Rejected 😞 feel super upset, tried my best.

3 YOE at European bigtech. Tried asking what they didn't like — recruiter said they're not sharing feedback this time and I have to wait a year before reapplying. Brutal.

Preloop coding — passed strong 2 questions:

• LRU cache (classic)
• DFS on binary tree

Full loop coding — passed strong

• DFS on grid, find the actual path to bottom right (return the path, not just whether reachable)
• Nested list sum where each depth level multiplies by the numbers at that depth. This one is from the "Meta recently asked 50" list — if you haven't gone through those, go find them now

System design Ticketmaster "buy" button, but specifically the case of 20k Taylor Swift tickets dropping at once. Walked through queuing, rate limiting, optimistic locking vs distributed locks, eventual vs strong consistency for inventory. Interviewer said he enjoyed the round so I think this was solid.

AI coding — where I lost the loop Meta's newer format. 5 tests total, I passed 3.

Setup: grid problem again, navigate with < > directions and walls to reach the end, you write code with AI assistance.

Got stuck on the first error to fix for 30 minutes (omg). Found the right place to fix fast but couldn't get the exact correct fix, ended up finishing with AI help. Next 2 tests I did fast and solid but the damage on the timer was already done.

Behavioral Standard. No idea about results from this one.

What I think went wrong:

The AI coding round, specifically the 30-minute stuck moment. The whole format is timed across multiple tests so one long block destroys you. If I'd unstuck myself in 10 minutes I'd have hit 4/5 minimum and probably been in the offer range.

For anyone going into Meta E4 right now: the AI coding round is the differentiator. Coding fundamentals will get you through the other rounds clean but the AI coding is where E4 candidates actually get sorted.

What worked for prep:

• PracHub was easily the biggest single thing in my coding prep. I drilled DFS / BFS / tree traversal patterns there for about 4 weeks and by the loop, the grid DFS and the nested list problem felt like muscle memory — barely had to think about the recursion, just wrote it. Both coding rounds came back "passed strong" and honestly I don't think that happens without that pattern-level prep. The fact that I cleared 4 of 5 round types (preloop, loop coding, system design, behavioral) is mostly down to the foundation it built. If you're going into a Meta loop and have limited prep time, that's where I'd start.
• LeetCode for additional volume on the Meta-tagged questions — the "recently asked at Meta" list is genuinely useful, the nested list sum was on it
• HelloInterview for system design — gave me the mental template for read-heavy systems like the Ticketmaster question
• AI coding round — I had no good prep for this. If anyone has tips for this format, drop them in the comments. Would really appreciate it for the retry in a year

Did anyone else get an offer this round? They announced layoffs again so not sure if the bar has been pushed up or if hiring is just frozen for a lot of roles.

Got rejected at the end so take this as a "what to expect" post, not a victory lap. Process took about 2 months total, which is a long time to stay locked in - mentally harder than I expected.

Process: 6 rounds

1. OA
2 LeetCode medium-hard. Solved both cleanly.

2. BPS (Business Phone Screen)
1 DSA question, heap-based. I'd gone through previously-asked Uber questions before this round and got literally a repeat, so it was a clean solve.

3. Coding (DSA)
1 question, math + logic heavy. Brand new to me, hadn't seen anything like it. Got to a running solution but it took longer than I wanted.

4. LLD
Build Splitwise with running code in 60 min. Time pressure is the real problem here, not the design itself. Got it running but the code wasn't as clean as I'd have written with another 20 minutes.

5. HLD
Design the "trending items" feature on an e-commerce landing page. Caching strategy, popularity scoring, freshness vs relevance tradeoffs. This is where I think I started losing the room - went too deep on the algorithm side of trending and not enough on the systems side (CDN, edge caching, staleness windows, what gets recomputed on what cadence).

6. HM
Walked through my most complex project at current company, then HLD for it. Some behavioral too - conflict resolution, etc. Felt conversational at the time but in retrospect I should have practiced the project storytelling more, kept getting lost in implementation details when he wanted the why.

Result: Rejected after HM. No specific feedback.

