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Graduated from the University of Texas, Austin’ 2018 Bachelors in computer science and bachelors in mathematics. Currently living in beautiful sunny San Francisco, CA, where the skies are clear and the grass is greener! Outside of work, I like to hike, explore new restaurants, go boxing, spend quality time with friends, and travel the world!
INTERVIEWING – Writing Feedback For DS&A Interviews – CASE STUDY #2

INTERVIEWING – Writing Feedback For DS&A Interviews – CASE STUDY #2

A second example always helps!!!

In this case, I’m sharing a case study 1 highlighting a unique set of strengths & weaknesses ( since all candidates 2think differently ).

Strengths & What Went Well :

  • TC arrived at a working solution.
  • TC has strong technical communication skills.
  • TC showed how to walk through their code and executed a dry run of unit tests of a few scenarios.
  • TC ran into logical bugs, but upon my ask to debug, demonstrated effective debugging skills.
  • TC demonstrates thorough understanding of question under ask.
  • TC thought about effective data structures to capture computational state.
  • TC understands Big-O complexity, and on my ask if the complexity could be improved, they strongly justified that they reached an optimal Big-O.
  • TC understood how to leverage problem sparsity, constants, and invariants ahead of time.
  • TC understood case decomposition
  • TC thought about the double counting problem.

Areas for Improvement :

  • TC can solution faster ( e.g. save 5 minutes ) and dive into coding sooner.
  • TC struggled with array one-off indexing adjustments and calculations.
  • TC can refine their “time-tracking” skills – knowing when to spend less and spend more time on specific sections (e.g. the code, the unit tests )

Advice for future interviews :

  • TC can type out more of their communication process to assist their interviewer to build a stronger case.

Open Notes :

  • TC demonstrates signal set in last 5 minutes on the “stress-test” ask questions. Answers strongly intimate YOE ( years of experience ) working with large-scale industrial code bases.
  • TC shows how to evolve code upon shifting customer requirements.

Leveling Determination :

  • Amazon L4 ( Entry ) : Strong Hire
  • Amazon L5 ( Mid-Level ) : Hire
  • Amazon L6+ ( Senior Level Plus ) : Leaning Hire
  1. Credit is due to to interviewing.io for their template structure/headings here. ↩︎
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  2. Credit to my mock interviewee for taking the time from his day – 1 hour and 5 minutes – to go through rigorous practice. I believe in journalistic integrity, and I’ve redacted all names and other Personally Identifiable Information. ↩︎ ↩︎
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