The fallen leaves tell a story. Of how a tarnished became Elden Lord.
After a very long wait, I am finally placed. Destiny truly had something else in mind. From not being shortlisted to being getting selected in the final round, We’ve come a long way haven’t we.
Let’s be honest, my leetcode profile looks like a smurf account. With only 46 solves and a 1912 ranking at the time of interview, Arctic Wolf did not shortlist me for their Pool Campus round. But after some SPC magic, and petitioning them for reconsideration, there was finally light at the end of the tunnel.
Reached Kadubeesanahalli at 0900 hours. Interacted with one SIT fellow (Chetan) who had also applied for a position at Arctic Wolf. Entered the Jupiter Block of Prestige Tech Park. Waited in the lounge for a while. Finally mustered up some courage to go to the 4th floor. Sat and waited in the WeWork reception for a while. We were moved to the Arctic Wolf office at around 1015 hours.
Pen-and-Paper test: Asked to design a system which solves the two given tasks efficiently.
1st Question: Given a password string check if it passes the given criteria. Uppercase, Lowercase, Alphanumeric, Special Characters
2nd Question: Given Logs of the format ("<TIMESTAMP>","<SOURCE_IP>",SEVERITY,"<ALERT_MESSAGE>"), find
The questions were straightforward, so the only way to stand out was by doing exactly as they’d asked. Write comments explaining the code and the approach with which I had solved the problem as concisely and clearly as possible. After writing everything I possibly could, the different classes used, memory optimisations, time optimisaitons, sample test cases, approx proof of correctness of the code, I turned in my paper. 14 pages in total.
They served us lunch and we waited anxiously for the results. Finally, Kuhumita Das, principal recruiter at Arctic Wolf stepped in and announced the results. Waited till S as the results were announced in alphabetical order. When S arrived, I was into the interview round. Unix millis for the timestamps was probably what made the cut.
Avni Wala, Senior Principal Developer at Arctic Wolf, took my interview, nerve-racking as it was, it lasted only for 5 minutes. Standard questions about myself, my projects, my internship experiences at other companies.
Couple of regrets associated with this interview. Told about my 1912 rating on leetcode, when the team was disappointed with the performance of everyone in the written round. They expected caching of logs which none of the candidates did. When asked how the overall experience was, I told commvault did a better job at LLD round. Point to be noted, never do this again.
Came home. Results were to be announced soon. Waited till 2310, for the results for the next HR Interview round. Having violated my usual siesta, I couldn’t bear keeping my eyes open and slept.
0300 hours: I woke up just to see if results had finally come. I saw that I had gotten into the next round. I messaged everyone who had been rooting for me and slept again.
I find out later in the morning that she had sent the results at 2321. Hmmm. Anyways, just one last HR interview to crack. Started seeing some “The Companies Expert” videos on common questions. Well to be honest always felt that HR Round is some useless round, just gave up after a while.
1120 hours: Uday Vivek tells that the HR Round is just a formality for telling that you are selected.
1440 hours: Kuhumita tells I am now a part of the pack.
and the rest is history.
Even after a month after getting placed, I just can’t believe that I am finally placed.
Did luck play an important role? If I had a different interviewer would I have gotten in? Was I prepared for another rejection? The answers to these questions, will forever be undecipherable, lost in quantum probablities.
After joining the wolf pack, it might not be as literal as being a part of the pack, but I will look forward to the days to come, to my very own Little Dark Age.
This is truly only The Begining After the End.