I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Walmart (Carlsbad, CA) in Jun 2019
Interview
The first interview was a live online coding challenge, I had the question about how to get the least amount of coins for giving change.
After that, I had a 5-6 hour in person interview on the Carlsbad campus. Two of the interviewers were remote from the Sunnyvale office. All of them had you do whiteboarding/live coding session. Questions included:
- Networking / how does the internet work
- Fibonacci using recursion and not using recursion
- Currying
- Closures
- Find the highest and lowest sum out of an array
- Using reduce to change an array of objects to one object
- shuffle a deck of cards
- Implement your own forEach
- Performance of JS array functions
- How do you think Youtube works?
Overall I thought it was not too bad, I thought I did well. I was kind of surprised when I didn't get an offer. There was one interviewer that I think didn't like me, he was condescending and bad at communicating. I would ask him what he wanted, he would give me a one word answer, and when I tried to continue he would tell me "no not that way". And when I didn't know something, I admitted it, but he wouldn't move on from there.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- Networking / how does the internet work
- Fibonacci using recursion and not using recursion
- Currying
- Closures
- Find the highest and lowest sum out of an array
- Using reduce to change an array of objects to one object
- shuffle a deck of cards
- Implement your own forEach
- Performance of JS array functions
- How do you think Youtube works?
Looking back, I feel like I gained a clearer understanding of the process, even though I ultimately turned down the offer. The technical rounds were straightforward, featuring an implementation question on an LRU cache and a system design question about a rate limiter for an API. What helped me a lot was the walkthroughs for system design I went through on PracHub, which made those types of questions feel familiar. Overall, it was an easy experience, but I just didn't feel it was the right fit for me.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Implement an LRU cache with O(1) get and put using a hash map plus doubly linked list
First, standard short phone call with recruiter. Then a 1-hour interview with an engineer on the team, asked about technical experience and background, and did a live coding assessment via video call. Fairly standard Leetcode style questions
Intense but rewarding — the interview for the Software Engineer position at Walmart Labs was tougher than I anticipated. The technical rounds included an LRU Cache implementation question where I had to articulate my design thoughts on thread safety, followed by a complex system design for a real-time inventory service. What made a difference in my prep were the company-specific prompts I found on prachub.com; they really helped me understand the types of questions I might face. Despite the challenging nature of the interviews, I ultimately received an offer but chose to decline.