Ask HN: Highschool dropout, have FAANG interview, don't know DS/algos | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Highschool dropout, have FAANG interview, don't know DS/algos

Title says most of it -- I have an interview at $BIGCO for Big Data team.

The hiring manager + technical recruiter told me the initial phone screen would be ~1 hour of primarily data structures and algorithm questions. Then a 5-hour virtual interview if I pass, which will focus on Systems Design + Integration and questions about concurrency/distributed systems.

I've been building software professionally for a bit under a decade. I am not nearly as concerned about the practical interview as I am the phone screen.

Never needed algorithms for the sorts of software I build (Microservices/API's, data tools).

How nervous should I be about these algorithm questions? Is it something anyone can pick up in ~1 month of leetcode, or am I screwed?

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You're probably screwed. I found the Google interview pretty hard having studied computer science in school and in general I can get the questions right but takes me a few hours vs. a quick 45 minute session.

Just practice and do the interview anyways for practice, but I wouldn't expect much.

I've been grinding leetcode for an interview in about less than a month too. Similar to your situation (not familiar with trees, graphs, etc.). But have been getting the hang of the easy/medium problems thanks to resources on Youtube, etc. There's sites that show you common patterns and commonly asked questions:

https://neetcode.io (My go to)

https://www.techinterviewhandbook.org/grind75

https://seanprashad.com/leetcode-patterns/

If you want a study partner, I would be down. Best of luck

I applied to Amazon, and studied Algo for 6 months. I practiced all of the algo questions in GlassDoor, and all of the algo books I could find. I wasn't able to make it though :( As other people mentioned, you have very few chances because those companies value that kind of interview questions more than quality engineering. But please, give it a try, practice LEET code 24/7, and you might be able to make it! NEVER GIVE UP! Those 6 months of preparation for Amazon helped me land better jobs at better companies in the future. So that time is well spent.

If you haven't practiced leetcode your chances are slim to none, even if you are a good programmer. 1 month full time study could be enough, but even then there's still an element of luck involved. They are looking for specific things in the interviews so if you haven't prepared well unfortunately the chances are very low.

You could take the interview for experience but you could get a similar experience on a tech interview matching service without triggering a cooldown at a big company, or a "no hire" in your history. Good luck

That depends. You mentioned not having needed in your job, but did you maybe have some recreational fun with algorithms and data structures? If so, maybe you can pick up what's necessary in the given timeframe (although even then it's tight).

I'm a bit wary of your claim of "not needing algorithms" at all. You must have had some sense of e.g. avoiding accidentally quadratic solutions when building your data tools?

If it's something you disregarded entirely, maybe you should move that interview out.

You (and anyone for that matter) can pass them with extensive preparation. If your day to day job is writing CRUD stuff and APIs without any recent actively memorized computer science concepts, you are not going to pass. The technical recruiter will spot you out easily and probably steer towards terminating the call early because you're wasting his time

Thanks for the replies, all. It's not looking good for me from the sounds of it.

I was told I have the ability to do self-study before the interview, so I guess I'll dump my free time into it for the next month or two and see how it goes.

Are you familiar with all the resources?

Buy a leetcode.com subscription and do all the questions tagged for your company.

Do at least the “Blind 75 leetcode” list.

Study system design: Designing Data Intensive Applications book, the systems design github repo

> Thanks for the replies, all. It's not looking good for me from the sounds of it

It's been several days. Do you have an update?

It’s free to take the shot. Study hard, take your shot, learn what you need to improve on.

If you want the job just study your ass off.

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