8 things I learned from a dozen technical interviews

Summary

In this video, software engineer Utsav shares valuable insights from his tech company interview experiences. He emphasizes the importance of preparation, the necessity of conducting numerous interviews, the critical role of mastering data structures and algorithms, the challenge of advanced topics, and the significance of mock interviews. He also discusses the intricacies of system design interviews and the importance of understanding one's worth in salary negotiations.

Takeaways

• 📚 Preparation is critical for tech interviews and requires deliberate practice and a consistent schedule.
• 🔍 Interviewing frequently and organizing interviews deliberately helps to improve performance and manage expectations.
• 💼 Prioritize mastering data structures and algorithms as they are fundamental to succeeding in technical interviews.
• 🔑 Advanced data structures and algorithms are rarely required in interviews, but a solid understanding of basic ones is essential.
• 👥 Engaging in numerous mock interviews can significantly improve interview skills and provide valuable feedback.
• 🛠 System design interviews are challenging and require in-depth preparation beyond just having experience.
• 🎯 Quality system design resources are difficult to find, and self-study is crucial for mastering the subject.
• 🤔 Feeling good about an interview doesn't guarantee success; focus on technical details and practice.
• 💰 Prioritize understanding your worth and practicing negotiation skills before entering the job market.
• 🏢 Consider company culture, team dynamics, and project alignment as important factors beyond compensation.
• 🔄 Be prepared to switch focus from negotiation to evaluating the overall job opportunity once a fair compensation is established.

Q & A

What was the primary purpose of the video?

The primary purpose of the video was to share insights and lessons learned from the experience of interviewing at various tech companies.

Why did the speaker take a year off from full-time work?

The speaker took a year off to focus on side projects and personal hobbies.

What was the speaker's initial experience with the first interview after taking a break from full-time work?

The speaker found the first interview to be more challenging than expected, realizing the underestimation of the pressure and the need for better preparation.

What is the importance of preparation in the interview process according to the speaker?

Preparation is critical as it involves deliberate practice, a structured schedule, and consistency to be ready for the interview as a candidate.

Why is it suggested to have a lot of interviews lined up?

Having multiple interviews lined up helps with accountability, learning from each experience, and not having time to dwell on the outcome of each interview.

What strategy is recommended for organizing interviews?

It's recommended to start with the least exciting interviews and save the most coveted companies for last to leverage the improvement gained through practice.

Why is it crucial not to attempt interviews without a strong foundation in data structures and algorithms?

Without a strong foundation, candidates are setting themselves up for failure as these fundamentals are critical to solving interview problems effectively.

What was the speaker's experience with advanced data structures and algorithms during the interviews?

The speaker did not encounter advanced data structures and algorithms questions that were beyond their knowledge, indicating that a solid understanding of the basics is usually sufficient.

Why are mock interviews considered valuable in the interview preparation process?

Mock interviews provide realistic practice, help to overcome nerves, and offer feedback from seasoned interviewers, which is essential for improvement.

What is the speaker's advice regarding system design interviews?

The speaker advises that system design interviews require quality preparation, as they can be the deciding factor for hiring, level of hire, and compensation.

How should candidates approach compensation negotiation?

Candidates should know their worth, negotiate for it, and then shift focus to evaluating the company, team, projects, and culture for long-term job satisfaction.

Outlines

00:00

📚 The Importance of Preparation in Tech Interviews

In this paragraph, the speaker, Utsav, a software engineer, reflects on his experience interviewing with tech companies after taking a year off. He emphasizes the critical nature of preparation, recounting his initial underestimation of the interview process. Despite being an experienced professional and interviewer himself, he found the actual interview experience to be more challenging than expected. The pressure of being a candidate, managing expectations, problem-solving, and showcasing behavioral traits all contributed to the complexity of the interview process. Utsav concludes that deliberate practice, a structured schedule, and consistency are essential for interview readiness.

