Snowflake Sr. Software Engineer II - Backend interview questions

The process started out with a recruiter screen and moved on to a 2-part screening interview. The first part was coding, which didn't seem to be LeetCode (at least not one I'd solved before) but it was similar to an LC medium and was relatively easy to work though with good interaction from the interviewer. This was a pass, and a good experience. The second interview was system design. What I've learned about System Design questions at Snowflake in two separate examples is that the interviewers are highly opinionated (i.e. lots of ego) and give specialized questions that they think there is only one correct answer to. At most other companies you have a dialog, and the interviewer is simply looking for good requirements gathering, reasonable choices based on information given, and reasonable consideration of tradeoffs for performance/availability, and generalized designs. At Snowflake, they use very narrow, specific problems and are looking for you to give them exactly what they want to hear. They seem to want you to fail. After two experiences engaging their process, I wouldn't interview there again. It wasn't a good use of my time, and the prep isn't really reusable for other companies. Unless you really, really like databases, know a lot about them, and want to work for a database-centric company, your time would be better spent going for one of the other MANGA companies or the broader collection of tier-1/tier-2 tech companies. At least there, you'll get a more standard approach with a higher probability of success.