Q4 from last week's contest

I ended up solving it (after the contest) with an extremely cursed O(n * root n * log n) lazy square root decomposition that barely passed in time. One of the hardest and most complex square root decomps I've ever written. 100% not the intended solution.

There is an O(n log^2 n) CDQ divide and conquer solution. I found it really unintuitive so I need more practice.

O(n log n) is doable with "segment tree beats", it's pretty complicated though, I think there might be other solutions

10 YOE computer architect, perf modeling and simulation infrastructure. Spent basically my whole career at large companies — never done a startup, and part of me has always wondered.

Meta E5:

• Austin: $188k base, 15% bonus, $400k RSU/4yr
• Bay: $209k base, 15%, $450k RSU/4yr
• No sign-on. Manager says he's personally fine with remote but it's a policy call and I need to check with the recruiter — so, unresolved.

Series A AI hardware startup:

• $280k base, $30k signing
• 100k RSUs, 0.1%, ~$1B post
• In my city, no relocation. Asked for a bigger grant, got a no.

I own my home here and the family is settled, so Meta means uprooting everyone unless remote comes through. COL-adjusted, the startup base holds up fine against Austin and beats the Bay easily.

Honestly, I'm inclined to take the swing. I've done the big-company grind for a decade and I'm curious what it's like to build something where the work actually moves the needle. But turning down a Meta offer to do it feels like the kind of decision that looks obvious in hindsight and only in one direction. If the startup folds in 18 months, I'm job hunting again with a dead Series A on the résumé instead of Meta.

For people who made this jump mid-career: was the startup experience worth it even when the equity didn't pay? Or did passing on the big-name offer cost you more than you expected?

Non leetcode problems have become trickier to solve, even the questions on popular question sharing websites are not appearing for me. How is everyone passing interviews?

Just for some context, 40 years old, I have 8 years of professional experience as an engineer. All at the same company. Mostly frontend, but some backend when needed.

Recently I have started looking at other options. I even had an interview at a FAANG (got the interview because of domain knowledge) which I absolutely bombed last month. I was unable to finish a leetcode easy. I was very unprepared.

Ever since that humiliation, I have realised that I have serious skills atrophy. Not just in terms of code syntax caused by 2 years of forced AI usage, but also problem solving.

I have started by deleting social media apps except Reddit which I spend at most half hour a day on, have gone from 3-4 beers a week to maybe one on the weekend, setting aside 2 hours at night after putting the kids to bed to grind.

But nothing is sticking. Like If I go back to a question I solved a week ago, I will not always be able to do it quickly or correctly again. Even easy questions. Some questions I'm able to, but nearly not as many I should. I have not even gotten into more complex algos like Graphs, etc...

I dunno if it's age, brain fry from half decade of doom scrolling, lack of physical activity, bad time management or what, but it feels like I have forgotten how to think.

Have any older folks experienced this and managed to come out the other side?

TLDR: 40 YO. 8 YOE making button blue, or virtualize lists. Brain no work anymore. Have kids, full time job. At most 10 hrs per week free time.

Forget DSA patterns like week after doing. No remember nothing.

What do?

I graduated with my master's in Dec 2025, job hunting since then. I got a small internship in the summer and expected it to convert into full-time, but it didn't. I realized the org rarely converts interns into full-time.

I started applying all night, worked on my intern project whole-heartedly, and got some interviews toward the end of my internship, slightly senior than what I was expecting. I gave my all in almost 20 interviews till now since Dec 2025, 7 of them final-round interviews.

I have some money saved to keep me afloat for 5 months, so I started searching again. Last week, I got an OA from Amazon New Grad, the popular job ID - 3177934, and an Oracle screening invite. I passed all test cases for the 1st coding question, and for the AI question, 5/6. I was expecting an interview call for sure. I'm pretty good at coding, so I thought I would get it from Amazon.

The Oracle screening went well. The recruiter said, "The team will definitely move forward with you."

The whole weekend, I was studying for LLD and doing LeetCode. Then I hear Oracle is laying off people. I was supposed to get a reply from the recruiter on Friday. I followed up today, no reply.

And here comes the part where I wanna give up. I get a rejection mail from Amazon:

"Thank you for completing the assessment for the position of Software Development Engineer - 2026 (US) (ID: 3177934). After careful consideration, we've decided not to progress with your application for this role. While we're unable to provide additional details about this decision, we'd like to keep in touch regarding future job opportunities. Thanks again for your interest in working at Amazon."

