The interview process was too smooth, and it was a great experience for me to have this opportunity. The interviewers were polite and helpful. It assesses skills, culture fit, and qualifications for the role.

Round 1 - Online Coding Round:

There were two coding questions, and I was able to solve both of them. The first question was related to a heap and the other to BFS. Both were medium-level questions.

I received an email from the recruiter the next day (February 16th, 2021) stating that they would schedule four interview rounds and would call me soon to discuss. They gave me one month of preparation time and scheduled the interviews for the end of March. I'm not sure if they offer this much preparation time to everyone.

The three sections of the assessment were:

• Coding challenge (2 scenarios) and Coding approach (elaborate why you coded the way you did) - 105 minutes
• Work style survey - 15 minutes
• Feedback survey - 5 minutes

Round 2 - Coding Round with SDE2 (10:00 AM):

The interview started with introductions, and then the interviewer asked me to tell them about myself (~6 minutes).

Next, some basic OS questions were asked: Process and thread. I was asked about the difference between them and how they work (~5 minutes).

Coding Question: Number of Islands. This is a standard LeetCode question asked by Amazon (~20 minutes).

I had already solved this question, so I knew the approach. I started with a brute-force solution and then moved to the optimized approach. I was asked to write the optimized solution in production-level code and to assume the best cases. Finally, I was asked to dry-run the code, explain it line by line, and state the time and space complexity. The interviewer was satisfied with my solution.

My next question was related to strings, and I had to find the longest substring of size K. I provided the brute-force solution but was unable to come up with the optimized solution (~15 minutes).

He asked me to write the brute-force solution and do a code walkthrough. In the end, he mentioned I was missing one base case in my solution. I tried to find that missing test case but couldn't. (I believe this is the reason for my rejection).

In the next ~5-6 minutes, he asked me some LP questions, which I was able to answer based on my experience.

Round 3 - Coding Round with SDE2 (11:30 AM):

Two coding questions were asked:

• Find the longest substring without repeating characters (https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-substring-without-repeating-characters/)
• Kth Largest Element in an Array (https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-largest-element-in-an-array/submissions/)

I was able to solve both questions, and the interviewer was satisfied.

At the end, I was asked two LP questions. I felt good after this round as I was able to answer all the questions.

I thought I was done for the day, but around 2:00 PM, I received a call from the recruiter scheduling a managerial coding round for 3:00 PM. I confirmed my availability.

Round 4 - Managerial Coding Round with 2 SDMs:

Quick introductions of the Managers and my introduction (~7-8 minutes). Two LP questions (~6-7 minutes). So far, so good.

Coding Question:

• Word Search (https://leetcode.com/problems/word-search/) (~20 minutes). I was able to solve it and explain the approach to the interviewers. I also stated the time and space complexity at the end.

Around 15 minutes were left.

• Calculate the angle between the hour hand and the minute hand. I explained my approach but couldn't come up with the correct answer. He mentioned I was going in the right direction and asked me to write the code for my approach. Since I hadn't devised the correct logic, I struggled with coding it. I wrote pseudocode and explained it. (This might be a reason for my rejection).

At the end, they asked if I had any questions. All the interviewers were very friendly and guided me whenever I got stuck.

The next day, I received a rejection email. I didn't expect to be rejected. I had solved almost all the coding questions and prepared for all the LP questions based on my experience, feeling confident in all interviews.

I've listed the reasons that may have led to my rejection. Hopefully, this will help other candidates with their preparation. I wish you luck.