New Grad Software Engineer Interview Experience

I cold applied early, and the first thing they sent me was a HackerRank, not a recruiter screen. After that, there was a gap of a few weeks, then I had a 60-minute technical screen followed by a back-to-back system design and debugging round that felt like the onsite. The whole process felt much more practical than a standard LeetCode-only interview, but it was still very time-intensive, especially in the coding round. As the process progressed, it became increasingly AI-specific, especially in the design and debugging interviews. I got rejected after that onsite-style round, so I did not make it to what I think would have been later culture-fit or vibe-coding interviews.

I cold applied early, and the first thing they sent me was a HackerRank, not a recruiter screen. After that, there was a gap of a few weeks, then I had a 60-minute technical screen followed by a back-to-back system design and debugging round that felt like the onsite. The whole process felt much more practical than a standard LeetCode-only interview, but it was still very time-intensive, especially in the coding round. As the process progressed, it became increasingly AI-specific, especially in the design and debugging interviews. I got rejected after that onsite-style round, so I did not make it to what I think would have been later culture-fit or vibe-coding interviews.