I applied through university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at SingleStore (San Francisco, CA) in Nov 2021
Interview
1 round of tough technical stuff, specifically sitting down with an engineer for 2 hours and trying to add a feature to a sample code base. The second round would have been behavioral, which was really tough.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They brought me to a terminal, and then asked me to look through a code base and make some changes.
The catch was that the code was all C, and very poorly named. It was really tough to figure out what was going on. I guess one thing I should have done is asked more questions or opened up the files in a text editor it would save my search time. Dont focus on algs, and data structures it wont help you much. Best to understand C and system calls. I would also get really good at using advanced text edtior tools. They brought me to a terminal, and then asked me to look through a code base and make some changes.
The catch was that the code was all C, and very poorly named. It was really tough to figure out what was going on. I guess one thing I should have done is asked more questions or opened up the files in a text editor it would save my search time. Don't focus on algs, and data structures it wont help you much. Best to understand C and system calls. I would also get really good at using advanced text editor tools.
First round is kind of getting to know your real time problem solving skills by providing you to find a bug/add some function in their codebase in real time. Good if you have worked with large code base.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
To find a bug/add some function in the codebase in real time.
Round1 - screening call with Talent partner based on location, background requirements + 1 hour C codebase understanding and adding features using functions
Round2 - 45 minutes Technical Interview based on experience and deep into low level system design language
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How does malloc() work internally? What’s the difference between malloc, calloc, realloc, and new?
Couple of coding interviews, pretty standard. One was different from the normal and a very cool interview about an existing in memory database. The process is quite long but that's how it goes at good companies sometimes
