Latest / The Unfiltered Engineer / Ep 12: Interviewing in 2026 (Senior and Staff) feat. Amruta Akut

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Ep 12: Interviewing in 2026 (Senior and Staff) feat. Amruta Akut · The Unfiltered Engineer

• Vishakha (Vish): Hello and welcome to the Unfiltered Engineer. My guest today is Amruta Akut who I had the opportunity to work with at Dassault Systems. She's an experienced software engineer with 15 plus years of experience building and evolving large-scale software systems with a strong background in full stack engineering, architecture, and technology platforms. Over her career, she has worked at organizations including Dassault Systems, Oracle, Roku, and Walmart. Where she has driven initiatives spanning architectural modernization, platform development, cloud infrastructure, and AI-powered automation, with an emphasis on scalable solutions and technical innovation. She recently joined Zoox bringing this breadth of experience to the autonomous vehicle space. She's also had a very interesting recent experience navigating the engineering job market and interview with a range of companies. Today she'll be sharing with us. what she's learned from that experience, how the interview process has evolved, what she did differently in her preparation, how she approached the interviews for roles with broader technical scope, and what she wishes she had the knowledge before starting the process. Amruta thank you so much for joining us. It's so good to have you. Amruta: Thank you, Vishakha. It's my pleasure to be here and thanks for the wonderful introduction. Vishakha (Vish): I'm glad, I'm glad. Tell us where you're joining in from. Amruta: So I'm joining in from California, from Bay Area. Yeah, I work in Foster City, but yeah, I'm based out of the Bay Area. Vishakha (Vish): This topic is such a heated topic at the moment. you could tell in the market that there has been so many changes, especially with AI and with the layoffs and just the weird sense in the market. So I really, really appreciate you being here sharing your experience with us, and my hope is that anybody who watches this gets. Something to take away from this conversation and look forward to it positively, be positive about this whole job search situation. So tell us a little bit give us some context on your background, what made you search, how long it has been, and how did you just come about this decision, especially now that we're seeing you know it's scary market? So what made you go through? this process in the first place. Amruta: Sure. yeah, to give some context, I joined Walmart in 2024. So that was also amid this crazy market as well. So I've gone through this two times now. yeah, at Walmart, I worked on the advertising systems and almost for two years, I realized like I need a different exposure to skill set and some upleveling and Hence, I decided to look for and explore different opportunities. I kind of, I know it was like a crazy job market as well. But I was like mostly initially exploring and also applying, preparing on the sidelines. I started my prep in like the middle of May to say in the later half of May and I landed my offer, I had multiple offers by mid-July. But yeah, mostly the focus was to gain a different exposure and just different experience. That was the main motivation of my job search. Vishakha (Vish): that's really cool. this goes back actually to my very first episode. I remember I had this conversation with my mentor and he said your curiosity is what will get you through this space. And this brings me to this, and I've seen you in Dassault systems as well. You've been curious about newer stuff and what you've been working on and just gaining the depth on the things that you've already worked on, right? So this makes perfect sense and to gain motivation from that is epic. but thank you for sharing. So congratulations first of all on the multiple offers and joining Zoox I'm I'm glad Amruta: Thank you. Vishakha (Vish): that you were able to get through this mark market so quickly and swift swiftly. But if we go go to our like your job search aspect, which was Amruta: Mm-hmm. Vishakha (Vish): what actually has changed between this search and the previous ones based on like you said that you had this experience twice. So tell us a little bit about the difference that you noticed. Amruta: Of course, I think things have changed even since the last two years. And honestly, I haven't seen such a fast pace change within interviewing in such a short span of time. And with this advent of AI, think companies are even updating the way they interview. Initially, we had remote when we had COVID, then when in 2020, 21, then AI came in in 22 and 23. And since then, like the job market has been like on a downhill. So honestly, like there have been like lot of changes initially, like remote interviews, then with the advent of AI, like AI focused interviews, like it has affected the ways companies interview a lot, I would say. And I do see a stack difference between 2024 as well as in 2026. I've seen interviewed with multiple companies, I've spoken to multiple companies, both big and small of all levels. So mainly the difference I would say is that now with AI, I think it can do most of the coding jobs, right? AI coding is no longer the blocker. companies are still heavily focusing on the fundamentals. So you need to have your fundamentals be it like data structure algorithms or be it systems design or even basic computer science fundamentals. Because you can outsource your coding and development to AI but what gets you through in building a production system are ultimately the fundamentals. So even this has reflected as part of the interviews as well. Initially, I would say if we are talking just from a front end perspective, maybe like they will ask react and stuff. I'm not saying it's irrelevant, but I think I see a more number of companies putting heavier focus on HTML, CSS and JS. So those kinds of fundamentals is what I'm referring to. Like ultimately you need to understand the basics and that is what like I heavily invested on as well, which definitely helped. Second thing is, I'm seeing more focus on behavioral interviews