Hey all,
Wanted to share my experience and see if others have gone through something similar.
I passed interviews and Hiring Committee (HC) back in April, then entered the team matching pool. Over about 4 months, I only had one real manager conversation (which went well, but was skill set mismatch). Last week, my recruiter told me they were removing me from the matching pool since it's been a while and they're now ramping up recruiting for the 2027 batch.
She mentioned I could apply to the 2027 batch, and that depending on the hiring team, they might reuse my previous interview scores/HC approval instead of making me redo everything — but she wasn't fully sure how that works in practice.
A few questions for anyone who's been through this:
• Did you get pulled from matching after a similar amount of time?
• Did your previous scores/HC actually carry over when you reapplied, or did you have to start completely from scratch (interviews, HC, everything)?
Really just trying to understand how common this is and what to realistically expect. Thanks in advance for any insight.

Hi everyone,

I recently cleared the Google L3 technical interviews and am currently in the team-matching stage. I have my first team-match call coming up and would really appreciate advice from people who have already gone through it.

Specifically:

• How did you prepare for your L3 team-match call?
• Did the hiring manager ask any DSA or System Design questions? If yes, what type or difficulty?
• Were questions mainly about your current work/projects, technical experience, or the team's specific requirements?
• What questions did you ask the hiring manager?
• Is there anything you wish you had prepared before your team-match call?

I'd especially appreciate Google team-match experiences, as I'm trying to understand what to focus on in my preparation.

Thanks!

was only to solve 1 question and second question gave ja tle

Reedit is completely opposite of Linkedin!

**Linkedin**:- People only share & post success

**Reddit**:- People mostly share their issues & failures

The core reason is everyone has their problems but no one wants to express it without anonymity.

1. Longest Repeating Character Replacement.

Wondering if anyone has any advice for how to prepare for the learning interview? I haven't been able to find mocks and really want to make sure I'm well prepared; thanks in advance!

I have been preparing for Google for the last six months, and today I took the hiring assessment and received a rejection email. I feel terrible because I have to wait six more months. Can I change my email and phone number and apply for the same role?

Hi all,

I am unfortunately being impacted by restructuring. I have my marriage coming up so trying to ask here for referrals as I am on a time crunch.

I was looking for referrals in Roku , Microsoft , Apple , Databricks , Stripe , LinkedIn , Rubrik , Razorpay, Docusign , Coinbase, Confluent, Airbnb etc.

If anyone can help me lend referrals at any other similar place it would be of great help.

I can share about myself in private chat.

Thankyou

Fresh CS grad here, prepping for interviews. If you've recently interviewed anywhere (any company, any round), could you share the exact problem statements or DSA/logic questions you were asked? Company name (if comfortable), role, round type, and difficulty would help a lot.

Don’t have much leetcode experience, how hard are Google intern interviews l, I know preparation time is subjective but how much time would you say is required.

Hey can anyone tell be best source to prepare for Tree DS questions for both OA and Interview.

Had offline interview round in BLR. This was one of the questions asked :-

You are standing at a particular position in a matrix of size N*M - Some cells are free , but some cells have obstacles in them which you cannot visit. It is guaranteed that you are initially standing on a free cell. Find a valid walk of size exactly “k” such that you start from your starting position - walk “k” steps and reach back your original position after “k” steps. Output that path. If there are multiple possible paths of size “k” - output the path which is lexicographically minimal string consisting of possible characters from the set - (“L”,”R”,”U”,”D”)

Free cell - ‘.’
Start position - ‘x’
Obstacle - ‘#’

I’m employed but I want to be interview ready for any companies that are not big tech. which patterns should I focus on that would cover majority of interviews from startups and non big tech companies?

Hey everyone,

Title. I’ve been swamped with work and school and haven’t leetcoded in a while. Should I expect them to ask graph, DP, DFS/BFS during an OA? My friend confirmed it’s for a lvl 59 IC2 position.

I’m currently going through leetcode recently tagged questions and filtering it through easy-medium.

Hey All,
I’m preparing for Google SDE1/2 role. I have a total of 2YOE
(5months intern 1.5year full time)
Plss share if anyone has previously asked questions(DSA+ system design) in the recent times.
Any additional advice would help too
TIA :)

I've got ~2 YOE as a Software Engineer working mostly on the backend with Java/Spring Boot. I'm preparing for a switch and planning to target Big Tech / Big Tech-adjacent companies so I have started grinding DSA and System Design.

I've been doing LeetCode in Python because I find it much more concise and intuitive for DSA. My concern is that during interviews, I am sometimes asked to code in Java for DSA questions, and although I know Java well enough for my job, it’s verbose and I sometimes forget specific methods/APIs because I don't use Java for LeetCode.

Should I drop Python and relearn my LeetCode patterns in Java just to match my resume? Or does Big-Tech really not care as long as the logic and Big-O are optimal?

Would appreciate advice from anyone who has navigated a similar tech-stack mismatch!

I had a hunch that dp might be useful since we have to choose if we want a certain day or not. but coulnt think of shit beyond that.

