I was contacted by an HR recruiter on LinkedIn. I scheduled a first phone screen with HR, and then another with a senior engineer. A few days later, I had the onsite interview. The work environment was nice, with an open workspace. I liked it.

Questions were as follows:

1st Round:

1. Your most recent project: description and your role. I recommend preparing every single detail of your project.

2. This is a very database-heavy position, so refresh your database fundamentals, like the difference between an inner join and an outer join. You will design a database with examples from the interviewers.

3. How do you understand MVC? What are its pros and cons?

4. What is the process when you type in wayfair.com?

5. Given a website that is frequently visited by people around the world, causing system failure due to heavy traffic, how would you solve it? I suggested using cache technology and adding load balancing devices, but I'm unsure about the specific cache technologies.

2nd Round: A 60-minute non-stop talk.

1. Your experience.

2. Multithreaded programming used in SQL. If 1 million users try to visit wayfair.com, how can you fulfill their requests in time? Describe it.

3. Are you familiar with XML and XSD? Describe them.

3rd Round: Programming tests:

1. Bank Check Problem: Convert numeric values into their string representations.

2. Recursion problem: I did not finish it, as I may have failed at a certain case and ran out of time. Suggestion: Spit out your thoughts to earn your credits if you cannot complete it on time.

They focused on whether you have a better understanding of certain fields of knowledge rather than your potential or desire to learn. But at least I know where I need to be improved.

In a nutshell, a positive experience. If you can answer all questions above, you will nail it.