I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at VAST Data (Tel Aviv) in Apr 2024
Interview
20-30 minutes talking about the company and what they do and how they operate.
about 50 minutes of algorithm and data structure talk
another 20 minutes of psudo code about a data structure
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
in a share memory space of X bytes, you have 2 stacks of data that want to input data inside it. how would you input data so that all the memory space can be utilized without loss at a O(1)
Told me about the company products and the responsibility of the team. Asked me to tell about myself and my experience.
Technical question with writing code in live (not have to compile or run). The question was to implement a lock that has acquire and release using given atomic functions test_and_set and reset. After that extend this to re-entrant lock.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
whats the difference between spin lock vs wait and notify.
Initial phone screen with the team leader, and then a professional interview about python internals, focuses on how data structures are implemented etc... with an exercise that's not difficult. After that there is an HR interview for the final steps.
Sat down with one of the R&D managers in the company, vibed really well, and about a lot of interesting subjects about Linux specifically- describing how FSs work in the kernel level (I hadn’t read specifically about it but my intuition led me to the correct answer, which I assume is fine as well). Questions about high performance system design and how would I design a system that does this&that putting emphasis on speed. Finally a cute programming question (wrote with a paper and pencil) and learned a lot from it.
Not too easy and not insanely difficult, a great first interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do file systems work from the moment you open a file handle?