xAI interview notes, page 4 of 9

“The O(1) constraint is what makes this non-trivial.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, 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 kind of question that sounds scoped until you realize how many sub-problems are hiding inside it.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“Pretty standard opener but I always underestimate how much structure it actually needs.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, Recruiter / HR Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“Standard opener but I always fumble the balance between too much background and too little.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, 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 board initialization since that felt safe, a 2D grid with piece positions.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This was the whole interview, not just a warmup.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“Sounds like a standard opener but it really wasn't.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The two-limiter part is what trips you up.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, Take-home Assignment 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 just iterate over every possible value in each element's window and greedily assign, which is O(N*K) and they were not impressed.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at xAI, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This was the core of the whole interview.” The rest of the author's notes on Machine Learning Engineer interview at xAI, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.