I interviewed for a PhD SWE, ML-focused role, and the first real test came in the first interview round. It combined an ML domain section with behavioral questions. In the ML part, I was asked to design a spam classifier and write pseudocode for a bi-gram model.
My recruiter had told me the domain round would connect to my projects, but the questions were more design-focused than I expected. When I got to that design portion, I fumbled more than I would have liked, and it threw off my momentum.
The behavioral part included both hypothetical prompts and more typical behavioral questions. The domain difficulty was what shook me most. That first round did not feel as strong as I had hoped, so I did not move forward.
Location: United States. Overall feedback: neutral. Offer status: no offer.
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