My interview process had three stages:

• Recruiter chat
• Phone call with the hiring manager
• Onsite loop

The recruiter chat was about 20-30 minutes, covering my resume and a project walkthrough. It was nothing out of the ordinary.

The phone screen was 60 minutes, split between SQL and Python.

• Tasks included sorting a column, comparing sales percentages between the first and last day of a period, coding a binary search, and calculating the average length of lists.

The onsite loop consisted of four back-to-back interviews:

• Two SQL/ETL interviews, covering joins, subqueries, and some tricky window functions.
• One data modeling interview, where I had to design a database for Google Classroom.
• One ownership/behavioral interview, focusing on past challenges, leadership style, and influencing peers.

They also lightly checked product sense, asking how I would use metrics to track feature impact.

For preparation, LeetCode Easy/Medium and Stratascratch were perfect for brushing up. A mock interview on Prepfully also proved very helpful.

I found the interviewers to be quite collaborative and not adversarial. They even hinted when I was going off track.

Design DB for Google Classroom