SDE 2 at Linkedin

How it went

What they would tell you

How to prepare

Their background

Round by round

1. 1

   Screening Round60 min

   During this round i faced system design questions, programming-related questions, and a multi-threading challenge. The interviewer first tested my understanding of caching techniques (specifically write-through vs. write-back caching), database selection strategies, and a synchronization issue in multi-threading. And a DSA problem Course Schedule II (topological sort), graph cycle detection and ordering.

   • Course Schedule II
2. 2

   Coding round 160 min

   Two DSA question, a popular stack problem involving finding the celebrity in a group based on specific constraints, and other tree based

   • Find the Celebrity
   • Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree III
3. 3

   Coding round 280 min

   The first problem involved dynamic programming (Paint House Problem), and the second was a graph traversal problem, where I had to find the minimum number of steps from the source to the destination. I have added similar problem links

   • Paint House Problem
   • Find the minimum number of steps from the source to the destination.
4. 4

   System Design Round70 min

   Design Task: Design a LinkedIn Post and Comment System- The system should allow users to post, comment, and like posts. Extend this to include analytics, such as tracking post engagement and comment volume. Some Considerations as well: Discussed how to handle large data volumes, eventual consistency, and API design. Suggested using caching mechanisms for frequently accessed data and database partitioning for scalability.

5. 5

   Hiring Manager60 min

   Scenario Questions:

   • Describe a time you made a risky technical decision, how did you handle it?
   • What’s a failure you learned from?
   • How do you prioritize business value against technical debt?

What came up