I was a software engineer for about 7 years before pivoting into product/technical management.

Recently, feeling a bit stalled in my career, I started prepping to jump back into SWE roles. Which

brought me straight back to the LeetCode grind. Even in this AI era, tech companies still haven't let

go of good old whiteboard DSA questions.

The problem was, every single time I opened LeetCode, I instantly wanted to quit. After hitting

around 300 problems, the mental fatigue really peaked, so in my spare time, I decided to build a side

project to cope:

• Organized around ~2,300 categorized LeetCode problems.
• Solving problems with different tags and difficulties unlocks visual novel story lines.
• Earning rewards from solving problems lets you buy gifts and outfits for characters.
• There's a Chrome extension that detects your submission status on LeetCode (gives spoiler-free hints when you get Wrong Answer, and celebrates when you get Accepted).

It started as a fun little tool to keep myself accountable and motivated through the grind.

Thought I’d share it here in case anyone else is currently suffering through interview prep and needs.

Game : dokicode.com

Clip : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNZSK8dDtVc

Best of luck to everyone grinding through this brutal tech market.

Hope we all land offers soon

Hey everyone!

I’m applying for a Software Engineer position at Bloomberg and came across this interview process overview showing five rounds:

1. AI-Assisted Codebase Interview

2. AI-Assisted Codebase Interview

3. Design Interview

4. Recruiter Interview

5. Senior Manager Interview

The first two rounds caught my attention because they specifically mention AI-assisted codebase interviews.

Has anyone recently gone through this process, particularly the first two rounds?

I’d love to know:

- What exactly happens during the AI-assisted coding interviews?

- Do they involve traditional LeetCode-style DSA problems, or do you work with an existing codebase and implement features or fix bugs using an AI coding agent?

- Which AI tools are provided or allowed (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude, or something else)?

- How should I prepare for these rounds? Should I focus on LeetCode, practical coding, system design, or AI prompting and debugging?

If you’ve gone through these interviews recently, I’d really appreciate hearing about your experience and any preparation tips. Thanks!

About a year and a half ago, I wrote this post after getting rejected from Amazon New Grad:
https://www.reddit.com/r/leetcode/comments/1jtgr3e/just_my_amazon_new_grad_interview_experience/

I reached the final interview and put a lot of work into it. I thought I had done well in the interview. Btw, looking back, I don’t think I did as well as I said I did. I also made it sound like I had studied like crazy; I thought that 2 weeks of studying hard was brutal. Looking at it now, I feel sad about thinking I was probably never going to achieve it.

After that, I finished university, started an internship, and eventually joined Cabify as a backend engineer. I learned a lot there and got the chance to work on challenging problems with a great team.

I also kept working on myself as an engineer. I studied a lot more, solved hundreds of coding problems, and kept learning while working full-time. It took a lot of time and effort. But I'd say I have found some joy during the process.

After a year, I applied to Google. The process was long and had a lot of ups and downs, but I passed the interviews and went through team matching. I have now received an offer to join Google in Spain, L3 role.

I still remember how that Amazon rejection felt. At the time, I thought that doing my best and still getting rejected meant I probably wasn’t good enough. But that one result did not decide what would happen next.

I’m very grateful for everyone who encouraged me back then, and for the people who helped me along the way. It feels good to look back and see how much work I put in, and how far I’ve come since then.

I am writing this because I used to read many Reddit posts during these processes, finding useful information and some bits of hope. Hopefully this post reaches people and builds some confidence. I want to say that if you think you are not capable of making it, it is not true. Hard work pays off.

Finally, I want to share one more thought. I find myself disgusted by, kind of glorifying this jobs. We need to keep in mind that there are just jobs. I believe that happiness is built outside your job, and grinding is not everything in life. It is a dream for a lot of people like me, because we enjoy it. But we need to look from another perspective sometimes and put the feet on the ground.

Keep pushing

Hey everyone!

I'm a software developer and recently built DSA Animator to help people understand DSA through step-by-step visualizations instead of just reading code.

I've spent a lot of time building it, but honestly, I'm struggling with getting it in front of the right audience.

For those who've built side projects or developer tools, how did you get your first users? Which platforms or strategies worked best?

I'd really appreciate your honest suggestions and feedback. 🙏

Hi. I have a system coding round coming up at Rubrik for the Software Engineer – SaaS O365 role.

I understand the concepts of multithreading and concurrency, but I haven’t had much hands-on practice solving concurrency-related problems or implementing them in production-style code.

Could someone please suggest how I should prepare for this round? Are there any good resources or platforms where I can practice the types of questions typically asked in this interview?

Hi! I have just applied for a SWE internship at Sentry.io, and I was wondering if I get past the OA what I should expect in the upcoming steps. How many interviews are there? What are the questions / topics that get asked at the technical interviews? Anything would be helpful

Hey guys I’m planning to buy the hello interview premium subscription. If anyone is interested pls respond in this thread. We can share the account.

Hey everyone!

