Citadel interview notes, page 1 of 14

“This is the kind of question that sounds easy until you're actually in it.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“My first instinct was to check every pair of intervals and build some kind of graph, which is O(n^2) and they basically told you upfront that won't pass.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I knew this problem but froze for a second trying to remember if there was a DP solution I was supposed to use.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The base version was fine but then they asked for O(1) space and I kind of stalled.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I jumped straight to a min-heap for insert and execute, which was fine.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“Started fine on the base case but the follow-ups stacked fast.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Onsite - Coding / Algorithms round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I'd done this a dozen times before so I wasn't worried, but Citadel pushed harder on the 'decisions' part than I expected.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I started with a basic map and a list of keys, then realized the eviction callback needs visibility into cache internals to make any real decision.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The recursive part came to me pretty fast.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I spent the first few minutes just listing APIs without really justifying them, which I think annoyed the interviewer a bit.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Citadel, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.