Interviewing Q&A and Videos

I am a seasoned Mobile engineer(Staff+) and have been looking for a new job since this January. After failing at several job interviews with big tech companies like Meta, Square, Airbnb, Uber, etc I finally received offers from Okx, Doordash and Reddit. To be honest, I feel like the biggest gap was DS&A. Over time, I improved a lot in this area and through the help of mentors and referrals, I was able to land the above offers. I'm very grateful for Taro (especially Rahul) for his constant words of encouragement and his guidance when I needed his help. To everyone out there, I know the market may seem crazy but if you weather the storm, you will find success. If I can do it, you can too! Good luck!

I have around 6.5 years experience in Android development. I joined Meta as a new grad in 2017 and never gave an interview after that. I plan to give interviews in about 6 months from now. I see lot of resources available online for Backend System design interviews but very little information about Mobile System design interview. Any pointers on what the interview process looks like/ how to prepare for interviews at this level? Thanks

I’m currently working as a Data Engineer for a mid-sized (1500 people) investment-services corporation. The company has been around for a long time and makes money, but it definitely isn’t a tech-first company (e.g. it refers to the software side as “I.T.”, has tons of meetings, approvals needed to install almost anything on my computer, including VSCode). I want to get into FAANG as a software engineer because I want to move away from the business/data side of things and closer to the engineer side of things. On my current team, I’m the lone data-engineer (will be joined by another in a few months) and as someone with <3 years of experience, I know that my growth is being stunted. I’m currently grinding AlgoExpert to prep for interviews. How should I think about the circumstances under which it would be worthwhile to quit in order to prep (full time) for FAANG interviews? Here’s what I can come up with in terms of current pros/cons of quitting: Pro’s of quitting: A LOT more time to prep for interviews, can probably increase my output of questions by 3x Can do a lot more interviews without worrying about my job and scheduling Do less business/data stuff which I plan on moving away from anyways Get closer to a FAANG salary faster, which will likely be around 2x of my current salary Cons: Don’t know how long it will take me to get a job Don’t know how easy it will be for me to get interviews without a job Psychological benefits of having a job Some learning on the job Low-stress job, nice manager, no overtime Already take an hour or two of my current job time to do AlgoExpert Make some money right now How does the answer change (if at all) if I manage to land interviews with a bunch of different FAANG companies (say 5+) and I’m struggling to schedule all the time for interviews, prep for them, and do minimal work at my current job? Thoughts are appreciated!

Currently, I am only going through Neetcode's roadmap. I have solved 40+ problems.

My process is: Understand problem Try to solve the problem Try for 10 mins If not, go see the solution video Understand the solution and code up the solution Take notes in an excel sheet for revising later I only read up theory related to the video in case its something I do not know about from before. Only for max 30 mins, so that I do not waste a lot of time reading up. My primary aim is to learn by solving problems.

I am able to solve some problems but I feel I still do not have the intuition for solving new problems.

My questions: Should I be reading up on more theory before I start doing more of the roadmap? Maybe go through Neetcode's courses. Does it simply take solving more problems to build up the intuition? Should I try harder on my own before checking the solution video? How did you build the intuition to solving new problems?

Can I do well at Job and interview prep simultaneously? Would be interested to hear stories from people and strategies employed.