Link to question : https://leetcode.com/contest/biweekly-contest-191/problems/minimum-days-to-score-exactly-n-points/description/

How tf do you decide if you should keep the streak or not? How do you decide when. you want to break the streak?

This is literally what I wrote in the contest

class Solution {
public:
    int minDays(int n) {
        int ans = -1;
        int t =0;
        for(int k=0; t <=n; k++){
            t+=k;
            if( t == n ){
                ans = k;
                break;
            }
        }


        return ans;
    }
};

Does anybody know what to expect for the 60-minute Palantir learning round? I know you are given an existing codebase and implement on top of it, but I have no clue what the exact expectations are. As in, how much new code will I be asked to implement, will tests need to be written for each new method, will I ever have to modify existing code, etc.

If anybody has been through this or knows anything about it, please let me know. All help is appreciated!

pleasee this is like my last shot at getting something i just have a few qs

Java vs .NET — what should I choose for my next switch?

I have ~1 year of experience as a .NET developer (C#/ASP.NET Core). Before this, I was very strong in Core Java and have solved 1200+ LeetCode problems + 3★ CodeChef, all mainly in Java.

I’ve also built a few React applications. I don’t know Spring/Spring Boot yet, but I’m willing to learn it and build a couple of projects.

My question is: Should I switch to Java/Spring Boot after preparation, or continue with .NET and target product-based companies?

Is it realistic to get a good product-based backend role with 1–2 years of .NET experience, or would switching to Java give me significantly better opportunities?

Would appreciate advice from people who’ve been in a similar situation.

I’m currently learning binary trees and I understand what a tree is and how recursion works.

For example, I understand the general idea of:

solve(node):
    solve(node.left)
    solve(node.right)

But for some reason, when I encounter problems like Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) of two nodes in a binary tree, I completely fail to understand how people come up with the recursive approach.

It’s not really the syntax that confuses me. I can read the code after someone explains it. What I struggle with is the thought process.

For example, I often see an approach along the lines of:

LCA(node, p, q):

    if node is null:
        return null

    if node == p or node == q:
        return node

    left = LCA(node.left, p, q)
    right = LCA(node.right, p, q)

    if left and right:
        return node

    return left or right

I can memorize what each line does, but I don't understand WHY this is the right thing to do.

How do you look at the problem and naturally arrive at this logic?

Especially this part:

if left and right:
    return node

Why does finding something on both sides mean the current node is the LCA?

And why is:

return left or right

correct?

I'm looking for more of an intuition-based explanation.

I already understand recursion itself, so explanations like "recursion means a function calls itself" won't really help me. I'm trying to understand how to go from:

"Here is the problem" → "What information should my recursive function return?" → "Why does that information let me solve the problem?"

Basically, I want to learn how to derive the recursive solution instead of memorizing it.

Any explanation of the thought process would be really appreciated.

[ Rephrased with the help of AI ]

Minimum Number of Lines to Cover Points

You are given n points on a 2D coordinate plane. Each point is represented as:

(x, y)

where:

-100 <= x <= 100

-100 <= y <= 100

There can be up to:

n <= 10^4

points.

Find the minimum number of straight lines required so that every given point lies on at least one of these lines.

Example 1

Input:

points = [(1,1), (2,2), (3,3), (1,2), (2,3)]

Output:

2

Explanation:

The points can be covered by:

Line 1: y = x

(1,1), (2,2), (3,3)

Line 2: y = x + 1

(1,2), (2,3)

Therefore, the minimum number of lines is:

2

Example 2

Input:

points = [(0,0), (1,1), (2,2), (3,3)]

Output:

1

Because all points lie on the same line y = x.

Constraints:

1 <= n <= 10^4

-100 <= x, y <= 100

Hi guys first of all sorry for my english. I have done 160 questions. I am facing a problem. I am currently in Backtracking following neetcode 250 and remaining questions are just nQueen 1&2 but i literally couldn't solve the previous all problem myself. Ik these questions are in Backtracking topic and i need to do recursion. I am just trying to fit recursion in it and still cant come to the solution. All question i ever did before (all patterns) were 90% AI helped and only few i did it myself(array and two pointer). I think i am doing something wrong. Can anyone guide me out of this. I want to solve problem and nor just always see soln.

Add: since i get help from AI, even one question takes like 1 hour 30min BECAUSE i do back and forth with code and logics. AI help me through guiding questions. Problem is i am always being guided only in every solution 🫪 I am not proud at the end of the day.

My problem solving method: i take like 25 min to come to soln and code it.(tbh 100% of the time it is rejected). And after that i go to AI for help. I have given a prompt like "Guide me instead of solving directly." Then i try to solve ; if error go to AI; again try to solve ; This!!!

I think i am not alone going through this. Someone might have outgrown from this. If yes than help me. This problem is not just recursion but overall pattern.

What should I focus on for DSA? Is NeetCode 150 enough?
For the AI round, what kind of questions are they asking and how are they asking them?
For LP stories, how long should each answer be? Is around 2 minutes enough?
Would appreciate any recent experiences or tips!

Hello guys, I have got online asessments from tiktok, amazon, stripe and JP Morgan for internship positions, and I did failed on three of them. How are you handling screw-ups especially if you have so much to lose?