around this time. Because like, as like, I think, and this is mainly attributed to AI coming in and taking up the coding. Companies want people who have shown repeatable behavioral patterns, which can be applied within their organization. So behavioral interviews are key. Initially, like when I interviewed in 2024, didn't honestly, or even before behavioral interviews was I didn't prepare so seriously or didn't invest that much time so heavily on it. But now I had to dedicate special time to go through all my projects, understand their business impact, why they mattered, understand the scope, the organizational complexity behind it. the challenges I faced and what kind of attributes am I trying to portray through a particular project. So, for all the different and the recent projects that I worked on in the last five to seven years, I went through and understood what are the key projects which I would like to showcase and what kind of qualities which I would like to showcase and I went in depth. to understand the complexities involved and the impact that it is delivering and the challenges I encountered. So that was like a different preparation strategy that I adopted for sure. And not to say like coding system design that is always there. Also like I'm seeing like bigger return to in-person interviews, at least like most of lot of companies are initially in 2024 at least. companies were most of the loops were on site even the like final on site rounds. But now I'm seeing companies preferring at least some part of the interview process to be in person at least like maybe one or two hours they want to have the candidate come to the office meet them and at least have like maybe one or two rounds on site preferably. Those are I think some of the key differences I think like between 24 and 26. The market has been challenging in both cases, no doubt about it, because there's been such a huge supply of engineers. think we definitely, at both times, like I think we need to focus on what value we are delivering. That stays, like we need to be able to articulate our impact, be it cross-functional impact or the scope of the organizational impact that we are having. So that definitely needs to be articulated and the way we present our project, needs to be seen from a different lens and portrayed in our profile. Vishakha (Vish): I love that. Thank you so much. that was a very thorough difference list that you pointed out. And I can already tell that having your fundamentals strong was was always the case, right? there were there are also pieces on interviewers who need to be able to ask the questions the way that you want to get the answers from the candidates. And the second piece about behavioral interviews, they're kind of gaining a lot more traction because you Amruta: Thank Vishakha (Vish): said that AI the coding is outsourced. So at that point the judgment remains with the human. So are you able to identify the impact of AI or the code that it writes? So I I think this was like a very good breadth in terms of the differences that you saw and very recent differences, twenty twenty four was not too long ago. But Amruta: Exactly. Vishakha (Vish): in in your opinion, what you said you started prepping in May, okay? But Amruta: Mm-hmm. Vishakha (Vish): when we initially start to prep for any interviews, I think with your experience, 15 years is a lot, right? So if you were to suggest somebody right now, at least me, like what kind how long before I guess like the duration of the projects, how long back did you go to prepare for your behavioral one? When you say I started preparing in May, this is so such a big, overwhelming decision to make. where do you start? How do you begin? Do you start system design? Do you start coding? Where do you start? So tell us your first mindset when you actually began to prep. Amruta: yeah, that's a great question. And I definitely agree. Like it is super overwhelming. And especially when you apply it to front end slash full stack front end, you have to prepare a lot of extra stuff, not just like, leet code. That's one part, but you also need to prepare for front end based coding. So that can include, TypeScript based questions or maybe react coding or developing UI components solving UI side problems, right? So those are those are like a completely different types of questions. So Vishakha (Vish): my god. Yes. Amruta: as front end engineer, you definitely need to account and prepare for those questions even for system design front end preparation for front end focused engineers. We need to prepare both like the overall system design. at an infrastructure level and also like at the front end level. So definitely it is overwhelming, no doubt about it. I tried to do this piece by piece and as the interviews approached, like it's hard to do everything in one go. It's like too much, I would say. So. If I know like my weakest points, like maybe I'll start with that. If I know I need more time on leet code, since we don't use leet code that often. So maybe I'll start with some basic leet code questions initially. know like system design, I have some idea or I can manage that with a lesser amount of time. So I'll prioritize accordingly. Behaviors I knew I had to invest much more time. So this time I started with that upfront, knowing that thinking that behavioral is going to have like a bigger impact. So understanding going through my projects and the second question, which you asked, like, how far did you go? Right. I considered my Walmart experience and the experience before, the Roku experience. were the recent two companies. So I would say over the last five years or so is like, good amount of time to consider. But the other thing is it's not like the most recent projects are the ones which you should be showcasing. If you have a prior project which had a bigger scope and which was more interesting, which portraits better qualities about what you want to show, maybe it involved better cross-functional collaboration or it had more organizational complexity. It was longer in duration. Maybe you want to showcase that one, right? So because it gives better signals to the interviewers. So you go through the last five years or so