Passed the first round phone interview and was invited for an onsite, which consisted of four rounds of virtual interviews.

First round was fairly easy – a standard LeetCode question with some follow-ups like, "Why Livongo?"

Second round was the worst experience so far.

An engineer showed up and asked me which round I was in. I told him "onsite," and he was definitely surprised and, as far as I could tell, caught unprepared. He spent five minutes pulling out his question list, which turned out to be a system design question with a "correct" answer on it.

With all respect, what I know about system design is "kind of" open-ended. I was more backend-focused, but the interviewer kept me around JSON for most of the time. The conversation went like, "I would like to discuss more about A," and I was stopped by, "That's not important."

I tried to maintain my patience as much as I could, but in the end, I was not able to proceed to architecture and DB schema, which was supposed to be my strength. It was a quite disappointing experience.

The only reason I can think of is that what's required at Livongo is a specific skillset instead of a generally good engineer. But perhaps let the interviewee have the chance to showcase what they have for you.

Before the meeting ended, we talked a little about each other's backgrounds. The interviewer had actually joined less than a month ago and was already conducting interviews. I think the company must be expanding really fast.

I got a phone call the next day saying I did not pass the system design, obviously. I hope they will eventually find someone they want.

System Design and LeetCode Questions