Medium

Emily

Emily

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12h ago

System Design Interview: How Do You Keep One Slow Dependency From Taking Down Your API?

A practical way to budget time, bound retries, and keep optional work from blocking the core request.

Illustrated API dependency design: a deadline, bounded queue, and circuit breaker preserve the core response while optional recommendations are skipped.

Emily

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23h ago

Backend Interview Question: Why Does Loading 20 Orders Run 21 Queries?

A practical way to spot hidden database calls, fix the read path, and check what the fix costs.

Backend Interview Question: Why Does Loading 20 Orders Run 21 Queries?

Emily

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1d ago

Your Python Script Works on 1,000 Rows. Then the Real CSV Arrives.

How to process files that outgrow memory and explain your approach in an interview.

Python interview illustration of a huge CSV passing one row at a time through a small RAM tray.

Emily

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2d ago

Amazon Interview Prep: What Happened After You Lost the Argument?

How to explain disagreement, trade-offs, and what you did after the team chose a different direction.

Two plans on a meeting table, with the chosen team decision followed by build, check and own.

Emily

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2d ago

DoorDash’s Coding Interview Lets You Use AI. Here’s My 60-Minute Practice Plan.

One small project, a running clock, and a way to show that you understand the code your assistant helped you write.

An hourglass beside a laptop with a small code diff. AI is allowed, but the clock still runs.

Emily

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3d ago

Top 10 Software Engineer Interview Questions I’m Practising This November

My November 2026 shortlist, with the examples, traps and follow-ups that make each question worth your time.

November 2026 interview practice notebook with sections for reasoning, building and explaining.

Emily

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4d ago

I Don’t Trust an AI Fix Until I Can Make the Bug Come Back

A missing ticket, a misleading green test, and a repeatable way to check what your coding agent actually repaired.

A magnifying glass examines an unfilled checklist stamped PASS while a bug remains on the code patch.

Emily

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5d ago

Salesforce Interview Question: The Customer Paid. Why Isn’t Their Coffee Being Made?

One oat latte, a missing payment confirmation, and a system-design walkthrough that follows the order all the way to the counter.

Customer with a paid 6.50-dollar receipt faces a barista whose screen has no orders, illustrating a missing coffee-order confirmation.

Emily

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5d ago

3 Real Outages I’d Study Before My Next System Design Interview

What AWS, Cloudflare and GitHub can teach you about failures that clean architecture diagrams leave out.

Three incident-report folders for AWS, Cloudflare and GitHub beside a notebook with a broken connection diagram.

Emily

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6d ago

LeetCode 735 Looks Easy Until the First Collision Isn’t the Last

One tiny chain reaction, a tempting wrong solution, and the O(n) reasoning worth taking into your next interview.

LeetCode 735 cover showing 4, 7 and 3 moving right toward -9, with final survivor -9.

Emily

Emily

Helping software engineers land high paying roles. Sharing tips, tricks and actionable steps to nail interviews in 2026.

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