u/seattlewrxdriver wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. How important are back of the envelope estimations for these kind of interviews ? Are there any online resources/books that you recommend to do better in product architecture interviews ?
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
1. No back of the envelope calculations. A lot of people are worried about that when this comes up, it's primarily used to help you identify which part of a system will break first under different usage patterns and that you should be able to do, math or no math.
2. I'm sure you'll find a ton of resources while Googling but two more I like that are:
The video archives from Meta's official conference website (specifically the product related ones about how core systems work) https://atscaleconference.com/
The author of Blind 75 has a website focused on product SD that has some free stuff too https://www.greatfrontend.com/
I should disclose that someone mentioned in the comments about Formation and I'm the co-founder - which is also why I know a lot about this because we help people professionally to pass these interviews. You should NOT join just to pass one single interview with one company. It's expensive because we see the cost as an investment in making you a better engineer, that hopefully pays itself back with a much higher salary. But there are factors beyond your control in a single interview and there's never a guarantee you'll pass no matter how prepared.