Agoda

Role: Staff Fullstack Engineer

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: August 2024

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Medium (DSA), Hard (System Design)

Rounds: 2 rounds (based on the experience shared)

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms, System Design (HLD)

Experience:

This candidate applied through LinkedIn job postings for a Staff Fullstack Developer role and was contacted by a recruiter within a few weeks.

Round 1: DSA/Algorithm (60 minutes): The round began with a brief introduction and an overview of the candidate's current role and tech stack. This was followed by two medium-level Data Structures and Algorithms problems. The candidate used C++ and was encouraged to think out loud.

• Q1: Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters.
• Q2: Another challenging medium-level DSA problem. The interviewer was helpful in clarifying requirements.

Round 2: System Design (HLD — Got Rejected) (60 minutes): The candidate was given a complex scenario, described as a Figma/Excalidraw-like application architecture, and asked to provide a High-Level Design (HLD) with a scalable and efficient solution. Main topics of discussion included:

• How and why WebSockets would be used.
• Why Canvas is used instead of SVG.
• How to handle large-scale document editing for 5k-10k concurrent users.
• Utilization of various protocols for this purpose.

This round required a comprehensive understanding of system design principles, and the interviewer challenged the candidate's design choices. The candidate noted that their solution was not qualified, leading to rejection.