and then pick projects and understand the impact and scope. It takes some time definitely because five years is quite some time. You have worked on so many projects. Maybe you want to consider some, maybe not some of them. So for each of those projects, it takes some time to definitely understand what was the project about, what was the scope of the project, what was the technical complexity, what was the organizational complexity, what were the challenges that you encountered, what did you learn out of that project, what would you do differently. So for all those projects, make, understand these projects on these different parameters. Later in behavioral interviews, when they ask a question which involves showcasing a leadership quality, you already know which project shows that quality the best, right? And you can mold your answer based or showcase the project in that particular light to address the question which the interviewer is asking. So instead of going and preparing for every simple single question, like, okay, how did you show leadership qualities or... What was this project about and what was the scope about? So instead of doing a siloed preparation, it's better to go project by project and understand what behavioral aspects does that project showcase? yeah, coming back to the prep side, definitely like behavioral was a huge focus. So I spent some time on that because I behavioral is one thing which all the companies are going to ask, right? So maybe like front end. coding some may ask, some may ask leet code, same with system design. But I prioritized the other interview preparations based on the interviews, how they came in and the timeline and what knowledge I'm comfortable with and what is it that I can handle later on. But behavioral is something that I had put a focus on and... which I think all the companies are going to be evaluating me against at some or other point of time. So yeah, that is how I strategize my prep. Vishakha (Vish): wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing. those are the tiny details that people often think that, once I get the 20 leadership principles question, I'm gonna go and prep that. But you're Amruta: Yeah. Vishakha (Vish): asking us to take a different approach in that. Figure out your projects. where where have you worked? What have you worked on? How did that change companies' revenue? The impact that we have Amruta: Exactly. Vishakha (Vish): been talking about. And that shows, right? with fifteen years of experience, it shows that that's where you would also want to know from an from a candidate that you're interviewing, right, at this point of time. Because like we've said, like the coding has very little weight on it. But eventually this is one of the things that like really troubles me because with front end engineering, like you said, you have to prepare across Amruta: Thanks. Vishakha (Vish): the board. It's not just you went to hello interview. I don't know which one is that the back end engineers used for system design and it's like you did this one thing and it's it's done, right? you prepared for five questions and it's great. But for front end it's like across the board and you have to give equal weight in your system Amruta: and thank you. Vishakha (Vish): design to show all this I have mentored a few engineers and I see a lot of them being so scared and I'm not any different. Like I also get scared walking into a coding interview even with AI. how do you actually go into an interview and say this is a problem I'm solving versus there is a judgment piece that's coming from the interviewer. Amruta: Sure, so I think in an interview I try to think of the problem as something that I'm solving for a company or I'm doing on a regular basis. So if it's a bigger problem, I think that takes half of the pressure off knowing like, okay, fine, I'm doing it as far as I would do for like on my job, right? If it's a super big problem, sometimes it is super ambiguous. There aren't a lot of details provided. It helps to ask a lot of questions upfront to clarify the question itself. If you don't understand, if it feels intimidating. So, and then once you have that, you re-clarify like, what is it that you understand and what is it that's expected? So once you clear on that, you need to approach the problem step by step. Maybe you can't do all of it. Break it down into sub problems or smaller problems. Think of it logically you would solve any algorithm. This is something referring to either either of the coding questions, be it front-end coding or leet code style coding. If there's some part of the code which feels like, okay, this is something that you can come back to, can abstract it out and say, okay, this is something I assume that this function is going to do, and I'll come back to that once I'm done with the overall flow of the question. Same with front-end. I think front-end is easier to modularize and break down into different components and parts. So ideally, I would try to break that down and do it step-by-step, then handling the entire thing at once. But like on your question on judgment, I know like that they're there to judge that you are being evaluated. There is this pressure, like you don't know if they're if you are on the right track or not. But it helps to get into your feedback thinking like, OK, if I'm not sure at some time, I'll ask like, what do you think about this? Right. then if there are any questions, then they will definitely ask at that point. And as I'm writing the code, I will talk through what I'm thinking. It definitely helps than going silent and doing it just on your own. It definitely helps when you're speaking out loud, talking through your thinking process, thought process. So at any point of the interview things like you're not on track, you are corrected earlier in the process, then doing the whole thing and realizing this is not what the interviewer expected and you have very less time left in hand. So it's easier to backtrack and salvage out of that situation. If you are in constant touch with the interviewer and confirming your understanding and sharing your thought process with them. Vishakha (Vish): I love that and I think this is this is