Pinduoduo interview notes, page 1 of 3

“I knew this one.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The brute force is obvious and they'll let you say it out loud, but you better pivot fast.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“Started with the O(N^3) triple loop, which they were fine with as a starting point.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, 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 the whole interview, basically.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, 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 the centerpiece of the whole interview and the SVP will probe wherever they smell blood.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, Executive / Final Round round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I started with the core idea fine, gradients shrinking as they propagate back through layers so early layers barely update.” The rest of the author's notes on Machine Learning Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The grouping by suit part came naturally, sorting ranks too.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The boundary tracking is what gets you.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, Onsite - Coding / Algorithms round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I went DFS first because it felt more natural to write recursively.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, 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 the DP approach because it felt safer to code quickly.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Pinduoduo, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.