05:00

🔍 Organizing and Learning from Multiple Interviews

The speaker discusses the importance of conducting numerous interviews and organizing them strategically. After an initial failed interview, he resolved to schedule interviews in advance, which helped him stay accountable and learn from each experience without dwelling on the outcome. He suggests starting with less desirable companies and saving the most coveted ones for last, as interview skills improve over time. The paragraph also touches on the prevalence of multiple questions in a single interview, a trend he observed, especially at larger companies like Facebook.

10:02

💡 Fundamentals Over Advanced Concepts in Technical Interviews

Utsav stresses the importance of mastering data structures and algorithms as the foundation for succeeding in technical interviews. He warns against the misconception of needing advanced knowledge, as his interviews did not involve advanced topics beyond his expertise. He recounts specific questions that tested his understanding of fundamental concepts, such as priority queues and monotonically increasing structures. The key takeaway is that a strong grasp of the basics is more valuable than superficial knowledge of advanced topics.

15:03

🎯 The Value of Mock Interviews and System Design Insights

The speaker highlights mock interviews as an invaluable resource for interview preparation, recommending numerous mock interviews to simulate the real experience effectively. He also discusses the challenge of system design interviews, noting the difficulty in finding quality resources, especially for senior engineers. Despite his experience, Utsav found that he needed to prepare specifically for system design to succeed, as the expectation is to provide detailed and deep solutions within a limited time frame.

🤔 The Illusion of Success in System Design Interviews

Utsav shares his observations on the deceptive nature of system design interviews, where candidates often feel they performed well despite not necessarily meeting the interviewer's expectations. He points out that the conversational format can be misleading, as it may not reflect the technical depth required. The paragraph underscores the importance of practice, focus, and attention to detail in system design interviews, as they significantly impact hiring decisions, including position level and compensation.

💼 Prioritizing Beyond Compensation in Job Selection

In the final paragraph, the speaker advises job candidates to focus not solely on compensation but also on the company culture, team dynamics, and project alignment when making a job decision. He warns against the trap of letting compensation become the primary focus and suggests that candidates understand their worth before interviews. Utsav recommends practicing negotiation skills and leveraging interview performance and competing offers to establish one's value. Ultimately, he encourages shifting the focus to non-monetary factors for long-term job satisfaction.

Keywords

💡Preparation

Preparation is a critical aspect emphasized in the video script, highlighting the importance of being ready for technical interviews. The speaker mentions that even with experience, underestimating the need for preparation can lead to failure. This keyword is central to the theme of the video, as it sets the stage for discussing the importance of deliberate practice and structured schedules in interview preparation.

💡Interview

The term 'interview' is a recurring theme throughout the script, referring to the process of being assessed for a job, particularly in the software engineering field. The speaker shares his experiences and insights from multiple interviews, emphasizing the need for practice and organization in scheduling interviews to improve performance and increase chances of success.

💡Data Structures and Algorithms

Data structures and algorithms are fundamental concepts in computer science that are crucial for technical interviews. The speaker advises that mastering these basics is essential for success in interviews, as they form the backbone of problem-solving in software engineering. The script illustrates this by discussing the speaker's initial underestimation of the importance of these fundamentals.

💡Mock Interviews

Mock interviews are simulated interview sessions designed to help candidates practice and improve their interview skills. The speaker highly recommends mock interviews as a resource for interview preparation, suggesting that multiple mock interviews can significantly increase a candidate's chances of success by providing valuable feedback and experience.

💡System Design

System design is a key component of the interview process, especially for senior software engineers. The speaker discusses the challenges of system design interviews, noting that they require a deep understanding and the ability to discuss complex topics within a limited time frame. The script emphasizes the importance of preparation and the need for quality resources to master system design.

💡Behavioral Aspects

Behavioral aspects refer to the non-technical skills and personal characteristics that are assessed during interviews. The speaker mentions that companies often quiz candidates on these aspects, which can impact the overall interview outcome. This concept is important as it broadens the scope of interview preparation beyond technical knowledge.