the biggest piece that I find in some of the engineers is like you need to keep talking but not Amruta: Mm-hmm. Vishakha (Vish): in a way that you keep asking for every single thing that you have created. Like there is there is a balance between hey I chose this approach, I know that there is a trade-off in this approach, but I'm gonna go with that because I'm pressed on time and I want to get this done. Right. For example, you have an N square complexity, you go with that to make sure that it works. And you mention that. But later on, you also keep asking, making sure, hey, how does this look? This is where I'm at. And Amruta: exactly. Vishakha (Vish): finding that balance. Amruta: any point and I agree with the fact like having some solution is better than having a completely optimized solution or having a non-working optimized solution Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Yeah. Amruta: So definitely it's helpful like as you mentioned like n square n square fine like Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Yeah. Amruta: first will ensure like if that's if you don't have an optimized solution coming Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Amruta: to your mind You can definitely present What is it that you are thinking and how is it that you'll approach and solve it, be it an N square. And later Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amruta: you can talk through your thought process on how you'll optimize. You'll realize like, okay, this is the loop that's running like two times. then this Vishakha (Vish): Mm-hmm. Amruta: is like adding a quadratic complexity. Maybe like you want to use a hash map and for faster lookups, which will, you know, optimize the time complexity and make it a bit faster or use a set for Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Yeah. Amruta: faster lookups. So I think I definitely agree with that. breaking down the problem, sharing your thought process, giving whatever solution that you can present to the best of your abilities, and then optimizing later, that can definitely help us get through. Vishakha (Vish): my gosh, yeah, I just feel so much like there is so much learning in that one hour that you have to have. the prep is the part where you practice all these things, right? What am I going to having a time practice? I guess helps. that's how I have tried in the past. but I do feel that there is so much judgment, even in that tech screen that goes on and it tells the interviewer too, how are you going to update, modify, make sure things are working? And like you said, optimized non-working solution is probably worse than a working non-optimized solution. So Amruta: Thanks. Vishakha (Vish): I appreciate that. Thank you so much for sharing. If you were to go back to May or April, let's say, what is the one thing that you wish people would have told you before you started your prep or your job search. Amruta: So, one thing I think I I wish I knew was like depth matters more than breadth at any time. Especially as you are like giving either a senior or a staff level interview or even higher, they are expecting more depth than breadth. I know like if you have like a breadth of experience, but you can only give like a shallow representation of your knowledge, that's not going to take you far. So at any point when you're thinking about the projects or the technologies that you're talking about in your system design interview, you need to know the details because let's say you are giving a project, like presenting about your project in a behavioral question. And let's say the question is about handling conflict. They can ask like, okay, what was the problem? Then who does disagreed? Why did they disagreed? What did you do about it? Or even if it is at a architecture level, okay, thinking of that project now, what is it that you would change in that architecture currently? So you need to have like a deeper understanding of the system than presenting like just a surface level explanation, even for system design, right? It helps if you know the details as much as possible. So as you give like higher level interviews, like maybe you are adding a queue or a message queue in your architecture. They're like, okay, why will you add a message queue? Why won't you use this other thing in place of it? So considering like how much traffic you're getting, is that technology selection even justified? Or. What are the challenges that will arise? let's say you get, you are having a message queue and you get a burst of traffic. What is it that's going to happen to the client side? Maybe the packets are going to get dropped off. You are going, how are you going to handle those kinds of scenarios? So you need to have a better and deeper understanding of how these technologies even work in the backend. So, and how this will affect like the overall system and the user experience. and the system in end to end and ensure the system is correct at any given point of time, given these kinds of things can happen, right? maybe you handle it in a different way or you're facing this back pressure that you need to communicate something to the client side. But so that point comes like you need to have a much deeper understanding than saying like, okay, I'll add a message queue here and maybe I'll add like a worker there and I'll add like a NoSQL database. So definitely take some time, dig through the details of the behavior, know the system limits. What is it that can cause a bottleneck in the system and how you will resolve it and what are the alternatives. So some of that definitely helps. And also, as I mentioned in the behavioral rounds, think deeply about your projects because they can cross question and... Try to put you again in that scenario and see how you would do differently. And if that behavior is even justified, considering the current level that you're interviewing at and considering what are the company's expectations out of you. So does it even Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Yeah. Amruta: adhere to the level at which you are interviewing? Let's say you're interviewing at a staff level or even a senior level. Vishakha (Vish): Mm-hmm. Amruta: Does your project explanations Does your design explanation justify the scope that is expected at that level? Vishakha (Vish): Mm-hmm. Amruta: Does it justify the depth? So definitely that's something I think it helped to dig deeper on these different aspects than like having more like at a higher level explanation. