bytedance | Software Engineer Intern | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Rejected
Difficulty: Not specified
Interview Process
The interview process consisted of two rounds. The first round was conducted in Chinese with a domestic interviewer. It began with a discussion about the candidate’s resume and projects, lasting about half an hour. The interviewer asked several questions related to Java Spring, including topics like @Autowired and the bean lifecycle. The candidate struggled with some questions but successfully explained the difference between HTTP GET and POST. The remaining time was spent on a coding question that was not found on LeetCode. The candidate used a depth-first search (DFS) approach, which was not completely bug-free, but the interviewer indicated that the thought process was correct. The candidate was notified of proceeding to the second round after two days.
The second round was with an interviewer in San Jose, also conducted in Chinese. The candidate was informed that the original team did not have headcount, and they switched to interviewing for another team. The candidate quickly solved an easy coding question, followed by a system design question. They were tasked with designing a message notification system for a group chat of 500 people, which required quick loading of the last 30-40 messages. The candidate mentioned using an LRU cache but did not initially mention Redis; the interviewer specified the use of Redis. The candidate received a rejection email the following Monday.
Technical Questions
- HTTP (Network Protocol)
- System Design (Cache, Redis)
Tips & Insights
- Be prepared to discuss your projects in detail and clarify any technical concepts.
- Practice system design questions, particularly involving caching mechanisms like LRU and technologies like Redis.