Olyv SmartCoin

Role: SDE 2

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: October 17, 2025

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Rejected (Due to internal budget issues and concerns regarding past job switches and salary expectations)

Difficulty: Medium/Hard (Implied by technical content)

Rounds: 3 rounds

Topics Asked: Data Structures and Algorithms, Low-Level Design (LLD), High-Level Design (HLD), College Projects, Behavioral Questions (job switches, salary expectations), Coding Problem (Greedy/DP related).

Experience:

The candidate had an interview experience with Olyv|Smartcoin for an SDE 2 role in Bangalore, which was ultimately frustrating despite a strong performance in technical rounds. The rejection was attributed to internal budget issues and concerns about the candidate's past job switches and salary expectations.

Round 1: Virtual Data Structures and Algorithms

This round was conducted virtually and focused on Data Structures and Algorithms. The candidate received excellent feedback for this round.

A specific coding question mentioned in a related source (CodingKaro) was: "If there is array of building height, x amount of bricks and y amount of ladders. If you start at 0, which building you can reach with condition, if next building is lower or same height you can go with no cost but if the next building is higher you can either use a ladder or amount of bricks equal to height difference."

Round 2: In-person Low-Level Design (LLD)

This round was conducted in-person.

• LLD Problem: Design a 'Book My Show'-like application, specifically focusing on how to save seat information and display a seat map within the app.
• Discussion: The candidate designed the full database schema, explained necessary joins, and proposed using rectangle objects to represent seats along with other hall-related data.
• College Projects: Questions were also asked about the candidate's college projects.

The interviewer was helpful, and the round went well.

Round 3: In-person High-Level Design (HLD) and Behavioral

Before this round, a finance representative informed the candidate about budget issues for the role, which was disheartening. Despite this, the candidate proceeded with the third in-person round.

• Behavioral Questions: Questions were asked about the candidate's short stints in previous companies and salary expectations.
• HLD Problem: Design an email service capable of handling various types of emails (like OTPs and promotions) with rate limiting. The key requirement was to ensure OTP-related emails were sent immediately, while promotional emails were dispatched over time.

The candidate's solution involved using a queue for promotional emails, Redis for rate limiting, and discussions on handling potential failures. The interviewer seemed satisfied with the design, but the past job switches and salary expectations were points of concern.

Ultimately, the candidate was not selected, making the entire interview process feel like a significant waste of time, especially considering the effort of traveling to the office.