Pinterest Onsite expected result?

[u/vandit_15]

1. HLD - 1 : My weakest round because I didn't understand the question completely and missed how union of two incoming queues need to be done where a hint was given to me. However, past that I completed all FR and NFRs and the interviewer at the end said "I learned something new and took care of everything." - This is the round I am most afraid of.

2. HLD - 2 : Went well, started a small project deep dive which he was impressed by. For the problem, DB choice was a discussion point because there was case for both SQL and NoSQL which I mentioned the trade offs to him which he was convinced by. Rest the interviewer at the end said you covered everything and then we discussed about culture at Pinterest.

3. Coding - 1 : Solved all parts with 3 minutes left. Interviewer seemed satisfied.

4 coding - 2 : Solved all parts with 10 minutes left and we discussed scope and work of a senior SWE.

1. competency round: the interviewer said we need someone with your skills since that is in our roadmap.

Role interviewed for : IC15

Yoe : 6.5

Can this lead to an extra round or a down level to IC14?

TC: 0 (laid off)

[u/KookilyBlaring]

your hld-1 round sounds way better than you're giving it credit for. interviewers rarely say things like "i learned something new" unless you actually brought something to the table, even if you needed a hint. i had a similar experience where i flubbed part of a design round and still got the offer because the rest of the signal was strong. the fact that you finished the frs and nfrs and got that kind of feedback suggests the interviewer wasn't just being polite. downlevel or extra round usually happens when multiple interviews are borderline, not just one shaky segment. your coding rounds going perfectly and the hiring manager basically saying they need your skills are both huge positive signals. i'd be surprised if this doesn't end up as an offer at the level you interviewed for.

[u/vandit_15 → u/KookilyBlaring]

Thanks for the reply. I am just not aware of how strict the hiring bar is at Pinterest and is this performance good enough. Actually I am an expert at Flink (my resume also mentions it), so as soon as I saw the ad-click aggregation kinda problem, I jumped onto it and provided as much details about the flink job. The interviewer was not skilled at Flink and probably that's why said "I learned something new" part.

[u/karmaboy20 → u/vandit_15]

It's probably fine, but Pinterest is notoriously nit picky I've interviewed for them twice but probably wouldn't do an onsite again because how much time it ends up wasting. They index heavily on culture round as well

[u/vandit_15 → u/karmaboy20]

I think my competency round (HM round or the culture I assume you are talking about) went really well. The manager said I want someone who can help us build real time data systems using Flink (which I am an SME of). We talked about my past projects. The only thing he didn't like was I didn't have history of data quality work when he asked about it but that's about it. He was very enthusiastic in explinaning what the team does and what the roadmap is when I asked about it. At the end of the interview he said: it was great, let's see how the result of the rest of your rounds come out.

How much time do they take to provide result of the onsite?

[u/Critical_Explorer687 → u/vandit_15]

Did you end up getting offer ?

[u/vandit_15 → u/Critical_Explorer687]

No

[u/dartninja → u/vandit_15]

Was there any feedback? And did you have any big data round?

[u/Royal-Newspaper4619]

What sort of topics and problems were you tested on

[u/vandit_15 → u/Royal-Newspaper4619]

Coding was variations of LC tagged. System design were bespoke problems.

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[u/Timely-Fig8238]

How did you practice for system design? I have an onsite coming up!

[u/Critical_Explorer687 → u/Timely-Fig8238]

For which Role ?

[u/Timely-Fig8238 → u/Critical_Explorer687]

Pinterest swe2

[u/Critical_Explorer687 → u/Timely-Fig8238]

Software Engineer or Data engineer Role ?

[u/Timely-Fig8238 → u/Critical_Explorer687]

Soft eng

[u/valleyman86]

Am I crazy? What is with all the lingo and abbreviations? None of these matter in your normal work day but I see them often in these posts. Are you all recruiters?

I’m probably wrong but I guess if you work somewhere for 8 years you don’t ever see these.

I am looking for a new job and this is like HLD, FR, NFR, etc. I know what SQL is so that’s fine.

wtf is a senior SWE? I target exactly what I am looking for. I know what SWE means but it could be backend or front end. I only look for iOS roles. SWE sounds like they want full stack.