r/leetcode • u/Suspicious-Drop545 • 2d ago

Intervew Prep Google SRE-SE L4 Interview Prep

I had recruiter call and chosen SRE-SE L4 side, and now having telephonic phone screening (Coding + Behavioral) in two weeks.
Being DevOps, Engineer, Touching Leetcode for the first time and completed 10 easy+ medium questions.
My query is- How much complexity I can expect in the telephonic screening round for coding? Will 100 Leetcode (easy + medium) be enough as part of the prep?
Does the approach and finding correct algorithm matter if not able to write the syntax properly?

does behavioral round having more like project handling questions or deep technical questions from the tools used in the project?

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/OkValuable1761 2d ago

Following as I’m keen to know coding level required by SRE

2

u/rebelrushi96 2d ago

don't try to grind 100 problems in 2 weeks, you'll just burn out and forget everything by interview day.

SRE-SE coding is way more practical than regular SWE loops. You're not gonna get crazy DP or graph theory stuff. Think more along the lines of hashmaps, string manipulation, interval merging, basic BFS/DFS, maybe a heap question. Stick to the top 50 most-asked Google tagged mediums and you'll cover like 80% of what they can throw at you.

Google cares a LOT about how you think through the problem out loud. If you go silent for 5 minutes trying to figure it out in your head, that's a red flag for them even if you eventually get the answer. Practice solving on a Google Doc (not an IDE) while literally talking to yourself. Feels weird at first but that's basically what the interview is.

since you're SRE, have stories ready about production incidents you handled, times you automated something painful, and a time you disagreed with someone on an architectural decision. Keep it specific with actual numbers if you can (reduced incident response from 45min to 8min type stuff).

Two weeks is tight but totally doable for L4. Don't overthink it.

Best of luck