uber | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Not specified
Difficulty: Not specified
Interview Process
The interview process consisted of several rounds:
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Online Assessment: The assessment was conducted on CodeSignal and included several coding questions. The third question was the most challenging, so it was recommended to tackle it last. The first two and the fourth questions were straightforward and easy to understand, allowing candidates to score around 80% to pass.
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Phone Screen: This round involved a complete coding question with four functions. The first three functions were easy and direct, while the last one was about finding the “Number of Islands.” The focus of this round was on writing reasonable test cases and considering edge cases and scalability.
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Behavioral Interview: This round lasted about 50 minutes and focused on cultural fit. Questions covered topics such as collaboration, ownership, dealing with difficulties, and handling blockers. Candidates were asked to share a failure case.
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Technical Interview with Internal Team Member: This round was somewhat tricky. The interviewer presented multiple questions simultaneously, but candidates were expected to tackle them one at a time, without a holistic approach. For example, if a heap was needed for the final function, candidates could not design it upfront; they had to address each small question separately.
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Technical Interview with External Team: This round was similar to the phone screen but slightly more challenging, consisting of two easy questions, one medium, and one hard question.
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System Design Interview: The candidate prepared for a product-related design, but the interviewer had a specific design in mind. The discussion revolved around short-term and long-term scalability of a system involving proxies and services. The candidate found it challenging to align with the interviewer’s expectations and faced a lot of questioning during this round.
The recruiter was very supportive throughout the process, providing feedback within a week and helping to review interview highlights. The candidate had seven years of experience but was only considered for an SDE2 position. Ultimately, the candidate did not pass the system design round, as the interviewer was looking for a specific design that the candidate’s proposal did not match.
Technical Questions
- Number of Islands - (Depth-First Search, Breadth-First Search, Connected Components)
- System Design - (Scalability, Distributed Systems)
Tips & Insights
- Focus on writing comprehensive test cases and understanding edge cases.
- Be prepared for multiple questions in technical interviews and tackle them one at a time.
- During system design interviews, ensure alignment with the interviewer’s expectations and be ready for detailed questioning.