Interview Experience
Google L6
What demonstrates L6/L7 vs L5 in terms of system design in the limited time?
The bar for L6 is incredibly high at G. (IDK about other FANG). Was told L6 must be able to transform an abstract problem statement into a solution and be able to defend.
The part that one should be able to defend is dual edged, it can tick off some interviewers.
- Where did you do your paid mocks, did you set expectations before the mock?
- Expertmithra, interviewing.io
- What was your question? If it was too broad, unless you were able to get E2E for at least workflow consider it downlevel or worse a reject.
- Auction system. Missed some industry terminology/optimizations
- Persuasiveness is underrated at L6+ levels. Learnt the hard way from my feedbacks.
- Agreed, any rubric or targeted guide for this? What do you do to improve here and how do you measure this? I consider myself fairly extroverted and social, but may be I can do better.
- It's all about likeability, comm & how humans perceive others. Just be yourself
Stuck on a problem
What's a better strategy for leetcode questions that one is not able to crack after spending a reasonable amount of time?
- continue to solve it yourself indefinitely, or
- look up solution, code it, and move on to next problem?
This depends on how much time you have. If starting out and have time, I suggest sleeping on it so that patterns emerge ie 1, but if you have a deadline or want to time-bound the prep, makes sense to check after say 10-30 mins and move on as there are so many areas to cover. Regardless, more imp is to attack that problem soon again so that its fresh(spaced repetition).
Destination Dispatch
Design and code an elevator destination dispatch system where users select their destination outside the elevators, and are assigned an elevator car by the system.
A breath of fresh air compared to leetcode-style questions. It’s a pretty common OOP design question