Domain Deep Dive
This round required preparing a few slides. The interviewer asked some questions, pretty much the ones an AI could come up with, and at the end asked some hypothetical ones, like what I would do if I were dropped into a new team that has a lot of oncall fires. I answered badly, because I thought it would only be about past experience and never expected hypothetical questions. I made the same mistake as at the start of the system design interview: I didn't know where to begin.
Coding
The usual tic-tac-toe, nothing hard, it's just writing the game logic. At the start the interviewer had me introduce myself and explain what I work on, which felt like a bit of a waste of time, and I wasn't very patient when answering. Some companies just have you jump straight into the problem, which also feels kind of stiff. You have to adapt on the fly. The interviewer was responsive at first, but after I debugged something in the middle, the interviewer zoned out and started doing their own stuff. With 10 minutes left they brought up part 2, which was an AI making random moves. I finished it fairly quickly, but my code was rough and I didn't mention anything that could be improved. I feel like you really need to communicate more instead of thinking in "answer the question" mode.
Cross functional
I felt I did badly in this round. The interviewer basically just went through a question list, which felt stiff, and I couldn't tell whether what I was saying landed. I need to find a way to be more engaging. The interviewer also basically didn't dig into anything. The questions themselves were fairly standard. I feel this round should be more about sincere expression, rather than a performance (presenting) like the domain deep dive.
Arch
This round was fairly easy, the common bookstore design. The interviewer was very engaging, so it was easy for me to drive, and from their expressions I could tell whether I was getting it right or whether I should move on. Something I could improve: after the interviewer asked a question, I didn't finish my answer and get back to driving myself, and later it felt like the interviewer was the one driving. Luckily I had written down some of the points at the start, so it was more like the interviewer was guiding me toward the points I wanted to make.
Domain Deep Dive
This one was a special, team-specific round. It started with a system design of a system the interviewer had built themselves, and I completely missed the point, so the interviewer was mostly driving. Since the time was short, I should have spent more of it on requirement gathering and caught the key point early. After that they asked things similar to the first round, like what I work on.
To sum up
An interview is mostly a process of communication, not solving problems. Being warm and proactive when you introduce yourself to the interviewer at the start goes a long way. Some interviewers are good at this, which makes the later rounds much more comfortable; others aren't, and since they're a stranger and there's the power dynamic, the interview becomes agonizing. So you have to take the initiative yourself.
Likewise, since it's communication, it's more about expressing than performing. When preparing, put more into depth rather than delivery, otherwise after enough practice and enough interviews you get sick of talking about it yourself, and it turns into the same stale spiel repeated over and over.
Also, the non-tech hypotheticals are the same as the system design hypotheticals: they're there to show how your mind works, so just show it boldly and confidently, and ask whatever questions you need to ask. That is also your ability to handle ambiguity.
Discussion
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