I was reached out to by a recruiter, and the initial interview had two parts: one coding round and one networking round. For the coding portion, I was asked two LeetCode-style questions: matching parentheses and Battleship, including a follow-up question. I was able to solve both and explain my approach clearly. The networking portion, however, went much deeper than I expected. The interviewer asked detailed, foundational networking questions, and while I was able to answer some, I struggled with others. Looking back, I believe this is likely why I wasn’t selected to move forward to the next round. My biggest takeaway is this: while LeetCode preparation is important, networking fundamentals matter just as much—especially for roles that blend systems, infrastructure, or customer-facing engineering. If you understand the basics well and can clearly explain concepts from the ground up, you’ll be in a much stronger position.

You get scheduled for an interview. There are coding assessments for the Data Structures and Technical interview. Both are 90 minutes long and the recruiter will be alongside asking about implementation.