💡Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice is a focused and structured approach to learning that involves setting specific goals and receiving feedback. The speaker uses this term to describe the necessary mindset for interview preparation, suggesting that casual or unstructured practice is insufficient for achieving interview success.

💡Negotiation

Negotiation in the context of the video refers to the process of discussing and agreeing on job offers, particularly compensation. The speaker advises on the importance of knowing one's worth and being prepared to negotiate, emphasizing that this skill can influence not only the job offer but also the level of compensation received.

💡Compensation

Compensation is the financial reward or salary offered for a job. The script discusses the importance of understanding one's value and negotiating a fair compensation package. It also warns against focusing solely on money, suggesting that other factors such as company culture and team dynamics are equally important.

💡Educative

Educative is mentioned as a resource for learning and improving skills, particularly in the context of technical interviews. The speaker recommends their courses, such as 'Grocking the System Design Interview,' as a valuable tool for interview preparation. This keyword is relevant as it provides a specific example of a resource that can aid in mastering interview topics.

Highlights

Preparation is critical for interview success.

Underestimating interview pressure can lead to failure.

Interviewers look for specific signals, unlike candidates.

Deliberate practice and a structured schedule are necessary for interview readiness.

Organize interviews deliberately to manage preparation and expectations.

Schedule least exciting interviews first, save coveted companies for last.

Fundamental knowledge of data structures and algorithms is essential.

Advanced data structures are rarely asked in interviews.

Understanding basic principles can help solve unfamiliar problems.

Expect to answer multiple questions in a single interview.

Mock interviews are invaluable for interview preparation.

Quality system design resources are hard to find.

System design interviews require deep dives into solutions.

Educative offers highly rated courses for technical interview preparation.

Feeling good about a system design interview can be misleading.

System design interviews determine hiring level and compensation.

Negotiate compensation based on self-assessment and interview performance.

Focus on company culture, team, and projects after securing fair compensation.

Transcripts

this year i interviewed at a bunch of

tech companies and in this video i

wanted to share with you guys things

that i learned from my experience

[Music]

