Grammarly Interview Experience (VO)

Here's a translation of your Grammarly interview experience, formatted for clear sharing:

My Grammarly Interview Experience (VO)

Grammarly interview experiences aren't as widely shared online, so I wanted to provide some insights. I recently helped a student prepare for their Grammarly Online Assessment (OA) and virtual onsite (VO) interviews, and I'm happy to say they successfully landed the offer! Here's a brief breakdown of what to expect.

The Grammarly virtual onsite (VO) involved three, one-hour rounds, spread over two days.

Interview Rounds Breakdown:

1. Frontend Component: You'll be asked to implement a search function for displaying GIF images using a given GIF API. The interviewer was very friendly and offered follow-up suggestions, like transitioning from a submit button to an autocomplete feature.
2. Frontend System Design: This round focused on designing a chat system similar to Messenger. The main areas of discussion were API design, component interaction, how data is stored in Redux, and the use of WebSockets or Server-Sent Events (SSE).
3. Experience and Impact (Company Specific): This unique round focuses on your past work. You'll be asked to discuss two projects you've completed, emphasizing your experience and the impact of your work.

Practice Problems from the OA:

Here are two typical problems you might encounter in the OA:

1. Climbing Stairs

Problem Description: You are climbing a staircase. It takes n steps to reach the top. Each time, you can either climb 1 or 2 steps. In how many distinct ways can you climb to the top? You can assume n is always greater than 0.

• Example:

  • Input: n = 2
  • Output: 2
  • Explanation: There are two ways to climb to the top:
    1. 1 step + 1 step
    2. Directly climb 2 steps

• Hint: This is a classic dynamic programming (DP) problem. If you're not familiar with DP, it's definitely something to focus on!

2. Perfect Substrings

Problem Description: Given a string s consisting of digits from '0' to '9', a substring is considered "perfect" if all characters within that substring appear exactly k times. Calculate the number of perfect substrings in string s.

• Example:
  • Input: s = "1102021222", k = 2
  • Output: 6
  • Explanation: There are 6 perfect substrings:
    1. s[0:1] = "11"
    2. s[0:5] = "110202"
    3. s[1:6] = "102021"
    4. s[2:5] = "0202"
    5. s[7:8] = "22"
    6. s[8:9] = "22"

Preparing for Grammarly Interviews:

Grammarly's HR team is quite helpful; they provide a preparation guide before your interviews. Following this guide closely is your best bet.

Unlike some larger tech companies that might present very "fancy" or application-specific interview questions, Grammarly tends to stick to more straightforward, fundamental algorithm problems. They are less about complex real-world scenarios and more about core problem-solving.

For those preparing, regular practice on platforms like LeetCode is highly recommended.

If you're feeling unsure about your OA or VO interview preparation, feel free to reach out. I can offer assistance for both OA and VO preparation.