What I think went wrong:

• HLD: underestimated the systems-thinking depth they want at SDE-2. They're not testing if you know Kafka exists, they're testing if you know when not to use it
• LLD: didn't actually practice typing the full solution under timer. Whiteboarding ≠ writing 200 lines of working code in 60 min
• HM: should have rehearsed my project story like a 2-minute pitch with deeper "why" hooks

What I prepped with:

• LeetCode for DSA volume
• PracHub for pattern drilling on heap / graph / DP specifically - this carried me through OA, BPS, and the Coding round, so credit where it's due
• Grokking the System Design Interview for HLD
• One friend who's SDE-3 at a FAANG for mocks - probably the single most valuable thing, regret not doing more

If I attempt Uber again I'll spend most of my time on LLD speed and HLD systems depth. The DSA bar is honestly not that high for SDE-2 at Uber based on what I saw.

Hope this helps someone.

Applied for the SDE-1 role at Rippling on 6 April.

Timeline:

• 13 April: Got a mail from HR to schedule a 15-minute introductory call.
• 14 April: HR round happened. Mostly discussed my background, current work, past experience, and interview availability.
• 16 April: Received schedules for 2 technical rounds:
• Coding Round (1 hour) — 21 April
• LLD Round (1 hour) — 22 April

Coding Round:

• Asked a graph-based problem mainly around Topological Sort , saw this exact question on PracHub.

LLD Round:

• Started with a DFS-based approach for a graph problem.
• Follow-up questions gradually turned it into a shortest path problem.
• Discussed solutions using Dijkstra and then Bellman-Ford.
• Overall, both rounds went well from my side.

After multiple follow-ups, on 27 April I received a mail to share availability for the Hiring Manager round.

• Initially scheduled for 29 April.
• On 28 April, it got rescheduled to 30 April due to interviewer availability.

30 April HM Round:

• Unfortunately, I had internet issues during the introduction itself.
• Interviewer suggested rescheduling since he was fully booked for the day.
• It was then rescheduled again.

Further reschedules:

• Rescheduled to 6 May.
• On 6 May, got another mail saying interviewer was unavailable, so it moved to the next week (13 May).

Finally, on 13 May, I received this update:

“The roles have gone on hold for now. We will get back once we have a role in the near future.”

About me:

• Currently working as an SDE at a product-based company.
• Around 1 year of full-time experience.

Wanted to ask:

• Has anyone else received similar feedback from Rippling?
• Did they actually get back later?
• Should I continue following up with HR/recruiter after some time, or just move on?

Interview prep resource: LeetCode, Alex Xu & PracHub

#rippling #interview #interviewexpierence

Applied for the SDE-1 role at Rippling on 6 April.

Timeline:

• 13 April: Got a mail from HR to schedule a 15-minute introductory call.
• 14 April: HR round happened. Mostly discussed my background, current work, past experience, and interview availability.
• 16 April: Received schedules for 2 technical rounds:
• Coding Round (1 hour) — 21 April
• LLD Round (1 hour) — 22 April

Coding Round:

• Asked a graph-based problem mainly around Topological Sort , saw this exact question on PracHub.

LLD Round:

• Started with a DFS-based approach for a graph problem.
• Follow-up questions gradually turned it into a shortest path problem.
• Discussed solutions using Dijkstra and then Bellman-Ford.
• Overall, both rounds went well from my side.

After multiple follow-ups, on 27 April I received a mail to share availability for the Hiring Manager round.

• Initially scheduled for 29 April.
• On 28 April, it got rescheduled to 30 April due to interviewer availability.

30 April HM Round:

• Unfortunately, I had internet issues during the introduction itself.
• Interviewer suggested rescheduling since he was fully booked for the day.
• It was then rescheduled again.

Further reschedules:

• Rescheduled to 6 May.
• On 6 May, got another mail saying interviewer was unavailable, so it moved to the next week (13 May).

Finally, on 13 May, I received this update:

“The roles have gone on hold for now. We will get back once we have a role in the near future.”

About me:

• Currently working as an SDE at a product-based company.
• Around 1 year of full-time experience.

Wanted to ask:

• Has anyone else received similar feedback from Rippling?
• Did they actually get back later?
• Should I continue following up with HR/recruiter after some time, or just move on?

Interview prep resource: LeetCode, Alex Xu & PracHub

#rippling #interview #interviewexpierence

Applied for the SDE-1 role at Rippling on 6 April.

Timeline:

• 13 April: Got a mail from HR to schedule a 15-minute introductory call.
• 14 April: HR round happened. Mostly discussed my background, current work, past experience, and interview availability.
• 16 April: Received schedules for 2 technical rounds:
• Coding Round (1 hour) — 21 April
• LLD Round (1 hour) — 22 April

Coding Round:

• Asked a graph-based problem mainly around Topological Sort , saw this exact question on PracHub.