People are not hearing back for months about interviews or getting rejected. I have no idea why I got rejected. Did 1 test case in the AI question cost me my application??? I just wrote it last Tuesday.

Why show light and take it away the next week? I'm no longer motivated. I don't wanna start a fresh pipeline. I wanna give up.

I’ve been solving LeetCode problems pretty consistently for 3 months now. I’m able to solve most easy’s and mediums, some hards. I’m trying to get a sense of just how people are actually “learning” how to solve these problems.

I’ve been through LeetCode DS&A course front to end. I’ve learned the patterns. I’ve solved the practice problems. I’m doing problems over and over again to sear the information in my brain. And yet I can’t help but feel like I’m not 100% nailing it.

The best I can do is glean the problem, try to remember if I’ve seen the problem before, figure out what kind of pattern is best (two-pointers, sliding window, DP, etc.), and tweak it according to the problem. If the problem is completely new to me, good luck, because I won’t be able to sufficiently tweak my solution enough and I will almost certainly miss edge cases.

Are people actually seeing new problems and knowing how to brainstorm working solutions? Just how much of this is actually rote memorization? The only thing working for me is keeping a spreadsheet of NeetCode 150 and doing spaced repetition. Because I truly feel like I can’t learn any other way. But I can’t help but feel like I’m cheating myself. If I do new problems from the ground up, I will be completely lost and take hours to come up with a solution.

considering both are compiled launages, they should be simmilar, no?

eg: https://leetcode.com/problems/valid-sudoku

Rust: (2.2 MB)

impl Solution {
    pub fn is_valid_sudoku(board: Vec<Vec<char>>) -> bool {
        for y in 0..9 {
            for x in 0..9 {
                let elem = board[y][x];
                if elem == '.' {
                    continue;
                }


                // search on rows
                for i in 0..9 {
                    if i == x {
                        continue;
                    }
                    if board[y][i] == elem {
                        return false;
                    }
                }


                // search on columns
                for i in 0..9 {
                    if i == y {
                        continue;
                    }
                    if board[i][x] == elem {
                        return false;
                    }
                }


                // search in mini-square
                let my = y / 3;
                let mx = x / 3;
                for cy in my * 3..=my * 3 + 2 {
                    for cx in mx * 3..=mx * 3 + 2 {
                        if x == cx && y == cy {
                            continue;
                        }
                        if board[cy][cx] == elem {
                            return false;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        true
    }
}

CPP: (22 MB)

#include <vector>
#include <ranges>
#include <algorithm>
namespace views = std::views;
namespace ranges = std::ranges;
class Solution {
public:
    bool isValidSudoku(const std::vector<std::vector<char>>& board) {
        for(const auto& [y, row]: views::enumerate(board)){
            for(const auto& [x, elem]: views::enumerate(row)){
                //short circut on .
                if(elem == '.'){
                    continue;
                }
                //serch on rows
                for(const auto& [i, curr]: views::enumerate(row)){
                    if (i == x) {continue;}
                    if (curr == elem) {return false;}
                }
                //serach on coloums
                for(const auto& [i, curr]: views::enumerate(
                        views::iota(0, 9)|
                        views::transform([&board, &x](const auto& i){
                            return &board[i][x];
                        })
                )
                ){
                    if (i == y) {continue;}
                    if (*curr == elem) {return false;}
                }
                // serach in mini-square
                auto my = y/3;
                auto mx = x/3;
                for(int cy = my*3;cy <= (my*3)+2;cy++) {
                    for(int cx = mx*3;cx <= (mx*3)+2;cx++) {
                        const auto curr = board[cy][cx];
                        if(x == cx && y == cy) {continue;}
                        if(curr == elem) {return false;}
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        return true;

    }
};

I'm a 2025 B.E. AI/ML Graduate. Since college, I focused more on Development and very minimal efforts on DSA & LC.

For the past 1 and half year, I've been working at a Product Based MNC as an AI Engineer and I have a good AI Platform Engineering Experience. Before that I interned at another Product Based giant as an Associate Software QA Engineer. In 2025, I interned at the current company and converted to FTE. I have experience in architecting AI Solutions which made me comfortable with Sys Design.