hey guys my name is utsav and i'm a

software engineer based in seattle

washington

and this channel is all about helping

you excel in your software engineering

careers

so if you're into that please consider

subscribing to this channel as usual

anything i reference or talk about in

this video will be linked in the

description below

so please feel to check those out and

this video will also have

time stamps so you can jump around or

skip to the sections that

interests you the most without further

ado let's get started

so a little bit of a background for why

this video exists

for those that you don't know is around

june last year i decided to take a year

off from working full-time to focus on

my side projects and personal hobbies

and things like that

so about summer this year is when i

wanted to start working full time again

so with that in mind around february

2021

is when i started interviewing with a

lot of companies and

this video is about that experience so

the first thing i learned

about the whole process is that

preparation

is critical and i know this sounds like

common sense

and a no-brainer but here's what

happened to me

even before early 2021 right after i

started my break maybe

around last summer or fall i got an

opportunity

to interview with the company that i

kind of was excited to work for

so i thought to myself you know what i'm

not ready to work right away but what do

i lose by interviewing with them right

um so i accepted the opportunity to

interview and

in my mind i thought i was fairly

prepared because i've been in the

industry for a long time i've worked on

good projects and i

actively used to interview candidates as

well so i was kind of

in the know how about what interviews

expect what kind of questions to prep

for and things like that so i took about

one or two weeks to kind of brush up on

my data structures and algorithms tried

a few questions on lead code and

felt fairly confident going in my

surprise

the real interview was completely

different it was way more challenging

let's just say that i completely bummed

it i think the first thing i

underestimated was the pressure that

comes to you

immediately after you're a candidate

instead of an interviewer

not only that but as an interviewer your

job is to pick up signal so you're

looking for very specific things so your

job i think is a lot easier than a

candidate where

in a very limited amount of time you're

managing a lot of different things not

only do you have to manage your

interviewers expectations

and understand what they're looking from

you but you have to

actually make sure that you're making

progress to have the problem and then

you have to manage your code editor

you have to give examples test cases

optimal solutions

and doing all this most companies are

also kind of quizzing you on some

behavioral aspects

of your personality so i think my

conclusion from this that i'm trying to

explain to you

is it really requires deliberate

practice and a structured schedule and a

consistent schedule

for you to be ready to actually

interview as a candidate the second

thing i learned

was that you have to interview a lot

and you have to organize your interviews

very deliberately

what i mean by this is so the first

interview when i bombed it

even though part of me wanted to go back

to interviewing again because i wanted

to prove to myself that i can do better

there was a lot of resistance in my mind

thinking that oh my god i have to do

this whole

prep again so i i just stopped i didn't

practice i was like you know what i

decided to take a break i'm just going

to take a break so

early this year though when i started i

wanted to fix that by making sure that

i had actually scheduled all my

interviews so every recruiter that had

reached out to me earlier that year i

just told him hey let's

circle back again early next year and

then schedule something that was my

standard response and that's why

early january either they contacted me

again or i reached out to them i was

like hey let's schedule this on this

date this

this that so so even before i started my

prep i had a bunch of interviews already

lined up so that not only helped me

accountable to start prepping

properly but also whenever i finished

one interview regardless of whether it

went

good or bad there wasn't really time to

mourn about it or feel sad

or think about what to do next i just

have to learn from the experience

make some changes if i have to and

immediately go on to the next because

they came in thick and fast right one

more thing about this is when you want

to structure your interviews you do want

to keep

the least exciting interviews up front

and your most

coveted companies towards the end

obviously because as you interview more

you get better and you get more practice

so you want to keep the best ones

towards the end so think of it as a list

of companies that you can interview with

and sorting them by your favorite

by the length of the interview process

and

the similarity between their interview

styles

so third thing kind of builds up on the

first two points is

don't even bother trying to interview

or trying to solve interview problems if

you're rusty on your data structures and

algorithms

honestly without the fundamental

knowledge of data structures and

algorithms you're just setting yourself

for failure and you may end up solving a

few or you may get lucky with others or

you may end up

memorizing which is even worse some

solutions and feel good about yourself

but i will promise you that the only way

to succeed in technical interviews

is to nail your fundamentals of

data structures and algorithms the

fourth thing that i learned or

experienced

was that advanced data structures and

algorithms even for a senior software

engineer

wasn't there at all nobody asked me

anything advanced that i didn't know

about or that i felt that oh i should

have

looked at this the only odd ones that i

can remember

was there was one question where i was

asked a variation of

