It depends on the company, but most of the FAANG company (and others that try to imitate them) interviews come down to how quickly you can get the optimal solution on the board. It has very little to do with how well you can code day to day.
Most interviews have 4 sessions broken up in the following manner:
1 hour: coding
1 hour: coding
1 hour: lunch
1 hour: system design
1 hour: cross-functional
In my experience though, the first two are the ones that really make or break candidates, if you don't pass both, you're not getting hired. And yes, most of those interviews just test your knowledge of how quickly you can figure out the right data structure and algo for the question at hand. And even if you know all of the data structures and the applications of each, it can be incredibly difficult to solve the problems in the allotted time.
The other funny thing is that your previous experience doesn't do anything for you other than maybe getting to skip the technical phone screen. Everyone goes through the same process. e.g. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en
On the bright side, it does look like many companies are now realizing this isn't a great way to evaluate someone's ability and are beginning to incorporate more practical exercises.
Most interviews have 4 sessions broken up in the following manner:
1 hour: coding
1 hour: coding
1 hour: lunch
1 hour: system design
1 hour: cross-functional
In my experience though, the first two are the ones that really make or break candidates, if you don't pass both, you're not getting hired. And yes, most of those interviews just test your knowledge of how quickly you can figure out the right data structure and algo for the question at hand. And even if you know all of the data structures and the applications of each, it can be incredibly difficult to solve the problems in the allotted time.
The other funny thing is that your previous experience doesn't do anything for you other than maybe getting to skip the technical phone screen. Everyone goes through the same process. e.g. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en
On the bright side, it does look like many companies are now realizing this isn't a great way to evaluate someone's ability and are beginning to incorporate more practical exercises.