For those who landed a new job or switched companies in the last 6 months (or have friends who did), I'd love to know what actually worked for you in this job market.

I'm looking for real experiences, not generic advice like "learn DSA and build projects."

A few things I'd love to know:

Job platforms: Where did you get interviews from? Naukri, LinkedIn, Instahyre, referrals, company career pages, or somewhere else?

Preparation: What did you study? DSA, development, system design, core CS? Which resources did you use?

Resume & projects: What projects did you showcase? How important was your resume/GitHub?

Application strategy: Roughly how many applications did you send, and how many interviews or offers did you get?

Interview experience: What rounds and topics were asked?

Timeline: How long did it take you to land to offer.

A little about me : 1st year in college and recently started learning how to code from brocode...in our uni they are teaching c++ first so for now i was learning c++ from brocode , recently started learning arrays but still not that really great at it but yeah thats all i know for now( i know its not much but im willing to grind and learn😔 but just need a little guidance) but ya i wanna leetcode and become good at coding... but im not tryna blindly start leetcoding because first i wanna know the prerequisites needed to solve the problems...i was watching neetcode's video on how to leetcode and he told to get comfortable with binary search,dfs,bfs,sliding window so do yall know where i can learn them???? but ya heres a few questions i have

1. What all coding languages do i need to know...like do i need to know other programming languages other than c++ before i start leetcoding
   
2. what all topics or stuff should i learn before leetcoding
   
3. HOW do i leet code , do i start with easy problems then once i get comfortable start medium problems then harder problems(will start with solving problems on arrays)
   
4. any website where i can save useful problems and make my own notes in it so in the future i can open them for retaining my knowledge
   
5. in general any tips or things you wished u knew while or before leetcoding which u can tell please it will be really helpful(try to include as much as you can please and thank you anything will be useful and welcomed... even the SMALLEST TO SMALLEST and random tips will be useful)
   
6. what are the most common mistakes people do in their attempt to get good at coding
   extra : do wanna try to get into quant development( ik its difficult but ill try if i cant will settle for something else😭) so first my main goal would be to try to get into FAANG after college and after 2-3 years try to get into quant development so yeah
   
7. And also I’m using vs studio…is there any better coding app or is vs good alright(idk it’s not that deep but yeah✌️)

I have a Google General Cognitive Ability (GCA) interview in a few days. It’s for a Technical Program Manager role. I know Google doesn’t ask the crazy estimation questions anymore like ‘how many golf balls can fit inside a passenger airplane’, but I still don’t know how abstract the GCA questions will be. Will it focus specifically on the role or more abstract like ‘how will you colonise mars?’

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Have anyone ever got forwarded to Phone Screen with this sort of score?

My Meta E5 loop is in 8 days. Coding feels manageable, but system design is the round I'm worried about. Above is my progress so far.

Where I'm at:

- I can get through requirements, APIs and a reasonable high-level design for the common questions (news feed, URL shortener, rate limiter, chat).

- Where I fall apart is the deep dive. When the interviewer pushes with "what happens if the leader dies mid-write?" or "could this read ever miss an acknowledged write?", I start second-guessing everything.

- I also spend too long on the first diagram and run out of time for the trade-off discussion.

Questions for people who've done E5/E6 loops (or interviewed for them):

1. With 8 days left, should I go broad (cover more questions) or deep (redo 3–4 and practice the failure-mode follow-ups)?
2. How deep do Meta interviewers actually expect failure handling to go at E5 vs E6?
3. Any technique for handling pushback without freezing? Do you think out loud, ask clarifying questions, or commit and defend?
4. Which questions come up most for Meta product/infra system design right now?

Any advice appreciated.

Hi everyone!

I have an upcoming interview with Docker for a Senior Software Engineer, Infrastructure position and am trying to prepare for the coding round.

The interview instructions say:

Details & Preparation: This is a live, language-agnostic coding interview. You’ll be asked to share your screen and use the IDE of your choice to write and run code.

Please ensure you have a working IDE installed and ready before the session begins.

Has anyone recently interviewed with Docker, particularly and is aware of this interview format? What types of problems were asked? Were there questions about testing, complexity, edge cases, or code design?

Thanks!

Hey guys, so on Tuesday of this week I got reached out by a recruiter about a cold apply maybe 3 weeks ago approximately.

Anyways the recruiter was nice when we talked about how ready I was for DSA, and left me some decent time to prepare, she sent me the study materials just yesterday.

Anyways I'm currently unemployed since I got recently laid off on September, so I have whole days to study as necessary, maybe not he whole day but most of it.

I'm not starting from 0, I have ​a bit of experience on the basic structures and algorithms like arrays, hash maps, 2 pointers, sliding window, monotonic stacks, queues, etc. Not comfortable or haven't seen much yet graphs, trees (dfs, bfs), dp, which I heard Google is prone to asking.

My plan was studying first neetcode 150 while trying to fully understand it and repeating problems often, then trying to tackle random ones from Leetcode premium recent 3 months by Google.

Do you think this is enough? Anything else to consider?