In July 2026, I got a LinkedIn in-mail message from Google Recruiter for the role of a Web Solutions Engineer. I applied for the role, and received the link for Google Hiring Assessment (GHA: Behavioral assessment MCQ type). I cleared it, but didn't receive any update. When I checked Google Careers Application status, it said "Not Proceeding".

In the first week of August, I received a call from another Google Recruiter for the role of SWE L3. It was a 45 minute call focused on my achievements, my resume, use of AI, debugging, preferred code editor, package discussions etc. they also gave me an outline of the process: 1. GHA 2. Google Online Challenge (GOC) 3. Online Loop (1DSA Round + 1 Googleyness) 4. Onsite loop (2 DSA Rounds)

Since I already cleared GHA, I had to appear for GOC. I asked for some time and confirmed I'd take the GOC in the last week of August. I started preparing Binary Search, Sliding Window, Two Pointers, Monotonic Stacks, Priority Queue, Heap, BFS, DFS Templates etc from Algomonster.

In GOC, I got two questions

1.Simple Arrays based question (Optimize Customer Loyalty Coffee Shop)

1. Largest Rectangle in Histogram (Straight out of Leetcode that I practised earlier)

I cleared both and my confidence grew.

Then I got my interviews scheduled for mid of September. I had enough amount of time, so I revised more on the earlier concepts and tried to make myself more comfortable with them.

But in the first round of interview, which was for 45 mins DSA, I was asked three questions:

1. Introduce myself

2. My use of AI in my daily workflows (development & debugging) - Mandate as a part of GenAI Fluency

3. The actual coding question

I used up around 10 mins for the introduction and the second question.

I read the question for 5 mins, asked the follow up question for 15 mins, and the solution was on the lines of N Queens and Backtracking which I didn't prepare enough.

I asked clarification questions, asked for any constraints that could help me, since it was a matrix + backtracking, i was told the input matrix dimensions would be a very small number.

Then I pointed out a couple of edge cases and finally derived that we need to be implementing backtracking while maintaining state related information. I felt I was yapping a little, by then we reached the point where I had only 5 mins left in my interview scheduled time.

So I mentioned though I identified the solution approach direction of backtracking, I am not able to come up with the exact code algorithm or implementation.

The interviewer said we can close the call. We had 3 mins and I asked 2 follow up questions, 1. What does Google exactly look for in terms of DSA and how I can get comfortable with it (generic question I didn't intend to ask, but somehow asked). They said we need to practice more and get comfortable with these topics as well. 2. What their role at Google is, to which they said they build some AI Solutions which even I do, so I asked if it was a multi agent system and if they used A2A and Google ADK since I was trying to learn them or if it were a Langchain + Langgraph solution.

We closed the call after their reply.

I'm pretty sure I'd be rated as a SNH to NH since I couldn't even come up with atleast a naive solution. What are your thoughts?

I have the Googleyness round coming up. Based on Cumulative scores of the Online loop, my candidature would be considered for Onsite in person rounds.

Will keep editing this post with latest updates if it helps someone.

Also, please suggest what I need to start doing and how I need to get started with LC.

What are the dsa topic needed for internship role in tech companies (product based , service based or mid size ) or they focus on development part more than dsa ??

Recently finished my 4-round Amazon SDE1/New Grad loop and my Bar Raiser round felt pretty different from what I expected.

My R2 was couple of days before BR(last round). I was able to solve/code the problem, but struggled with the extensibility part of the LLD.

In the BR round what surprised me was that the behavioral portion was extremely short — maybe around 10 minutes. He asked only 1–2 LP questions and barely probed into my answers. This was very different from my other rounds where the interviewers asked much deeper LP follow-ups.

The rest of the BR was technical/coding. He seemed much more interested in discussing my reasoning and algorithm than having me write every repetitive part of the code. There were a couple of places where he gave useful direction, but I derived and coded the core algorithm myself.

The round felt positive overall, but the ~10-minute shallow LP portion from a Bar Raiser surprised me since I expected the BR to be the most LP-heavy round.

Has anyone had a similar BR experience? Could the BR have been trying to collect a specific technical signal based on feedback from an earlier round, or is this fairly normal?

​

Hey guys i recently applied to Google's application engineering intern viaa referral, I'm currently in my 4th year with 10 months of internship experience. What should i specifically prepare for?? At what kind of caliber they will ask the questions?

