The interview process began with one initial assessment (OA) featuring hard questions. After passing that, four final one-hour rounds were scheduled:

• Two coding rounds
• One object-oriented design (OOD) round
• One system design round, which included the first 15-20 minutes focused on leadership principles.

The interviewers seemed unprepared for alternative solutions in the coding rounds. Although I provided a working solution, they were unsatisfied because it did not match their predetermined answer key. This interview experience was very discouraging, especially since I knew my answers were correct (I verified them after the interview). Despite my attempts to explain my approach and its validity, they were unwilling to acknowledge its correctness.

The system design round, based on "Grokking the System Design Interview," went acceptably.

Significant weightage was given to leadership principles, with interviewers actively seeking specific signals. It is advisable to prepare multiple distinct stories for each leadership principle to avoid repetition.

Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a customer.

Coding questions included:

• One graph-based question.
• One dynamic programming (DP) question, which could also be solved recursively.