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. that's that makes so much sense because I'm I'm glad you brought up the level aspect because there will be different expectations from you, whether when you're at a senior level or a staff level. And I think with your experience also, like you might be seeing the changes in the interviews and the people who are interviewing you, and their expectations like you could have according to you, you could have done amazing job in your system design interview. But according to them, if they're expecting you to perform at staff level, they might think that, hey, you we wish she would have given more context. We wish he would have talked a little bit more about the trade offs this person made. So I absolutely agree with you in that, like there is there is breadth, but the Now the focus the more higher you go, you need to know the whys, you need to know your depth and why you chose something, which I think it changes with the level. You you still got to know your fundamentals is key at any point in time. but this, like when I hear you, I'm thinking that that's for a candidate, that's so much pressure to keep like in one hour, you need to always make sure that the system is working, right? He said. That the system has to work at any given point in time. So Amruta: Exactly. Vishakha (Vish): I think about that within an interview setting, tell us a little bit about how many interviews did you have to go through to like to feel comfortable sitting here and hey, let's talk about system design. Throw me what you want and I will come up with a solution. So how do you get that level of confidence? How many interviews did you get d did you give and got there? but yeah. Amruta: Honestly, I would say not many. System design is something like I like to do and I enjoy doing and enjoy learning as well. So I think maybe that's one thing that I'm not that stressed about. I think prep wise, had, mean, maybe you'll think like this is something counterintuitive, but I didn't spend that much time honestly in system design prep. Maybe it came from experience or maybe it came from the limited time I spent on understanding the limited things in a deeper way. But I think I did have to practice not like that, but I did practice a few systems like not that many I think less than 10 or less than 5 even. But it's like, I'm just being honest with you. But more than that, like whenever it's my tendency, given a particular system, I try to understand like, what is it that goes behind the scenes of a particular system? Like, as we mentioned, like curiosity in the initial few minutes, right? Like I try to understand like, what is it that goes and how this system will be performing. So I have little bit of a natural instinct to how that may work that I know that doesn't take that far, but we do need a deeper understanding of all the systems. But yeah, I didn't have to prep that many. think I just had like two months in hand. Like I found like within two months this job and Zoox was one of the first companies like I had like on-site with. So I didn't honestly had to go to the. on-site rounds of that many companies. it was limited. So system design generally comes like during the on-site rounds, right? So it's not, not like I had to do like that many interviews, but I did practice a few systems ahead of time to get an idea of what, what is it that I will need to cover and what, where is it that I'm lacking and cover, cover up those parts. But that being said, like I also leveraged AI. to do my preparation. So if not like a real interview, why did do system design with AI? So leverage AI for all of my preparations. So if I have a problem, maybe I'll draw something on paper, write down everything and then upload it to AI to get feedback on, what do you think? How do you think this design will work for this level engineer at so and so company? Do you think this will make the bar or not? Where is it that I'm lacking? So I did system design in that way. And for lot of my prep, think I leveraged AI, be it like resume review, system design prep, finalizing my stories, identifying the gaps, doing the company research. So everything and even coding, I did. heavily leverage AI to speed up the process. So, if I have not done like that many system design interviews, I did do kind of a mock interview with AI. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah, that makes sense. thank you so much for sharing this little piece of insight. That how did you use AI? I think a lot of people do use leverage AI for their prep, but I like this idea that you you created something before you went and asked it that okay, this is what I would choose. Like To be able to generate a system from a question is what is what brings your seniority level into sight. And also you said that your your curiosity in a sense that you've learned about these systems and you've it comes, I would say yeah, it comes naturally to you because you've been in like delivering production level codes. this also brings back if you're currently in a job and if there is something new that you are working with, try to gain more understanding on what you're working with because this is a knowledge that you will end up using everywhere and anywhere, even in your interviews, behavioral or your system design, whatever the case may be. I absolutely love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. one of the last pieces of question that I had for you was We've talked about leveling that what kind of answers go for senior level or staff level, but what surprised you most about interviewing at the level that you're interviewing? Amruta: Yeah, so I think definitely like the depth. I mean, I'm not super surprised by the depth knowing like the higher you go in the interview or like in the leveling, the higher the depth is expected. So that goes without saying. But from a surprise point, like it's