Reality of DSA based interviews

So basically I don't hesitate in challenging the interviewer if I feel like they don't know how to interview a senior candidate so during many interviews, this is how I have caught them off guard: 1. The interviewer was asking me technical questions and expecting to explain properly throughout. So at the end i asked him about the tech stack they use, he said Azure. I asked him why they use Azure and not AWS, to which he said "it's cheaper", i didn't let it go, i asked him for a proper technical explanation, his red face was worth seeing. 2. The interview asked me a hard DSA question, and I wasn't able to solve it properly, he didn't even give me enough hints, just expected me to solve it. So halfway I asked him, would you like to solve a DSA if I ask you right now, he said no because it's not his interview. To which I asked, are you afraid that you won't be able to solve? If you are going to reject me for not solving this question, would you resign if you aren't able to solve the question. He ended the call. 3. One interviewer was asking me absurd technical detailed questions. I asked him why are you asking such questions, he said he needs to know my thought process because he will work with me. I started asking him similar questions, he said he won't answer because it's not his interview. I said I also need to know your thought process because we'll work together, so you should also answer these questions, he had no reply. 4. The interviewer asked me about a challenging project that I had done recently. I don't like this question at all. So I said there wasn't any challenging project because I'm good at what I do so it's always easy for me. He moved on to the next question. 5. HR asked me why I resigned without an offer? I asked if it's mandatory? No reply.

I just think we should skip DSA rounds for existing FAANG employees. I understand the importance of DSA rounds and is pretty much required for SDE 1 roles as their major work is to code. But for higher levels, it starts becoming less and less relevant and pointless. In most companies DSA is to understand the basics of the candidate, can they write code, explain the problem and thought process. Now most FAANG interviewers look for the same thing. Now once I have cleared one that means I have proved myself to be someone who meets the bar, doing it again is just like "Well, have you continued grinding leetcode after getting the job". You can check design competencies, problem solving in design, mentoring etc. but why ask DSA and go through that gruelling interview process. Your thoughts?

Different companies follow different methods to choose their workforce, so if you've given/taken couple of interviews yourself can you provide insight on how you do it and why you think it works? Also what would you change about the general process of tech hiring? Let me go first. 0. (obvious, but) Minimal weightage for DSA - When I conduct interviews, I rarely ask DSA problems. It rarely gives me an opportunity to assess the candidate's breadth of knowledge, and come to a conclusion of how much experience they have with the tasks that they're going to do on the job. What if they've practiced the same problem / variation of the problem that I ask? I want to assess technical competence, not their acting skills. 1. (debatable) Culture fit should be given a higher weightage than skills - Skills can be learnt, behavior and character takes time to build. It most often hinders the progress of the team. 2. Stop setting standards for the interview that your team doesn't follow in the first place - I've had friends who had to pass interviews of high standards only to work in shitty teams. They were yearning for an achha din but it never came. Your thoughts? Nothing's wrong here, please be open to discussion.

I am a 2YOE software engineer, and I wanted to make a switch. Having a grip on DSA but can't rely on it. I am seeing a good number of folks getting into start ups get paid well too. Can someone comment on startups that are paying well but require less grinding. Open for comments and views. Thanks

I received a call and a subsequent HRank test for this company Lytx. There was a DSA problem where: For a given MxN matrix containing only 1s or 0s, we had to identify the minimum number of left or right cyclical shifts required on the row for getting at least 1 column with all ones. Sample Input: ['1001,'0101,'0000'] I used chat gpt and still couldn't figure out an exact solution, leave aside solving it on my own. Question for the community: Say they select me for a further round anyways, will the interview as well be this brutal in terms of DSA ? Are these companies expecting programming prodigies or am I just not there in terms of my problem solving journey ? Hoping for some brutally honest responses.

I am a backend engineer with a 9 year exp. In my fourth company now. Started with 5 lpa, now at 31 Lpa. Mostly have worked in normal companies only. I am from one of the NITs. I am not good at DSA. Everytime I have to switch a job, my resume gets shortlisted and I get call via naukri. The things is in these last 4 job searches I have been rejected 100 times. I have been rejected by almost all the companies, Service now 5-6 times, oracle 5-6 times, Walmart 2 times, goldman 3 times, jpmorgan 2 times, Amazon 4-5 times, arcesium 3-4 times, msft 2 times. Apart from these, I have been rejected by adp, celigo, phenom, barclays, flipkart etc. Every time, I want to change a job, I'll get rejected by all the big companies and then will get selected at some normal company with a hike and will join them. I am at my fourth company now, and again I am searching for a job. Have already been rejected by GS, service now, phenom, epam, ice, demandbase in last 2 months. Every time it is the same DSA. I try studying, will do decent amount of leetcode prior to interviews. Last two months I am doing leetcode from strivers sheet. But same question I'll do here, and in interview will fail. Example I have done sorted array rotation, shares sell and buy, rain water trapping, and was asked the same question in interview and couldn't solve. I also want to earn more and get into some big company and stay there for some times, what shall I do? My concerns are, I am getting lesser calls this time compared to the last few years, I can't be switching job every two years. Want to join a big company and earn more.

Which companies hire without DSA in their interview process?

Recently had a chance to interview at a pretty mature startup(moengage), a recruiter called me up, we set up a time and date for a machine coding round. I was pretty excited to be honest and looking forward to the interview. Fast forward to the day of reckoning , I join the interview with my intellij set up, my pen and paper to draw the ERD ready and my mind full of design patterns, only to be confronted with two DS & Algo questions(i legit gave up the moment i heard ds), the questions were interesting and the interviewer chill but it blindsided me by a whole lot and I couldn’t solve anything. It’s pretty weird that startups with so many resources at their disposal could be so out of sync internally.

I just finished an interview with ServiceNow for a senior software engineer role and writing this up. Anger rushed through my body after finishing the interview for multiple reasons. reasons: 1. The interviewer joined 10 minutes late and he was very lethargic. 2. The questions he asked regarding my current job were very basic and then I realized that he should be fresher or should have 2 - 3 years of experience. 3. After the interview I checked his profile on LinkedIn and he was a 2021 graduate (as I guessed). 4. I don't understand why an organization assigns software engineers (2.5 YOE) as interviewers for hiring a senior software engineer(8+ YOE). It doesn't make sense to me. 5. Then the interviewer asked a basic DSA question, and I gave him the solution, now he was not familiar with the Python language hence intrigued about the implementation of the heapify in Python. I explained to him how Heapify works but still, he could not understand what it is. 6. The part I got pissed off is the interviewer's attitude of him knowing everything. 7. The interview was scheduled for 1 hour and we went overtime, it's okay to go overtime by 5-10 minutes., But this guy is taking more than 20 minutes. He din't have basic ethics of valuing candidate's time. This is not my first interview with ServiceNow, this is my second and I had same feelings in the first interview as well. It's okay for me to not grab this opportunity, but think about someone who is really struggling to get a job during this tough time, because of the interviewer being lethargic. Hope ServiceNow focuses on their interviewing system and improves it.

Hey all, What can be expected salary in Zeta for 7 YoE Data Scientist or SDE? I have an interview coming up. Any previous DSA questions would help. This lame habit of asking DSA to data science roles don't seem to die down.