment in the README is pretty shitty - those sorts of fixes are still valuable.
- slymon99 6y ago
  this is presumably a response to the flood of trivial hacktober PR's that are all one line README changes that add little value
- passerby1 6y ago
  Valuable where exactly. It's good that that's defined clearly in readme at least so that contributors don't waste time. And value of such contributions are defined by project itself and those responsible for it. PS I can imagine rules like that to appear in some opensource projects after tha recent pandemic of the "awesome project" PRs.
- philjackson 6y ago
  https://github.com/twowaits/SDE-Interview-Questions/pull/152/files https://github.com/twowaits/SDE-Interview-Questions/pull/152...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
erhk 6y ago
Whenever you post an interview question online your interviewers life get a little bit harder. These questions get blacklisted for being associated with their company and they then have to synthesize a new question
- kadoban 6y ago
  They're fun problems though typically. Don't problems have to be rotated eventually anyway? You'd think otherwise there would be secret silos of problems and those in the know will have much better results than anyone else.
  - 21eleven 6y ago
    I feel like this is an often overlooked fact about these programming exercises, once you get into solving them they are surprisingly fun.
    - scsilver 6y ago
      Sure, but as someone 5 years into this career, I keep wanting to make my life not all about programming. Its isolating.
- visarga 6y ago
  I'm just going to use this list to steal a problem for my interviews. It's hard to find a problem that is good at selecting candidates yet doable in 30-60 minutes and different from the problems other colleagues use in their interviews. Most problems are either too difficult or too easy.
- copperx 6y ago
  I don't see anything wrong with that.
- newbie578 6y ago
  While I do feel sorry them, the game is broken and we cannot just sit idle by. I am all supportive of people trying to game these big companies. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
  - volkk 6y ago
    by stupid prizes you mean a gigantic salary that no other company can match?
invalidusernam3 6y ago
I've applied for positions at companies that ask these kind of questions, when the actual job is fixing CSS issues and making basic CRUD applications. Interviews should be a balance between testing problem solving, ability to learn, and knowledge that applies to the actual job they would be doing.
- sidchilling 6y ago
  Unfortunately, interviews, as they are currently, are more an indicator of preparation rather than job performance. It’s a game; you gotta play it.
  - lmarcos 6y ago
    > You gotta play it. If you want a job in those companies, sure. But if you want a decent job in a decent software company, you don't have to go through all that show. There are companies that don't ask that sort of questions and instead they interview you in a sane manner (they ask about past experience, they let you talk about what you actually know... The whole interview feels like a conversation).
    - decafninja 6y ago
      I disagree. I've been interviewing heavily the past 3 years and I've noticed that at least for the major US tech hubs (say, SFBA, Seattle, NYC, as well as LA, and from my understanding, London in the UK too) pretty much all the companies I would rate as "decent" or better to have a career as a SWE are gatekeeped by leetcode interviews. Difficulty and selectivity varies of course. There are exceptions, but they are getting fewer and fewer. i.e. some companies that did not leetcode when I got my current job (5 years ago) are now leetcoding. Even companies in that famous "they don't whiteboard" list will leetcode you from my experience (I reckon its really a team by team basis thing). You might be able to find a good company that will not leetcode you, but if you are trying to maximize your potential to get a good job at a good company, the best strategy is to grind leetcode, as opposed to hunting for a White Whale.
a1pulley 6y ago
The Google ones are wildly off—I work there as a SWE. Just review CLRS [1] until you hit minimum spanning trees, skipping starred sections like the one on matroids. Do a handful of LeetCode medium and hard questions on the way. A few weeks of study is sufficient if you've already seen this stuff in college. Of course, I don't necessarily agree that LeetCode style questions should do the gatekeeping at Big N, but the procedure above has worked for me at three of the big companies. I'm sorry if you have dependents and need to work full-time while you study. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms
- ramoji564 6y ago
  Hi there, Can you share some questions regarding Google interviews?
  - 21eleven 6y ago
    By all means, study algorithms and data structures but the idea of sourcing and studying specific "company questions" is silly and kinda unethical.
    - lefrenchy 6y ago
      Why is it unethical? There's no confidentiality agreement covering the questions asked in the interview is there?
      - lipstone 6y ago
        Google has a bank of vetted questions that can be asked during interviews. It's obviously against company policy to share this information, just like it is against internal policy to share any other private, internal information.
    - monksy 6y ago
      How is it unethical? I would suggest putting a barrier to hiring that flavors younger candidates that have graduated from a CS program more recently as unethical. The point I"m making here is: Is your interviewing bar set to hire individuals who are qualified and capable of performing the job you're hiring for? The leetcode interviews hire those who are good at leetcoding, not the ones that are experienced.
gigatexal 6y ago
Apple’s missing.
- decafninja 6y ago
  From what I've heard, Apple teams have more autonomy in how they conduct interviews for their prospective future team-mates, and (shock!) some actually will not leetcode you (correct me if wrong), or at least evaluate you very differently from say, Google or Facebook. I think Netflix is also similar?
  - gigatexal 6y ago
    This is great! There might be hope for me yet: future data engineer at Apple some day.
ponker 6y ago
Once I studied a list like this and then got one of the questions in an interview. I did a good job with the theatrics of not knowing the fully correct answer and struggled through it with flashes of genius. I got the job, after a few years I couldn’t really hack it but I’m still reaping the benefits of having that name start my career.
21eleven 6y ago
Unpopular opinion: solving programming riddles makes you not only a better programmer but a better all-around problem solver and thinker. Before I could solve your average programming riddle I scoffed at them. Now that I have some experience solving them I feel like it is truly a form of mind expanding knowledge and should be valued not only in hiring but in life in general.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Unpopular opinion: solving programming riddles makes you not only a better programmer but a better all-around problem solver and thinker. That's not an unpopular opinion among people who devote energy to solving programming riddles. The need to validate one's own life choices is a common cognitive bias, if nothing else.
  - 21eleven 6y ago
    While we are all biased toward seeking to validate our own choices I believe it also can be said that some choices are more effective at producing a given outcome than others.
- milquetoastaf 6y ago
  Could you describe a time in your life when the knowledge gained from solving programming riddles impacted other parts of your life noticeably? I also very much enjoy solving these so-called "toy" problems but I can't say they've markedly improved my life aside from helping me get a job where I don't really use them. I've found that learning statistics and linear algebra provided me with more insight into decision making in my day-to-day than just straight algorithmic knowledge
- Wazzymandias 6y ago
  I think the problem is the industry standards and expectations for candidates. The fact that OP links an archive of interview questions is indicative of the underlying problem. Giving a candidate a problem they haven't seen before and observing their problem solving skills and mentality doesn't sound so bad on paper. However the process has been gamified and as a result the expectations for what a candidate should know and accomplish have increased. This ends up favoring younger candidates and/or fresh grads, since on average they can expend greater time and energy into studying for these types of interviews and their algorithms & data structure courses are still fresh in their minds. A more senior candidate or a person with more responsibilities outside of work (taking care of children, parents, etc) won't be able to invest as much time into studying these types of problems. The original purpose of the interview is also obfuscated - did the candidate genuinely show good problem solving skills or did they see the question before and merely memorized the solution? As a hiring manager I've seen multiple instances of the latter. I think the utility of spending time on these problems varies from person to person. I personally find it more useful to delve into distributed systems, cryptopgraphy, networking, or operating systems. These topics have made me a much better engineer and improved my problem solving skills, more so than programming riddles which gave me diminishing returns over time.