breakfast search it was almost like

dijkstra's but

not really the exact algorithm where the

question

i was asked how to use a variation of

the priority queue i don't think that

was out of the ordinary and the other

one that i got stumped because i don't

come from a python

background is there was a question that

needed

a monotonically increasing double-ended

queue

uh to be solved and i ended up solving

it but i

really had never used a data structure

that was like that so i just had to come

up with it or

sort of implement it myself if you

understand how linked lists work and if

you understand the principles behind the

queue

and if you know what a monotonically

increasing array or a data structure is

you should be able to come up with it so

i don't think it's an advanced data

structure again so

outside of that there was really no

advanced data structure

while i didn't get any advanced data

structures um

i did find that two questions

in one interview seems like a norm these

days and some even i had three questions

in one interview especially at company

like facebook

so be prepared to go in to answer more

than one questions at least that was

very common for my interview experience

the single biggest resource

i think that you can find or

you can do for yourself during prepping

for interviews

that has the biggest roi is mock

interviews

do not ignore mock interviews and i'm

not talking about

one mock interview or two mock

interviews i'm talking about like 10

15 20 if you can do it right if you want

to interview for

10 companies or 20 companies do 20 mock

interviews if you can

find engineers from those companies and

ask them if they can

mock interview some will do it for free

some you can find from your network

mentors friends and if you really have

to pay for it pay it it will be worth it

but that being said i also see a lot of

candidates just go to things like pram

or interviewing dot io or things like

that that will just match you up with

someone else that will interview you and

you interview them

that's cool it will get rid of your

interview nerves and give you some

experience in

a time pressure scenarios but make sure

that if you're really spending money and

time

into mock interviews that the

interviewer is actually

a seasoned interviewer who can give you

proper feedback because they're

trained to look for the right signals

they're trained to evaluate candidates

and they will be

able to give you the right kind of

feedback that will help you all right

let's move to system design

because i know you guys are probably

thinking why i'm not talking about

system design

one thing i learned about system design

is that

quality system design resources are

really hard to find like even for

experienced

engineers like me who have worked on

distributed systems for many years

system design is still a hard topic

because you have such a limited time

and you're expected to solve a random

design problem

even though i have a lot of experience i

can draw from and i can kind of roughly

put together something

i can't really come up with like a

really good solution about

something that i've never worked with

right and the idea generally with a

system design interview is supposed to

be that you come up with a reasonable

solution i have a good discussion that's

how it's placed but in my experience

that's not how it is it starts off like

that but they

really expect you to deep dive into

something especially as a senior

so if i get design google docs and i've

never prepped for it i just went on

based on my experience that hey i've

worked in distributed system i

understand how

things work you know i go in and i may

be able to give a reasonable solution

out this may work but there's no way i'm

going to deep dive into

the basics of how like operational

transform i think they have a new

algorithm now that works um

klepman talks about it um there's no way

i can come

up with that on the fly right like

people have done 20 years of research

and phds on that topic how do you expect

me to

come up with that solution without

deliberately prepping for it right

so i do think that you do need to prep

if you want to succeed in system design

but the problem is that all of the

resources

especially youtube channels that i find

are not in depth enough

to help you with that and most of them

seems like if they say design google

docs they'll just go to engineering

blogs from google

that they talk about here's how we

design google docs and they'll basically

read that

and make a video on youtube which is

cool but it will never have enough

detail

especially for a senior software

engineer to kind of gain enough

knowledge to deep dive on it

so that that was at least my experience

for beginners that may work for

seniors i think you really have to

invest on

uh dedicating time into getting better

at designing systems really

work with a lot of cloud services try to

buy different books read for months

not just when you're interviewing just

be curious about how things are built

and over time you'll develop the

knowledge that's why it's become so

tricky

and i was lucky that i already had some

backgrounds it was easier for me to pick

up but i definitely felt that

why a lot of people panic or a lot of

people find it really difficult to pick

up things on system design because it's

not like

coding where you can practice for three

weeks or one month and you get better at

it it takes a long time

but there are a lot of resources to

learn system design

and there are videos and youtube

channels that are aimed at beginners so

if you're a beginner

that's pretty good one of the other

resources that is really useful for

beginners for learning system design

is educative who are also the sponsor of

this video educative was founded with

the mission to make every developer more

productive and successful

which coincidentally also happens to be

the mission of this channel

they offer a lot of amazing

well-designed and structured courses on

software engineering for a wide range of

