The interview process was straightforward at the beginning. After you finish a role-specific challenge, you'll be invited for the "Life Story" interview. This is more than just a "Tell Me About Yourself" session; they want to understand you as a person, from your early life experiences to how they shaped you into who you are today. You should know yourself very well for this part.

After passing this round, you'll receive an invitation for an onsite interview. This interview has two parts: a project presentation and a design question.

The first part involves presenting a project you've previously worked on. You might be asked questions like, "How would you test this component?" or "What inspired you to build this project?"

The second part is essentially a system design question, where you're asked to implement a hypothetical component or service within a system. They're looking for your approach to making the service scalable and highly available, although no coding is involved. This stage was hard to prepare for, as I had no idea what types of things they were looking for.

Once this stage is complete, you'll hear back regarding your hiring status. Despite not getting the role, the interviewers were all very friendly and easy-going.

Design TinyURL (or a URL shortening service)