okay so i just got through the NBCUniversal coding rounds and i need to offload somewhere because i've been searching for this for weeks and found mostly outdated threads.
the online assessment (OA): before any human interaction, they sent me a HackerRank link. two problems, 90 minutes. problem 1: array manipulation. classic sliding window variant. not hard, i'd call it medium-easy. problem 2: string parsing with some edge cases. also medium territory but the edge cases will catch you if you rush.
the platform was HackerRank and it ran fine. no proctoring software, no camera. just the problems and a timer. i ran through mine in about 55 minutes and had time to check edge cases.
coding round in the onsite: there are two coding rounds in the virtual onsite. format: shared coderpad, one interviewer per round, 45 minutes each.
round 1 felt more algorithmic. trees and graphs territory. they gave me a problem that was roughly "find the shortest path given these constraints" and the main thing was thinking out loud and catching your own bugs.
round 2 was more object-oriented design flavored. they asked me to build out a small class hierarchy for a content catalog and then asked how i'd extend it. less about algo complexity, more about design decisions and explaining tradeoffs.
difficulty overall: the coding rounds at NBCU are not faang-hard. i've done netflix and amazon coding rounds and those hit harder. NBCU's feel like they actually want to hire people who can work on real problems, not just leetcode grinders. if you can do mediums confidently and communicate while you code, you're in good shape.
one thing that caught me off guard: they asked me after one round if i had questions about the engineering culture. i wasn't expecting that so early. have a genuine question ready, not the canned "what does a typical day look like" one.
happy to answer specifics. also would love to hear from anyone who's done their data engineering or ML roles -- curious if the format is similar.