70 points by ramoji564 6y ago

> Fixing grammar, typos and formatting only is complete non-sense. And non-sense is highly discouraged. This comment in the README is pretty shitty - those sorts of fixes are still valuable.

slymon99 6y ago
this is presumably a response to the flood of trivial hacktober PR's that are all one line README changes that add little value
passerby1 6y ago
Valuable where exactly. It's good that that's defined clearly in readme at least so that contributors don't waste time. And value of such contributions are defined by project itself and those responsible for it. PS I can imagine rules like that to appear in some opensource projects after tha recent pandemic of the "awesome project" PRs.
philjackson 6y ago
https://github.com/twowaits/SDE-Interview-Questions/pull/152/files https://github.com/twowaits/SDE-Interview-Questions/pull/152...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

erhk 6y ago

Whenever you post an interview question online your interviewers life get a little bit harder. These questions get blacklisted for being associated with their company and they then have to synthesize a new question

kadoban 6y ago
They're fun problems though typically. Don't problems have to be rotated eventually anyway? You'd think otherwise there would be secret silos of problems and those in the know will have much better results than anyone else.
- 21eleven 6y ago
  I feel like this is an often overlooked fact about these programming exercises, once you get into solving them they are surprisingly fun.
  - scsilver 6y ago
    Sure, but as someone 5 years into this career, I keep wanting to make my life not all about programming. Its isolating.
visarga 6y ago
I'm just going to use this list to steal a problem for my interviews. It's hard to find a problem that is good at selecting candidates yet doable in 30-60 minutes and different from the problems other colleagues use in their interviews. Most problems are either too difficult or too easy.
copperx 6y ago
I don't see anything wrong with that.
newbie578 6y ago
While I do feel sorry them, the game is broken and we cannot just sit idle by. I am all supportive of people trying to game these big companies. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- volkk 6y ago
  by stupid prizes you mean a gigantic salary that no other company can match?

invalidusernam3 6y ago

I've applied for positions at companies that ask these kind of questions, when the actual job is fixing CSS issues and making basic CRUD applications. Interviews should be a balance between testing problem solving, ability to learn, and knowledge that applies to the actual job they would be doing.