like if you are thinking about like a staff level interview versus a senior level interview. Maybe they expect deeper technical understanding, more fundamental knowledge of technologies. Let's say they may ask like, okay, what kind of improvements do you think should be done in TypeScript? So those are kind of things like which you maybe like that, maybe you'll gain it through experience, you'll have your own intuition, but you need to have some fundamental understanding of like what type script is and what is it that you can, you need to have spent some time with it. So those are some fundamental kind of questions and the technological depth I think is expected at a staff level. Same with behavior interviews, like your answers and everything, your stories need to justify the scope. and stuff that goes without saying be it senior or be it staff. You need to demonstrate the cross-functional impact. You are able to handle the ambiguity and understand like you can show you can prioritize how to prioritize task, the judgment that comes along with it. So these are certain things that like when you just write a resume, you don't really think of things that are deeper level. So understanding like the prep that we do, it is at a much deeper level and understanding these nuances and presenting that, that is another thing that I would think would differentiate multiple levels. Yeah, I think that's definitely, and also some companies have individual different types of interviewing grounds and you need to prepare differently. Like I know some companies had like a Node.js debugging ground. Like I'd never done a Node.js. coding interview, be honest, right? But some companies do have okay, you're given a server side code, maybe find five different bugs and go through it step by step, resolve the errors. Maybe there's a race condition involved in the server side, like resolve that kind of a race condition. So the problems are even more complex and more unexpected. Additional, and also some companies have like a math interview. Like I never expected that. I'll be quizzed on 12th grade maths on probability and combinatorics. Vishakha (Vish): my god. I bet this is a finance company, but yeah, it's so Amruta: as well. Vishakha (Vish): weird, like, especially now in this market. I they're trying to be innovative but it's so much exhaustion even for the candidate. Amruta: Definitely. And this involves very company specific prep. So Vishakha (Vish): Yes. Amruta: instead of doing more like the general coding system design behavioral loop that we discussed, some companies also have like specialized round, like even a project retrospective, like you take a big project that you did, or you're the most proud of, you present that project at a much granular and deeper level, showcase what architecture was involved. or what was the scope and organizational complexity involved? Why was it complex and why did it matter in the first place? so you need to present, and what did you learn at the end of the day out of it? What would you do differently if you had to do that project all over again? So definitely like, and we need to present it according to your experience and level. That's those are more like company specific rounds, the unique kind of rounds that they're introducing, considering maybe this is because of AI coming in that they want to understand your reasoning and debugging capability more than just your coding capability, right? So these are some of the things that I think also surprised me, but at the same time I had to deal considering like different levelings at different companies. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah, I I can tell you've put in so much effort and heart into this, but out of out of curiosity, I think that's that's the piece that will keep you motivated and make you walk through this like crucial time. And I bet this has been also a a big ordeal for you, right? So to manage family, to manage your current work and to prepare all of these things. It takes time, but be patient with yourself and drive with curiosity is I think key in all of what you've said. you can you kinda light up when you talk about w the things that you've learned across this process. And even the fact that you're here sharing with us, it also makes makes a huge difference for for the people that I know. you sharing is nowadays it's just so different that people are even afraid to share things. But I so appreciate you being here. I do want to ask like two, three very minor questions, more logistical wise. in the interviews, did you see that how how would you define the percentage for you had to code it all by yourself or were there places where they said, okay, AI is allowed, you can use AI to build your system or build your code. Amruta: I think it was a mix to be honest. Companies are still getting on boarded onto a hundred percent AI interviews. So a lot of companies are still having the code it all thing and write it from scratch kind of thing. Some companies are like, would say more leaning towards the debugging ability than focusing on coding. AI coding is being asked like, I did not do that any kind of a loop which did AI based coding. I was expecting that to be honest, but I did face AI based system design. so you use AI and system Vishakha (Vish): That's interesting. Amruta: design. And honestly, like I didn't have any resources before to practice for such kind of an interview. So, but that was present. And if, since we are already talking about AI companies did. expect and I know they mentioned that they are experimenting with these interview formats as well. So I think a lot of the companies are still getting on boarded and onto like 100 % all AI interviews. Maybe some are there, some are not, but I think it's a mix right now. Vishakha (Vish): which is what will bring your experience and your behavioral like you said to highlight and that will showcase the value that you're delivering to come back to your point. And the last question that I had was at least in my in my job search experience also, I've been seeing that there is a lot of weight on this one behavioral question as to how you're using AI in your day to day, what tools are Amruta: