atlassian | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Fail
Difficulty: Average
Interview Process
The interview process included a technical phone screen followed by two coding rounds. The initial screen focused on system design and coding. The interviewer asked several system design questions in a rapid-fire format, such as how to troubleshoot a system that slows down as it scales. This part seemed manageable for someone with work experience.
The coding question asked whether one string is a subsequence of another, for example, determining if “abc” is a subsequence of “aabzc”. The interviewer mentioned the input size was small, with just a few strings, so optimization was not a primary concern. After solving this, the interviewer was satisfied and asked for a brief explanation of another problem, but did not require a complete solution.
The two subsequent coding rounds included:
- A scoring system that outputs total and average scores, similar to a movie review platform.
- A problem involving finding overlapping intervals. While the exact question was not found in the resources, similar problems were readily available.
Technical Questions
- Is Subsequence (Two Pointers, String)
- The Skyline Problem (Interval, Sorting, Sweep Line)
Tips & Insights
The initial interview tips emphasized the importance of test cases, which led to unnecessary preparation on setting up a testing framework. This focus detracted from the overall interview performance and left a less favorable impression on the interviewer. The candidate felt that the coding performance did not meet expectations, leading to a downgrade suggestion, which the candidate declined.