sidchilling 6y ago
Unfortunately, interviews, as they are currently, are more an indicator of preparation rather than job performance. It’s a game; you gotta play it.
- lmarcos 6y ago
  > You gotta play it. If you want a job in those companies, sure. But if you want a decent job in a decent software company, you don't have to go through all that show. There are companies that don't ask that sort of questions and instead they interview you in a sane manner (they ask about past experience, they let you talk about what you actually know... The whole interview feels like a conversation).
  - decafninja 6y ago
    I disagree. I've been interviewing heavily the past 3 years and I've noticed that at least for the major US tech hubs (say, SFBA, Seattle, NYC, as well as LA, and from my understanding, London in the UK too) pretty much all the companies I would rate as "decent" or better to have a career as a SWE are gatekeeped by leetcode interviews. Difficulty and selectivity varies of course. There are exceptions, but they are getting fewer and fewer. i.e. some companies that did not leetcode when I got my current job (5 years ago) are now leetcoding. Even companies in that famous "they don't whiteboard" list will leetcode you from my experience (I reckon its really a team by team basis thing). You might be able to find a good company that will not leetcode you, but if you are trying to maximize your potential to get a good job at a good company, the best strategy is to grind leetcode, as opposed to hunting for a White Whale.

a1pulley 6y ago

The Google ones are wildly off—I work there as a SWE. Just review CLRS [1] until you hit minimum spanning trees, skipping starred sections like the one on matroids. Do a handful of LeetCode medium and hard questions on the way. A few weeks of study is sufficient if you've already seen this stuff in college. Of course, I don't necessarily agree that LeetCode style questions should do the gatekeeping at Big N, but the procedure above has worked for me at three of the big companies. I'm sorry if you have dependents and need to work full-time while you study. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms

ramoji564 6y ago
Hi there, Can you share some questions regarding Google interviews?
- 21eleven 6y ago
  By all means, study algorithms and data structures but the idea of sourcing and studying specific "company questions" is silly and kinda unethical.
  - lefrenchy 6y ago
    Why is it unethical? There's no confidentiality agreement covering the questions asked in the interview is there?
    - lipstone 6y ago
      Google has a bank of vetted questions that can be asked during interviews. It's obviously against company policy to share this information, just like it is against internal policy to share any other private, internal information.
  - monksy 6y ago
    How is it unethical? I would suggest putting a barrier to hiring that flavors younger candidates that have graduated from a CS program more recently as unethical. The point I"m making here is: Is your interviewing bar set to hire individuals who are qualified and capable of performing the job you're hiring for? The leetcode interviews hire those who are good at leetcoding, not the ones that are experienced.

gigatexal 6y ago

Apple’s missing.

decafninja 6y ago
From what I've heard, Apple teams have more autonomy in how they conduct interviews for their prospective future team-mates, and (shock!) some actually will not leetcode you (correct me if wrong), or at least evaluate you very differently from say, Google or Facebook. I think Netflix is also similar?
- gigatexal 6y ago
  This is great! There might be hope for me yet: future data engineer at Apple some day.

ponker 6y ago

Once I studied a list like this and then got one of the questions in an interview. I did a good job with the theatrics of not knowing the fully correct answer and struggled through it with flashes of genius. I got the job, after a few years I couldn’t really hack it but I’m still reaping the benefits of having that name start my career.

21eleven 6y ago

Unpopular opinion: solving programming riddles makes you not only a better programmer but a better all-around problem solver and thinker. Before I could solve your average programming riddle I scoffed at them. Now that I have some experience solving them I feel like it is truly a form of mind expanding knowledge and should be valued not only in hiring but in life in general.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Unpopular opinion: solving programming riddles makes you not only a better programmer but a better all-around problem solver and thinker. That's not an unpopular opinion among people who devote energy to solving programming riddles. The need to validate one's own life choices is a common cognitive bias, if nothing else.
- 21eleven 6y ago
  While we are all biased toward seeking to validate our own choices I believe it also can be said that some choices are more effective at producing a given outcome than others.
milquetoastaf 6y ago
Could you describe a time in your life when the knowledge gained from solving programming riddles impacted other parts of your life noticeably? I also very much enjoy solving these so-called "toy" problems but I can't say they've markedly improved my life aside from helping me get a job where I don't really use them. I've found that learning statistics and linear algebra provided me with more insight into decision making in my day-to-day than just straight algorithmic knowledge
Wazzymandias 6y ago
I think the problem is the industry standards and expectations for candidates. The fact that OP links an archive of interview questions is indicative of the underlying problem. Giving a candidate a problem they haven't seen before and observing their problem solving skills and mentality doesn't sound so bad on paper. However the process has been gamified and as a result the expectations for what a candidate should know and accomplish have increased. This ends up favoring younger candidates and/or fresh grads, since on average they can expend greater time and energy into studying for these types of interviews and their algorithms & data structure courses are still fresh in their minds. A more senior candidate or a person with more responsibilities outside of work (taking care of children, parents, etc) won't be able to invest as much time into studying these types of problems. The original purpose of the interview is also obfuscated - did the candidate genuinely show good problem solving skills or did they see the question before and merely memorized the solution? As a hiring manager I've seen multiple instances of the latter. I think the utility of spending time on these problems varies from person to person. I personally find it more useful to delve into distributed systems, cryptopgraphy, networking, or operating systems. These topics have made me a much better engineer and improved my problem solving skills, more so than programming riddles which gave me diminishing returns over time.