Exactly. Vishakha (Vish): you using? did you have anything Any anywhere that you would recommend saying something or not saying something, I guess. Amruta: So yeah, I agree companies are trying to understand how have you used AI in the past and how are you leveraging it? And I think thanks like you bringing up this point that I think almost all the companies are asking this kind of a question and they want to understand your AI usage. How have you used it to maybe increase your productivity or how have you even used it in some of your projects and It definitely gives a big advantage if you have used it in some or the other form. So I would say like, if you just be honest with what you have done, but if you haven't done anything as part of your work, try doing some projects at home on your own by using AI. Ideally it is good if you can develop an end-to-end application which integrates an LLM or develops a RAG end-to-end from like, you know, front end streaming based or tool calling front ends, all the modern stuff, all the way to the backend, calling the LLM, storing it as part of embeddings in a VectorDB. So if you can do that end-to-end and demonstrate that understanding and get an app live and running. That's the best. And also, if not that, then it definitely helps to have some opinion on how would you how effectively use AI in your day to day work. So that can include maybe how did you improve your coding ability or speed up your coding? How do you what how do you decide what kind of task to offload to AI versus what not to do or what kind of AI skills that you develop and leverage. How did you parallelize multiple AI agents to work on different problems? So those are some flavors of answers like that you can incorporate or that you can showcase as part of your AI usage. So ideally if you can have the whole bread, that's well and good. But if not having some opinion on AI definitely helps. Vishakha (Vish): some opinion and a good one at that. I hopefully like I I don't think people a lot of people will survive if they say, I don't use AI, I don't like it, or I don't like that it built I think it's more as surface level that sounds, it is time to get on board that plane. There is no choice that you have. and especially now with I know that companies are still Trying that AI enablement, it's not there at that level. But most of the times, like you said, create your own project. And now that bar has like that gap has closed so much that AI can actually tell you that hey, if you have zero experience on what database to choose, here are some options and you can use it to learn all these things. Like you said, go into depth, but also come out of it and build the thing that you were building. So I appreciate that. Thank you so much for like Amruta: Thank you. Vishakha (Vish): for making this like a whole comprehensive package. I think a lot of people need to learn from they could learn from this experience that it's just a matter of curiosity. Like go in, there will be failures, but you come out of it, you go back to your drawing board and just identify where you were lacking, like you said, and how have you used AI. Now that it's become so much more easier to identify your gaps, there is self-awareness to it. But Amruta, thank you so much for sharing your experience. I I am so happy for you that you were able to get through this job market. And lastly, just one piece of question for our audience context, because I have global audience, I wanted to know were you focused mostly on the Bay Area search? Amruta: Yes, I was. Yeah. I was like, Vishakha (Vish): Okay. Okay, that makes sense. So Amruta: I did not want to move. So most of my, Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Amruta: my entire search was just like for companies which are Vishakha (Vish): Mm-hmm. Amruta: either in person or hybrid or remote either of the ways. So, Vishakha (Vish): Mm. Okay. Amruta: but, yeah, mostly like Bay area. Vishakha (Vish): And would you say that you've had there is a lot of talk about networking, but would you did you go via networking route or did you do cold applications or both? Amruta: Honestly, yeah, I mean, for this application for the 2026 window, did do like cold applications. of them were like Vishakha (Vish): Mm-hmm. Amruta: 90 % of them were like cold applications. Honestly, I didn't apply to that many companies. I just like a handful of companies. Thankfully I like, I had like a good pipeline of companies within a few days. So definitely. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Okay. Amruta: Yeah, sorry. Yeah, it is definitely thanks to the resume that it, you need to focus on that to get the pipeline running. Yeah, I think that is the main thing, but networking helps surely, but you need to do strategic networking. It is not likely you need to always go to events and talk to people. You can also do networking on LinkedIn. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Amruta: So maybe you are interacting with posts of people who Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Amruta: which you find interesting. Maybe you don't have to do it intentionally, but definitely it helps in gaining visibility, right? Like based on how LinkedIn works. Maybe Vishakha (Vish): Absolutely. Yeah. Amruta: you can make some posts on LinkedIn. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Amruta: It's like more like indirect networking, I would say. