I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Capital One in Sep 2016
Interview
Did a HackerRank coding challenge followed by an onsite interview. The on site was a "technical" interview followed by a fit/behavioural interview. The "technical" is in quotes because they just had a senior software engineer ask me to go through my HackerRank challenge code followed by ask me a question on every single bullet point on my resume. For example, on my resume I mentioned that I'd worked with SQL 2 years prior, and she asked me to write a relatively detailed SQL query. Then she asked me to reverse a string. Literally one line into the code she interrupted me and asked me another question regarding the difference between a StringBuilder and a StringBuffer. At the time of the interview, I did not know the difference, so I told her I've only ever worked with StringBuilders. After the interview, I googled it and it turns out they do the exact same thing, except one is thread safe. I asked if she wanted me to continue with the string reversal code and she said no, to just leave it. Then she went on to ask me what series of Git commands I would use to accomplish a task. I don't remember exactly what the task was, but when I said I'd use rebase command, she was extremely confused as to what it was. I had to explain to her the difference between the rebase and merge commands. All in all this was a very unorganized interview.
Expecting a challenging experience, I found the interview at Capital One to be intense, particularly during the system design section. The question on designing a rate limiter with a token bucket algorithm took me by surprise; mid-way through the problem, I realized it was very similar to a drill I’d practiced on prachub.com just days earlier. The technical rounds included several DSA questions, and the interviewers were thorough but supportive. Ultimately, I received an offer and happily accepted, feeling well-prepared despite the pressure.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a rate limiter using a token bucket algorithm and discuss how it would handle bursty traffic and distributed deployments.
Recruiter screening to begin with. Then, technical discussion about java, spring boot, design pattern, small coding tasks and followed by design assessment for distributed systems. Finally, managerial round for the team fit
Scheduled a call with recruiter. Recruiter didnt show up for the screening call and cancelled it 5 mins after the scheduled time. Dropped a follow up email and got no response. After a week, I got an email from the recruiter stating I am selected for the next round i.e Assessment. Sent me an email with the assessment description but no link. When I sent a follow up email asking for the link, I got ghosted again. It was a bad experience. Felt like she is toying with me. Why ghost an applicant repetitively? Unprofessional recruiter who doesn't respect an applicant's time or efforts!