What I learned from having a screening + assessment from a *large* tech company PhD intern position
So. They made me sign an NDA just to do the general assessment lmao so I can’t be specific but this was a PhD applied scientist position for a very large well known tech company (not FAANG but up there).
The email I got from the recruiter after passing the screening was confusing, I had a applied for a different role internship as well and the subject line of the email was for that position, but in the email text body it said applied scientist position, so I assume it was that one (but this could’ve been wrong). I wasn’t really expecting leet code or anything since it wasn’t a SWE position or did not require hard CS discipline. I wasn’t nervous, but I decided to study leet code anyway.
I studied about a week and did the online assessment. I was so disappointed lol it was straight up leet code, a dense problem with multiple parts. It felt like it had nothing to do with the position or actual job tbh and it made me mad! I get it, you want all general applicants to have the same foundation or whatever, but how do you expect to diversify or find that actual best person for the job if they can’t pass this? Also strictly no LLMs, like no copy paste or photo capabilities which was clever, I’ll give them that.
Anywho, it left me uninterested and unmotivated bc I’d bet you money I’d never have to code something like that in the job ever, based on the description. What would I do differently next time to prepare? Literally nothing HAHA there’s nothing different I could’ve done, it was just wack. On to the next one I guess!