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah, yeah. Amruta: Definitely get to know people at the companies who like where you are interested in working. Maybe you don't Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Amruta: know. someone at XYZ company, but you are interested in applying maybe go through your network, your second degree connections or your third degree connections, your alumni network to find out like who is it that you can reach out to in case like you need a referral. But I think most of the calls that I got back were from the cold applications and my applications. Vishakha (Vish): I think this would be such a breath of relief for some people to hear, but because a lot of people focus on networking so much, like at least probably because my feed feed is filled like that. But I think like I do believe in cold applications. My past two jobs have come from cold applications. So I believe in them, but now lately there has been so much push on networking. But I think like when people hear your experience There are so many different reframes that you've offered that I think people will absolutely love and find hope in that. So we'd I'd like to close this conversation sorry. Amruta: I think one last thing I would like to add to that is whichever route you choose, be it networking, be it cold application, at the end of the day your resume and the timing matters. So people will maybe underestimate the timing part, but definitely it matters. and the resume needs like the more it showcases the kind of qualities that companies value. the higher are the chances of you getting a call back, right? So definitely there needs to be some part of refining the resume, showcasing your scope and impact, and also the timing. If you have a referral, but the company is already deep down in the onsite interview process and you're just applying via referral, that's not going to help. Vishakha (Vish): Yes. Amruta: So definitely the timing matters and considering there's a flurry of candidates online and like I see like the hundred candidates applying within like one hour. So if that is happening, it's very easy for your profile to get lost. So definitely like focus more on the timing so that ensure like your resume is visible to the recruiters. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah, thank you so much for d this is so much I absolutely love talking here about this because you've provided a very different way of looking at this job search. That you will find your footing, you'll find the timing wherever it's meant to be, it's gonna happen. You just have to do your work. You have to make sure your resume is ready. Your behavioral stories are ready when the time comes, you're ready to just go. And like you said, Zoox was one of your first onsites. So I think it's very important to understand that sometimes people say, you need to take two months and prep. I guess you need to understand what you have to prepare versus listening to everyone else. Amruta: Exactly. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Thank you so much, Amruta. I would love to close this episode with the three questions that I ask every guest. what is the one takeaway that you'd like people to have from this conversation? Amruta: Yeah, definitely. So, definitely perfect your resume. I have seen so many resumes which are not very well written, to be honest. And with the current competition, it is very easy for the resume to get dismissed if it is not written in a proper way showcasing your impact. And the second Vishakha (Vish): Mm. Amruta: thing is, I know you asked for one, but I'm telling you, definitely leverage Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Amruta: AI to speed up the... the job search and for the preparation. Because Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Amruta: there's so much to prepare, AI can definitely help in identifying your gaps, perfecting the system design, or explaining the basic fundamentals of even for coding concepts, keeping notes of everything that you have learned so you can review it before going to Vishakha (Vish): Mm. Yeah. Amruta: the interviews. Definitely leverage Notebook LM for that. Vishakha (Vish): Mm. Amruta: then refining the stories, the behavioral Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Amruta: things. So there are multiple things, are just a few, but definitely leverage AI in short. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Thank you so much. We love two takeaways. That's absolutely fine. second thing that I like to ask my guests is do you have a show, a podcast, a book, or anything that you're watching, listening that you've been liking today? Amruta: Generally, for just unwinding, I like to watch something fun, comedy, not something super serious because work is already serious. So I try to keep it light. But from a technical perspective, from a technical front, I would recommend the Ryan Peterman show. That's definitely good. He does interview different people as well. This is similar to what we are doing here as well. Vishakha (Vish): Yeah. Okay. Amruta: So Vishakha (Vish): Okay. Amruta: that's another thing I definitely enjoy listening to. Vishakha (Vish): Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. And the last question that I have is how what do you do to disconnect from work and like come back to your own sanity? Amruta: Yeah, definitely. do like dancing and most, I, be honest, I get very less time as like free time, but just to unwind sometimes I resort to dancing or just like browsing through just casual stuff. Online even shopping is so relaxing. Vishakha (Vish): The pocket, yeah. I feel you, I feel you there Retail Therapy Yeah Yeah. Amruta: Yeah, some of them, like, it is like, indeed. Yeah, those are some things I think Jail can suggest. Vishakha (Vish): I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Amruta, for taking the time for being here, for sharing your experience and just like being yourself. I absolutely loved speaking with you today and we'll see you maybe next time. And I might have a surprise for us and we'll have Amruta back soon. But thank you so much. Bye. Amruta: Definitely. Thank you, Vishakha. And it has been a pleasure being here. Thank you so much for inviting me on your show. I really enjoyed sharing my experiences and I really hope this helps some of the viewers and people, especially knowing it's a tough job market out there. Definitely. If you guys need help, I'm always open to DMs and help helping folks. So Vishakha (Vish): Okay. Amruta: please reach out in case like that's needed. But yeah, thanks once again. I really enjoyed talking to you connecting after a while. I know it's been a while and I look forward to being back again the next time. Thank Vishakha (Vish): Yes. Amruta: you so much. Vishakha (Vish): Awesome. I will put your LinkedIn in our show notes for people to connect with you if that's okay. Okay. Awesome. Bye. Amruta: Definitely sounds good. Thank you so much. you the best.