What I learned from interviewing at multiple AI companies and start-ups

Over the past 8 months, I've been interviewing at various companies like Google's DeepMind, Wadhwani Institute of AI, Microsoft, Ola, Fractal Analytics, and a few others primarily for the roles -- Data Scientist, Software Engineer & Research Engineer. In the process, not only did I get an opportunity to interact with many great minds, but also had a peek at myself along with a sense of what people really look for when interviewing someone. I believe that if I'd had this knowledge before, I could have avoided many mistakes and have prepared in a much better manner, which is what the motivation behind this post is, to be able to help someone bag their dream place of work. This post arose from a discussion with one of my juniors on the lack of really fulfilling job opportunities offered through campus placements for people working in AI. Also, when I was preparing, I noticed people using a lot of resources but as per my experience over the past months, I realised that one can do away with a few minimal ones for most roles in AI, all of which I'm going to mention at the end of the post.