areas like

front-end back-end full-stack machine

learning and artificial intelligence to

name a few but it's not just limited to

that

you can learn skills there that you will

use daily regardless of the area of your

work like how to use git version control

properly or even

all the non-coding aspects of your

engineering career but best of all

and quite relevant to this video is that

they have some of the most

highly rated technical interview

preparation courses namely grocking the

system design interview

that was recommended to me by multiple

companies during my interview process so

if you are interested in leveling up

your engineering game or acing your

technical interviews

visit educative dot io slash engineering

with utsav to get 10

off your subscription so the next point

i want to talk about is

also about system design and it's about

how you

feel about the interview um so with

system design

i noticed that almost every interview

that i gave

i kind of felt good about it um as in i

thought i did well

uh and some went really well some

actually didn't but the feeling that i

had after the interview

was that i always did well right and

because it's

ambiguous and it's more conversational

and

it's kind of hand-wavy and you talk

about a lot of things and you know maybe

you'll deep dive on something maybe you

want but

in the end you've designed this

elaborate diagram about

all these data flows and you know like

things and machines and cachings and

redundancy and replications and

different data centers and things like

that and you feel good about it because

you feel like

yeah this system is really good right

but that i promise you

is a very misleading feeling because

half of my system design interview where

i

thought i did amazingly well and turned

out to be that

i actually didn't do well and that was

one of the reasons i got rejected you

know because it's conversational and

wavy it feels like a conversation

between two

engineers and that's why it is kind of

talked about as well but

it's actually a very technical interview

so make sure you're on point you're

focused and you're

you you practice the timings and the

details and technical sides in the

system design interview

because that is the interview that will

decide not only whether you get hired

but at which level you get hired and

most likely

what compensation you get system design

is the interview that decides that

and in most companies because there are

multiple coding interviews and even in

each coding interview there are multiple

questions you can do

not so well in one or two and probably

could still get an offer but

you do badly in a system design

interview it's game over

so please prioritize system design

especially if you're anyone that has

more than a couple of years of

experience

learn about how to negotiate

compensation and practice

that negotiation beforehand i know there

are a lot of companies that kind of help

you do that as well

if you think that's fair you can do it

but if you're up for it there's a lot of

information available online how to

negotiate and how to kind of place

yourself or sell yourself

and you can learn from that and kind of

at least practice before you get into

the situation of having to do that

because

if you've structured your practice well

and if you've done well you'll end up in

a multiple

offer situation and you'll have to

negotiate um it's a great place to be

but it's also a lot of headache and

it's really stressful to kind of talk to

different

recruiters and kind of negotiate

compensation especially if

you are yourself not sure about which of

the three companies you want to join or

you want

you like all of them equally right and

then

one thing i wanted to warn you about is

it can easily

get into a situation where all you are

focusing on

is the compensation because someone else

offered you more than you were

anticipating and then your

game plan completely changed and now you

want the other companies to give you

more and

it can quickly spiral down into a

conversation about purely money and

that's not how you want to go about it

so what i recommend is before you even

start interviewing

know what you're worth and be honest

with yourself don't just

blindly go to uh sites like

blind no pun in intended and see people

post

ex like unreal salaries maybe they're

lying maybe they're not been honest

um or levels levels.fyi that's a good

side but there's a big range and

there's many reasons why people get paid

more or less

and that's a complicated equation not

everyone gets the same so be honest

and understand what you are worth based

on

what you've done what you can do or

based on your experience based on what

companies you've worked

and be reasonable about that when you

know that the first thing you want to do

when you negotiate is to fight for that

worth you need to get

what you think you're worth and that's

when you leverage not only your past

work but

your interview um results

and your competing offers to kind of put

confidence into that idea that hey i'm

worth this much right

but once you get that the topic should

change to

evaluating the company the team the

projects

the culture and you should

you should change focus to do those

things because

in the long run once you get what you're

worth the things that will truly make

you happy working for a company are

those other things not just your total

compensation so

do practice negotiation because you

should deserve or get

what you think you deserve and if you're

honest about where what you're worth

and you get that do switch focus to um

the culture team

projects and things like that so yeah

that's it that's all i had

these are the things i i found

interesting uh looking at them from the

perspective of

a candidate and not as a interviewer and

i hope you found them useful

and interesting in some form if you did

please

hit the like button let me know what you

thought about it and do subscribe or

share the video

and i'll see you next week cheers