When preparing for tech interviews, having access to authentic and recent interview questions is crucial. While platforms like LeetCode are popular, there's another hidden gem in the tech community: 1Point3Acres (一亩三分地). This forum, widely used by the Chinese-speaking tech community, contains a treasure trove of interview experiences and questions, often shared by recent candidates who have gone through the process at top companies like Google, Meta, and more.

What Is 1Point3Acres?

1Point3Acres is a popular online Chinese community where users share experiences related to tech jobs, education, and life abroad in general. For tech job seekers, the forum's 面经 (Interview Experience) section is invaluable, as it provides company-specific interview experiences, detailed breakdowns of interview rounds, and, most importantly, real interview questions from users who've recently gone through the process.

Why Use 1Point3Acres for Interview Preparation?

1Point3Acres stands out for several key reasons:

• Detailed Interview Experiences: Users often provide in-depth breakdowns of each interview round, including the specific technical, behavioral, and system design questions they faced.
• Up-to-Date Information: As interview questions and formats change frequently, having access to recent posts on the forum ensures that you're preparing with relevant material.
• Community Engagement: You can ask questions, get advice, and benefit from a highly active community that frequently updates its posts.

The Challenge: Language and Content "Encryption"

One of the main challenges of using 1Point3Acres, especially for non-Chinese speakers, is navigating the language barriers and the unique way users post. While you might think of using Google Translate or ChatGPT to translate the content, these tools often fall short due to the community's special posting practices: many 1Point3Acres users modify their posts to prevent automated scraping and to avoid directly revealing information that might violate non-disclosure agreements. This is done using:

• Homophones: Replacing characters with similar-sounding ones to make the meaning less obvious to outsiders (and translation tools).
• Obscure Characters: Using lesser-known or rarely used characters that confuse standard translation algorithms.
• Internet Slang: This includes acronyms, abbreviations, and slang unique to the 1Point3Acres community.

How to Use 1Point3Acres for Your Prep

To get started, navigate to the interview experience section. For easier navigation, you can use a browser like Chrome, which has a built-in translation feature to view the page in English. While the platform can seem overwhelming at first, you can use helpful filters (e.g. company name, interview type, job type and etc.) to narrow down your search.

For example, to find phone screen interview experiences for an internship position at Meta, you can set:

• Job type to "practice" (Chrome translates the word "internship" in Chinese this way)
• Interview type to "technical interview" (Chrome's translation for "phone interview" in Chinese)
• Company name to Meta

If you're unsure about any filter options, reach out to us on Discord for help navigating the translations!

Pro Tip: Because users sometimes miscategorize their posts, you might want to just apply the company name filter and leave other fields empty to ensure you don't miss anything.

Note: Data science related roles have their own dedicated interview experience section here.

Dealing with Paywalled Content

Most posts will have some content hidden behind a paywall with a message like "The hidden content of this post requires a score higher than 188 to view". Rather than paying for an expensive VIP pass, you can submit the post link to our 1p3a request portal and we will send the translated content to you!

A Smarter Way to Access 1Point3Acres Content

At InterviewDB, we've made it our mission to simplify this process. Our platform compiles interview questions from 1Point3Acres and ensures they are properly translated and presented in a clear, understandable way. Here's what sets us apart:

• Accurate Translations: We understand the slang, homophones, and posting habits used on 1Point3Acres and translate posts with context and accuracy.
• Comprehensive Database: We continuously update our question bank to ensure you're getting the most recent and relevant questions for top tech companies.
• Curated Content: Our platform compiles the best and most useful interview experiences from 1Point3Acres, so you don't need to wade through countless posts.

Visit InterviewDB today to see our question database organized by company and take your preparation to the next level!