Three modes

Behavioral. Coding. System design.

CUETY · LISTENING
00:42
INTERVIEWER
▊
CUETY SUGGESTS
Detected: behavioral · STAR framework
SITUATIONQ3 2024 — design partner pushed for a feature that broke our data model.
TASKAlign eng + design without slipping the launch by 2 weeks.
ACTIONRan a 30-min synthesis call. Proposed a versioned schema. Got buy-in same day.
RESULTShipped on time. Schema is now used across 3 surfaces.
Tip: Pause here — they'll usually ask for metrics next.
⌘ ↑ regenerate⌘ → next⌘ H hide
● invisible to camera
Plate · I — Behavioral · STAR
CUETY · LISTENING
00:42
INTERVIEWER
▊
CUETY SUGGESTS
Detected: LeetCode #3 · sliding window
function lengthOfLongestSubstring(s) {
  const seen = new Map();
  let left = 0, best = 0;
  for (let r = 0; r < s.length; r++) {
    if (seen.has(s[r]) && seen.get(s[r]) >= left)
      left = seen.get(s[r]) + 1;
    seen.set(s[r], r);
    best = Math.max(best, r - left + 1);
  }
  return best;
}
Tip: O(n) time · O(min(n, charset)) space. Mention the charset edge case.
⌘ ↑ regenerate⌘ → next⌘ H hide
● invisible to camera
Plate · II — Coding · LeetCode
CUETY · LISTENING
00:42
INTERVIEWER
▊
CUETY SUGGESTS
Detected: system design · scale 100M/day
REQSRead-heavy 100:1. <100ms p99. ~36B URLs over 5 years.
APIPOST /shorten · GET /:code · 7-char base62 keys.
STOREPostgres + Redis cache. Cassandra for analytics events.
SCALECDN at edge. Counter-based key gen, sharded by prefix.
Tip: They'll dig into key generation. Have base62 vs hash tradeoffs ready.
⌘ ↑ regenerate⌘ → next⌘ H hide
● invisible to camera
Plate · III — System · 100M / day
Behavioral

Q3 2024 — design partner pushed a feature that broke our data model. STAR-formatted answers, every time.

Coding

Sliding window. Two pointers. Dynamic programming. Streaming code with complexity called out.

System design

URL shortener at 100M/day. APIs, storage, cache, sharding — with named tradeoffs.