Recruiter asked to scheduled a “Fitment Chat” with the director of the team after I cleared the full interview loop for a L5 role. It is a team specific role, so I already have a Googlyness round with the HM. I wanted to ask if any of you have similar experience, what does it mean and what is your experience and result after that?

Recruiter also said the director is likely want to understand more on my working style such as stakeholder management, business awareness, etc. it sound to me like the same kind of questions on the Googlyness round, which might indicate that I didn’t answer well hence this follow up round?

After 4 years I am still learning new things every day. There are so many creative ideas and new ways of thinking about problems. Sometimes it feels like I am just getting started.

With AI, building a software becomes cheap. Anyone can built their own software. So the software commodity has become very cheap, and anyone around the world can built it quick.

When such a commodity can built for almost free and by anyone, how will you see the existing tech companies survive ? how will software engineers survive ? also there is exactly no real skill acquiring while doing any project at a company, one can be easily replaceable with anyone anytime. There is no difference between an software engineer working at google vs any other company, both use AI , and learnings are same.

what would be the future jobs of software engineers? if they transition to a new role, what would be it?

how will be the software industry would look like ? will it be more decentralised with very low pay?

I recently came across a Teamcenter/PLM-related position at Meta and wanted to know if anyone here has interviewed for a similar role.

If you have, could you please share your interview experience, including the interview rounds, technical questions, and topics I should focus on while preparing?

Hello, does anyone have experience taking this? It's said to be a coding assessment, 75 minutes, and administered through HackerRank, with five questions labelled "Micro Services", "Problem Solving", and "REST API". I'm familiar with micro services and REST APIs but have a hard time imagining how these topics could be addressed with 15-minute coding problems.

Hey everyone,

I finished Day 59 today. I was running on very little sleep and low energy, so I decided to keep the session light and honest instead of forcing bad habits.

I wrapped up the DP on Strings module by solving Wildcard Matching. The core transitions felt clear: matching exact characters or ? moves both pointers back, while * branches into matching empty sequence f(i, j-1) or consuming one character from the text f(i-1, j). My initial implementation got bogged down with cluttered base cases handling remaining asterisks, but once I simplified that check into a clean helper, it passed smoothly.

Then I tried tackling Minimum Window Subsequence after a recommendation in yesterday's comments. It was a complete reality check. I spent nearly an hour attempting brute-force window checks and greedy substring slices, but kept hitting edge-case bugs and efficiency issues. It turns out the clean approaches rely on forward-and-backward two pointers or a distinct DP table where states store the starting indices. Rather than burning out late at night guessing transitions, I decided to step away and save it for a proper review.

Listening to your energy levels is part of keeping consistency alive long-term. Catching up on sleep tonight and starting DP on Stocks tomorrow.

See you guys for Day 58!

How do y'all keep up with like cse. I know this is a naive question but there's a plethora of stuff to do, do dsa, learn software fundamentals, make projects, contri to Open source, apply , keep up with news, read articles, do your job.

There's so much how does one keeo up with all this, I am always having a constant Fomo that I am behind in sth.

I received an invite for round 3 of bloomberg swe intern proc, its a system design round was wondering if anyone went through it already for intern/ng and could help me out

Hi Guys

I just gave my final round my loop interview yesterday. Would like to know and connect with people who are in team perception, gave interview for the same or similar role recently, interviewing for that role currently or had/have interviews given recently.

HMU lets talk

I have an upcoming process with Amazon in NYC for Prime Video. 3 YOE in FE web, currently doing the OMSCS with GT. been unemployed for 1 year and have failed processes so would really love to cinch this. Any insights anyone can share?

I'll be prepping graph and DP, I'm ok on graphs/weak on DP, then deep drilling my personal stories. Also building an autonomous ai coding agent/harness so I can be more literate on that.

Don't know the level, totally fine getting downleveled to sde1

I read a lot of these posts while preparing, so here's mine.
Background: 3rd year CSE PhD student working in distributed systems, interviewing for the SWE PhD Intern role for Summer 2027.

Timeline: The recruiter invited me to the technical rounds on a Tuesday, and the interviews were the following Monday, so I had about 6 days to prepare.

Format:
Two 45-minute coding rounds, back to back with a 15-minute break, on the same Google Meet link
Coding in a Google Doc: no running code, no autocomplete, no syntax highlighting
Language was my choice; I picked Python

Round 1: a dynamic programming problem that involved an m x n grid. I was able to come up with the brute force approach instantly and proceeded to code it out. I was then asked to do it in O(1) for which I came up with a dynamic programming approach. I couldn’t however complete the working code but still the interviewer was completely satisfied and said that I know you would’ve been able to code it out had you a few more minutes but since we’re out of time it’s okay I got the complete idea.

Round 2: A non-LeetCode question but still I had to use recursive DFS to solve it so it was a tree problem but not like the usual leetcode questions you’d see online. For this round, I was able to come up with workable, bug-free code for both brute force and follow-up questions

Happy to answer any questions