LLD Round:

• Started with a DFS-based approach for a graph problem.
• Follow-up questions gradually turned it into a shortest path problem.
• Discussed solutions using Dijkstra and then Bellman-Ford.
• Overall, both rounds went well from my side.

After multiple follow-ups, on 27 April I received a mail to share availability for the Hiring Manager round.

• Initially scheduled for 29 April.
• On 28 April, it got rescheduled to 30 April due to interviewer availability.

30 April HM Round:

• Unfortunately, I had internet issues during the introduction itself.
• Interviewer suggested rescheduling since he was fully booked for the day.
• It was then rescheduled again.

Further reschedules:

• Rescheduled to 6 May.
• On 6 May, got another mail saying interviewer was unavailable, so it moved to the next week (13 May).

Finally, on 13 May, I received this update:

“The roles have gone on hold for now. We will get back once we have a role in the near future.”

About me:

• Currently working as an SDE at a product-based company.
• Around 1 year of full-time experience.

Wanted to ask:

• Has anyone else received similar feedback from Rippling?
• Did they actually get back later?
• Should I continue following up with HR/recruiter after some time, or just move on?

Interview prep resource: LeetCode, Alex Xu & PracHub

#rippling #interview #interviewexpierence

20 companies - Mixed of big tech and startups (Amazon, meta, netflix, airbnb, brex, rippling, etc)

My stats so far:
3 failed/ghosted resume screen
5 failed technical phone screen
6 onsite - WIP

The rest are still pending TPS/OA.

I bought premiums LeetCode and PracHub for company specific questions.

20 companies - Mixed of big tech and startups (Amazon, meta, netflix, airbnb, brex, rippling, etc)

My stats so far:
3 failed/ghosted resume screen
5 failed technical phone screen
6 onsite - WIP

The rest are still pending TPS/OA.

I bought premiums LeetCode and PracHub for company specific questions.

20 companies - Mixed of big tech and startups (Amazon, meta, netflix, airbnb, brex, rippling, etc)

My stats so far:
3 failed/ghosted resume screen
5 failed technical phone screen
6 onsite - WIP

The rest are still pending TPS/OA.

I bought premiums LeetCode and PracHub for company specific questions.

20 companies - Mixed of big tech and startups (Amazon, meta, netflix, airbnb, brex, rippling, etc)

My stats so far:
3 failed/ghosted resume screen
5 failed technical phone screen
6 onsite - WIP

The rest are still pending TPS/OA.

I bought premiums LeetCode and PracHub for company specific questions.

I recently went through the interview process for Walmart and wanted to share my experience. The process moved quite fast—I was contacted by a recruiter, and the initial rounds were scheduled within a week, with the on-site rounds following the week after.

Prep Resource: LeetCode & PracHub Walmart SWE questions

Round 0: Team Fit / Screening

• Discussed my current role and responsibilities.
• Deep dive into project trade-offs: "Why did you choose X over Y?" and "What were the limitations of this design?"
• Focused heavily on the rationale behind my architectural decisions.

Round 1: Algo & DSA

• Brief walkthrough of my previous experience.
• Coding Question 1: Word Break Problem (Can a string be formed using strings from a given set?).
• Coding Question 2: Minimum number of platforms required (Interval Overlap/Scheduling problem).

Round 2: System Design (LLD/HLD)

• Task: Design a ride-sharing application (like Uber/Lyft).
• Note: The interviewer spent about 35-40 minutes on the HLD (High-Level Design), leaving very little time for LLD (Low-Level Design). I managed to cover the core model classes and discussed specific design patterns for the business logic.

Round 3: Technical Discussion (On-site)

• Problem: Implement lexicographically smallest Two Sum
• Deep Dive: Discussions on concurrency, multi-threading, and locking mechanisms.
• Distributed Systems: Covered Distributed Consistency and the CAP Theorem in detail.

Round 4: Technical Whiteboard (On-site)

• Compute days until plants stop dying
• Scenario: You are given a row of plants, each with an integer pesticide level.
• Coding Task: Given an array plant[] of pesticide levels from left to right, return the number of days until plants stop dying.

Round 5: Hiring Manager (HM)

• Discussion on role expectations and upcoming projects.
• The HM was very transparent: there’s a hard deadline for a major project that requires frequent context switching but offers significant growth opportunities.

Verdict: Accepted the offer!