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I'm not a fan of LeetCode since it doesn't give much signal about the ability to do the actual day-to-day job. I did not pass the interviews at Amazon, Facebook

I'm not a fan of LeetCode since it doesn't give much signal about the ability to do the actual day-to-day job. I did not pass the interviews at Amazon, Facebook, or Google because I don't "grind" LeetCode. I worked as an engineer for about eight years before applying to Stripe. Stripe's interview questions resonated with me because they were more grounded in real-world problems. I hit my four year anniversary in early 2022.

decafninja 5y ago
I'm curious what kind of questions Stripe asks. I've encountered "practical" interview problems at various places also, esp. for frontend roles. But while not leetcode, many of them were things you still wouldn't code up in daily work - at least not serendipitously from scratch in 20-40 minutes with little to no references available. My solution to this was...also grinding.
- clintonb 5y ago
  Here are the broad topics. Some of the questions are floating in public, and have been replaced, but the general idea remains. - Debug an issue in a library - Balance bank accounts - Design a scalable system, and discuss the trade offs - Integrate with an API
  - filoleg 5y ago
    Can confirm that I had a very similar vibe from Dropbox interview process (got the offer, but chose a different offer for reasons that have nothing to do with Dropbox). Grinding leetcode wouldn’t have helped much beyond basics for the coding portion of the interview. The problems were extremely practical, but also not “dirty” (so not like where you are given something like a React project, and asked to build a website doing XYZ). It was more like “here is a general problem (let’s say, process scheduling algorithm for a hypothetical OS; not the problem i got, but similar in concept), here are the methods the class needs to implement. What are the approaches? Which one you would go with if you prioritized memory? What if we prioritized speed instead? Are there any other helpful methods that the class might need?”. And it essentially boils down to conversational decision-making on implementing a feature that is very similar to how it is done in a real workplace, not as a leetcode problem at all. And yes, you still implement it in leetcode, but grinding leetcode will only help you with the very basics, and it can imo be totally passed without leetcode grind. The non-coding interviews were also very well thought-out (in comparison to the typical FAANG process). Systems design was a delight, and the deep dive interview (where you pick a project you worked on before ahead of time, write a few sentences about it, and then when the interview comes you dive very deep into an aspect of it and get grilled with questions on it) was very meaningful and useful. Overall, i can definitely recommend interviewing with Dropbox, and it was a very difficult decision for me to not take that offer, as I got extremely good vibe from both the people i interviewed with and the company overall.
    - __turbobrew__ 5y ago
      I have been trying to get an interview at dropbox but I think my resume is being filtered out by some automated system. I have applied to jobs at dropbox where I have direct in depth experience with the entire tech stack the team is using but I only get an automated rejection email. Such a shame I can’t get into contact with a human at dropbox! Their interview process sounds wonderful and their approach to remote work is really enticing.
      - filoleg 5y ago
        > I have been trying to get an interview at dropbox but I think my resume is being filtered out by some automated system. I feel you, having the same issue with AirBnB myself. I got invited for an interview with them my senior year of college, but I had already signed another offer at that time, so I politely declined. It's been over 5 years since then, and I am yet to be able to get a single interview there, despite applying every year.

decafninja 5y ago

I'm curious what kind of questions Stripe asks. I've encountered "practical" interview problems at various places also, esp. for frontend roles. But while not leetcode, many of them were things you still wouldn't code up in daily work - at least not serendipitously from scratch in 20-40 minutes with little to no references available. My solution to this was...also grinding.

clintonb 5y ago
Here are the broad topics. Some of the questions are floating in public, and have been replaced, but the general idea remains. - Debug an issue in a library - Balance bank accounts - Design a scalable system, and discuss the trade offs - Integrate with an API
- filoleg 5y ago
  Can confirm that I had a very similar vibe from Dropbox interview process (got the offer, but chose a different offer for reasons that have nothing to do with Dropbox). Grinding leetcode wouldn’t have helped much beyond basics for the coding portion of the interview. The problems were extremely practical, but also not “dirty” (so not like where you are given something like a React project, and asked to build a website doing XYZ). It was more like “here is a general problem (let’s say, process scheduling algorithm for a hypothetical OS; not the problem i got, but similar in concept), here are the methods the class needs to implement. What are the approaches? Which one you would go with if you prioritized memory? What if we prioritized speed instead? Are there any other helpful methods that the class might need?”. And it essentially boils down to conversational decision-making on implementing a feature that is very similar to how it is done in a real workplace, not as a leetcode problem at all. And yes, you still implement it in leetcode, but grinding leetcode will only help you with the very basics, and it can imo be totally passed without leetcode grind. The non-coding interviews were also very well thought-out (in comparison to the typical FAANG process). Systems design was a delight, and the deep dive interview (where you pick a project you worked on before ahead of time, write a few sentences about it, and then when the interview comes you dive very deep into an aspect of it and get grilled with questions on it) was very meaningful and useful. Overall, i can definitely recommend interviewing with Dropbox, and it was a very difficult decision for me to not take that offer, as I got extremely good vibe from both the people i interviewed with and the company overall.
  - __turbobrew__ 5y ago
    I have been trying to get an interview at dropbox but I think my resume is being filtered out by some automated system. I have applied to jobs at dropbox where I have direct in depth experience with the entire tech stack the team is using but I only get an automated rejection email. Such a shame I can’t get into contact with a human at dropbox! Their interview process sounds wonderful and their approach to remote work is really enticing.
    - filoleg 5y ago
      > I have been trying to get an interview at dropbox but I think my resume is being filtered out by some automated system. I feel you, having the same issue with AirBnB myself. I got invited for an interview with them my senior year of college, but I had already signed another offer at that time, so I politely declined. It's been over 5 years since then, and I am yet to be able to get a single interview there, despite applying every year.