Round 1 was a coding round with the interviewer, and the experience was great. It was conducted in English, one hour total: the first five minutes were quick self-introductions, then 45 minutes of coding, and the last 10 minutes were for me to ask questions.
The problem was a LeetCode question — the exact name was obscured in the original post, but it involved some kind of transformation. I walked through the test cases verbally and they all passed. The follow-up asked how to solve it in place; we discussed it and I gave the optimal solution. Because I'd already spent too long walking through test cases verbally on the main problem, I didn't have time to run through test cases for the follow-up. After I finished, the interviewer said "ok I got your point," and then it was my turn to ask questions.
Result: pass.
Round 2 was a coding round with the interviewer, conducted in Chinese. One hour total: the first 10-15 minutes were behavioral questions — they asked about my most challenging project and followed up with detail questions along the way. They also asked whether I'd led any projects myself.
Problem 1 was a LeetCode question (name obscured in the original post). Problem 2 was another LeetCode question (also obscured). Seeing there was still time left, they threw in a third LeetCode question as well (also obscured). I flew through the first two — the second one had a small bug that I caught and fixed myself, and all the test cases passed. I didn't finish the third one, but the interviewer said the third problem wasn't a hard requirement and most people don't finish it anyway.
I thought I'd pass, but I ended up failing, with no feedback given. My sense is the interviewer wasn't trying to trip me up — when I got stuck, they'd give hints. Maybe I didn't answer the behavioral questions well, or I got the time complexity wrong on the first problem. Anyway, wishing everyone lots of offers.
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