Interviewing Q&A and Videos

I got an interview call from Meta for SDE position. They asked to send over any names of references I have at Meta. Can you please suggest me any names from Meta to put as references? Thank you.

I am a backend engineer with 3 years of experience at a Fortune 500 company and I am planning to apply to Big Tech. I can fill the experience section with bullet points listing things I have accomplished on my team. Should I still include a personal project on my resume? Will it count against me if I do not include a projects section?

Hi All, Just want to say thank you to Rahul and Alex for creating this platform. I’ve gone through almost all of the free content and have found it very valuable in performing at my day job. For my question: I’m interested in getting into a Tier-1 company and have tried interview preparation on my own using NeetCode 150, Structy, etc., but am interested in a more structured learning approach. I have failed a couple of interviews and think half is due to anxiety/freezing up and the other half is inexperience with DSA. I have found it difficult to have the discipline to study after work and am interested in making a financial investment to facilitate this process. Also, I am looking to be more comfortable with the interview process through mock interviews. I am currently trying to decide which platform to use to get an offer for a DE role at Tier-1. I’m deciding between Formation and Interview Kickstart. Do you have any opinions on the quality of either program? For context, my current role consists of data engineering work but my role is a software engineer. Formation does not have any data eng specific content so I was thinking about IK. Do you think the quality of formation DSA outweighs the fact that I could learn some domain knowledge through IK? I’m currently enrolled to do to the trial with IK this week to see how the course is, but am still open to enrolling in formation. For DE roles, is DSA enough through formation and then I could supplement with SQL questions? I know you guys just partnered with formation so you may be biased. Thank you in advance for your advice.

I have an internship in the fall with a F1000 and I'd like it on my resume for the brand name. The internship will start in early Sept. Wondering if this is too late for new grad roles? I still don't feel good enough at LC to ace interviews. On the other hand, I have heard of roles sometimes opening in July then closing out in Aug. My goal is to target FAANG/big tech/top unicorn companies. If everything goes well with my current internship, I at least have a backup, but I'd much prefer to be at big tech.

I'm wondering what does it takes to go from an average senior software engineer to a top senior engineer making more than 500k. Any recommendations on a step by step guide that I can leverage to reach my goal. Thanks

Hey, I hope you all are having a good one. I was curious how do you network on LinkedIn to find Internships/jobs. Specifically: What is a good approach to reach out to VPs/Hiring Managers recruiters in your target companies? Being an Entry level/Mid-Level developer what are some ways you can provide value to them too? What are some "Don'ts" of this approach Thank you in advance.

My friends who are there seem to be struggling quite a bit with the current culture, alongside dwindling mental health. I love the potential of enacting a change for good. But would it just fall on deaf ears with no one wanting to step outside the bounds and not change the status quo?

I am a senior engineer and would like to get in to MAANG, but I'm rusty in DS. I don't want to give interviews to MAANG companies until I figure that out Are there any power patterns to start with? And what would be the good starting point to solve problems? I am looking for a smart way to achieve this. In reality most of the Fortune 500 companies I worked in the past, they never dig too much in DS problems. Most care about system design and knowledge about code. I see few people mentioning solving 200+ problems in LeetCode which is a lot of time consuming process. I'm trying to find answers from few people who already went through this.

I've been at a company for 5 years and have 4 different titles. I feel like it is distracting to show 3-5 bullet points for each - maybe just 5 total and also save more room for previous experiences, side projects, and volunteering?