Internship Interview Rejections
Embarking on this year's journey of securing an internship has been a challenging endeavor, primarily due to the current economic climate. I was unfortunately rejected by every company that I interviewed with (not including HR calls and OAs). Despite my unwavering determination and the immense effort I put into each interview, the consecutive rejections from multiple companies took a toll on my spirit. I decided to write about my rejections to embrace my failures as valuable learning experiences.
Interviews
Akuna Capital
Bombed the technical interview. To be honest, I didn’t quite understand the problem and I wished I had taken more time to think rather than code.
Roblox
Applied online and then a recruiter reached out and invited me directly to finals since I did well last year in the interview process. My roommate also knew the recruiter since he interned there in Summer 2022, so I thought I had a very good chance of getting in.
Personally, I thought my interview went fantastic (better than last year IMO), but I was still rejected. Looking back, I think some of my behavioral responses could have been optimized and I should’ve written cleaner code.
Matroid (computer vision startup)
This was the interview that covered the most technical-wise. The interviewer first asked me about a resume project (web dev project). Immediately, I could tell he was very experienced and my responses/experiences were too simple.
Then we went into a fairly easy Python problem. The coding itself was very easy, but there was a lot of starter code that tripped me up mainly because the logic was embedded in a publisher-subscriber model which I had never seen before. Afterward, he asked me the advantages of this design pattern and I couldn’t answer it.
Next, we moved into a system design question (design the online code editor we were using). For instance, what happens when you press submit? If a user’s code contained malicious actions like os.remove(“important file”), how would you prevent that? Looking back, I think the answer should have been along the lines of using Docker containers and isolating each API call.
Afterward, he asked me more general technical questions like Linux commands (how to list/kill a process), TCP vs UDP, array vs LinkedList, and which is faster in practice (memory access). I did decent on this section.
Finally, he went back to my resume and asked me about a robotics experience. My answers were good but not deep enough. For example, how is mAP calculated, how does yolov4 work, what’s its input/output format like. It really feels bad when an interviewer knows more about a project that you have worked on for 4 months. 😑
I failed the interview but thought we had an interesting conversation, so it was still a worthwhile use of time. It gave me a clear direction on things I still need to work on.
TikTok
I took the first wave of the oa and it was the hardest shit ever. It involved an ad-hoc math question, Extended Euclidean’s algorithm/Linear Diophantine equations, and Maxflow… I ended up only getting a few hidden test cases on the second problem but was still invited to the next round, so looks like most people don’t get anything.
phone screen: the first question was fairly easy (find the intersection area of 2 overlapping rectangles), but the second question was a complex geometry problem of which I had no idea. The interviewer gave me very cold vibes but he seems very knowledgeable.
I applied to a few other positions and took a second OA, which was a lot easier (got a perfect score) but still harder than some other companies. I think they only used my results from the first OA as stated in the invitation email, so bad luck for me.
Optiver
Got to the technical interview after OA and HR call. I solved the coding question in two ways and overall had a pretty good explanation. I did stumble a little when he asked me to explain amortized analysis (why do we double a vector when capacity is reached and is tripling it still considered amortized?). Unfortunately, I was rejected but the interviewer looked distracted and arrogant throughout the interview as if he just lost a trade.
IMC
Reached final after doing oa, video oa, and hr call. I was actually kinda prepared because they almost used the same question as last year (code a matching engine). Unfortunately, they forced me to use Java and code through Zoom screen share because of a technical issue, so it was very laggy and I had to type at like 10 wpm. Wasn’t able to get all the testcases and did not show good debugging practices so that was probably the main reason for rejection.
But I think the problem was cool, just that they should switch it up so often since so many people asked me to confirm if the problem was to code a matching engine.
Nvidia
Met them at Fall career fair. I was expecting a coffee chat but it turned out to be an interview so they started asking me C++ (smart pointers, references vs pointers, etc). I was not prepared but it gave me the motivation to read the entire C++ textbook.
Reached finals but it was my fault for being nervous. The question was honestly not very hard and I solved it 20 min after the interview. Many online threads say interviews are about the thought process and not getting the question right. However, I don’t agree with this because if other candidates are getting the question, then you are likely to be the first one rejected. From my experience, I rarely pass interviews I don’t full solve even if I had the right idea and thought process.
Doordash
Received 2 technical interviews. The first interviewer probably gave me a no/weak hire because I couldn’t finish coding up the question even though I had the right idea. If I had spent a little more time planning out the details of the question it would’ve been very easy.
The second interviewer probably gave me hire/strong hire because I coded out the solution and showed a good thought/debugging process.
Because the interviewers had mixed signals, they invited me to a third round of technical interviews. Clearly, there is a fair amount of luck involved in coding interviews.
The third round was a roller coaster. I spent 25 minutes solving the wrong problem because I misunderstood it and I could tell the interviewer was annoyed and about to give up. Just then, I realized the confusion and finished implementing it in 15 min. The interviewer then gave me a follow up which I solved in 5 min. the last 15 min just became a casual conversation.
Afterward, I was invited to the behavioral round, which went relatively smoothly IMO except the question on “how have you contributed to diversity” which stumped me but I gave a pretty unique response. Kind of ironic how Doordash was asking that question because 5/7 of the interviewers I met were Chinese.
Anyways, I was rejected after the final round but that was probably for the better. Three weeks later, Doordash had a big layoff and the engineering manager, 2 SWEs that interviewed me, and all 3 of my recruiters were laid off 🥶. How did I know? layoffs.fyi had a list of employers that were laid off.
Next
Although faced with rejections, most of my interviews were pretty interesting and I definitely learned a lot. I still had a return offer from Capital One but this time in their San Francisco office so that’s pretty exciting!
Hopefully, the economy will be better in 2023 and I can land some offers.