Coupang interview notes, page 1 of 2

“This was the whole interview basically.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This question is basically five questions duct-taped together.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I went with the brute force first, nested loops checking every pair of substrings.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This question sounds warm and fuzzy until you realize they want everything: the why, the how, the metrics, the regrets.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I started with the data model which felt safe, principals, resources, roles, policies.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This was a lot to unpack.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This sounds like a standard 'tell me about yourself' project question until they start pulling threads.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The core idea isn't that hard once you see it: BFS/DFS to mark one island, then BFS outward from it counting steps until you hit the second island.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This is a beast of a question.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, 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 just BFS from one island toward the other, which is mostly right, but I fumbled the setup.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Coupang, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.