I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Two Sigma (London, England) in Mar 2019
Interview
Online Hackerrank was very easy, was given 3 hours to solve two classic CS problems. Was able to solve both, check them, and even add comments to the code, with 2.5 hours still to spare.
Phone interview was bad. Interviewer was Chinese and could barely speak coherent English. Audio quality was also terrible as it was an international phone call. Asked a few OS questions, then a main coding question. I started solving the coding question optimally but interviewer was telling me my solution was 'wrong', when what he really meant was he wanted a simpler-and-less-efficient solution. Led to a lot of confusion.
Somehow I passed and went to onsite. Questions seemed reasonable, but not enough time was given to solve them even though I knew the solutions. And I was given a macbook with really awkwardly spaced-out keys, unfamiliar key shortcuts, and no mouse, so I was constantly making typos or struggling to use the mac-style touchpad.
Not happy with the overall process, seemed a lot more luck-based than skill-based.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- Maximum subarray sum of circular array
- Implement LRU cache
first interview was 60 minutes long with a leetcode hard question. second interview was 2 back to back 60 minute leetcode hard with emphasis on data structures. each interview had a 5 minute introduction and 10 minute at the end to ask questions
Standard medium difficulty hackerrank. The question involved decoded an encoded string. It was not something I had seen on LeetCode before and I think was unique to the company. The question was not that difficult but I ran out of time right before I could finish answering.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Decode a string encoded using a specific encoding algorithm.
It started of with one phone screen, then if you pass you have 2 back to back technicals, then 3 1 hour behaviorals, hiring committee, and management committee. Standard Leetcode and behavioral questions.