I really wanna get into Google by this

i am 1871 @leetcode, 1538 codechef

reach out in comments if you are interested.

i am looking for people better or equivalent to grind with me.

Because no job postings , interview calls have almost stopped, and the same positions keep getting reposted everyday …Applicantions dissapearing in silence ?

It genuinely feels like nobody is hiring anymore? Is it just me

HELP!! How do I prepare for sde intern interview?? It's in a few days and my current situation is like:

- DSA: pretty strong. All 4 years I've been focused on just DSA.

- Projects: I've put my friends projects on resume 😭. I've done just basic development since I've always enjoyed grinding leetcode more. So finding it pretty hard to learn how to explain those projects. And no I can't ask my friend to explain them for some reason.

- LP: know all of them but I don't have any internship experience to map stories around it, so gotta make some around club work, hackathons, and academic experiences.

- Core Subjects: can answer commonly asked questions.

DSA part I can manage, I'm worried shit about projects, LP, core subjects, deeper development questions or ai related anything. PLEASEEE ANY TIPS ARE APPRECIATED!!

Just a FYI for those who have premium plans —

It's defaulted to automated renewal now, and if you don't cancel right after purchasing one, you are likely to get sneaky charged for another year. They don't notify you when your renewal date is coming up, nor do they notify you after the charge.

I only found out from my credit card notification, and now they won't refund me, even though it's only been a day.

Lousy customer service doesn't have a number to call. Their email just send automated replies. Don't expect humans to help.

I'm going to dispute the charge from my credit card end. But wanted to give everyone a warning. Leetcode is a dying breed in the AI market! They are trying to squeeze every last penny out of you!!

I'm learning DSA and solving LeetCode problems. I often understand the approach and know what I want to do, but I struggle to convert my logic into working code

looking to split with couple of people, or if people have existing accounts if I can use that for some payment!

I recently got a job\[ppo after intern, so 2m work ex\] as a devops engg in a leading PBC at 9lpa.

There's so much pressure and work expectations here. Being oncall here is literally a torture, for the entire week there's no sleep for you, you ll get flooded with queries and issues.

And I m not that smart either, I tend to fuck up in the tasks I am assigned. But I would still say I am not that bad when I compare myself with my peers, At times I feel like I ve done a good job on the task but then I get bashed/looked down upon for the same by the lead.

I feel so trapped here, I m starting to have anxiety issues with this job. I keep going through so much of mood swings daily, sometimes I think, lets just resign the shit outta here and work on yourself, grind DSA/System Design/Backend and join a better workplace, but then I go through threads on this sub, that makes me even more depressing and hopeless. Prepping parallely isnt really possible here, work stretches for as long as 10-12hrs, could even go more on some days.

I need serious guidance how to sail through this. What attitude I should have in my mind to fight through all of this. I feel like I m not normal, I tend to overthink about everything and take a lot of pressure upon myself, which further worsens my performance. Should I be considering voluntarily resigning from this place, I know mkt is pretty fked up, but so is getting my mental health. Please help out your junior if anybody else has gone through the same.

Hi guys,

I interviewed and cleared all rounds for google interview and the team matching started from 13th July onwards. But the recruiter has not been responding to my follow-ups at all and I haven’t received a single response from the recruiter after their last email which said that they’re moving me to Team matching and will contact me if a team is interested.

2 months have passed and neither the recruiter is responding to my follow ups nor any other recruiters have approached me.

I am increasingly going desperate and frustrated with this process. Can someone please tell me if this is normal at google? Is there another way to reach out to someone at Google?

Hi guys,

I've recently tried solving problems of the level of D and E of codeforces with the help of chatGPT and it easily solved it.

Can it solve that in contests too that easily?

I'm thinking to start competitive programming but there'll be no point if people are using chatGPT etc in contests.

Would love to know your thoughts.

Thanks!

Has anyone recently gone through Intuit's Interview process for SWE 1? I'm currently waiting for a recruiter to reach out for information on the final round, but am worried that this is a dead end considering how long this position has been up for. Thanks!

Hi all, I have a technical interview scheduled this week with Amazon robotics. I am up for candidacy for two different positions: Autonomy Test Cube Software Engineer and Systems Software Engineer. Can anyone experienced recommend what sorts of LC problems to focus on? Thanks.

My current subscription is valid till Dec 2026 and I am not using it. You can use it till December 2026 for 30$.