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Role: SDE-1

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: Not Specified (Post Date: March 2, 2025)

Interview Type: Off-Campus (Recruiter outreach)

Result: Offer Received (Later resigned for LinkedIn)

Difficulty: OA (Easy-Medium), DSA (Coding Focused), LLD (Challenging due to time), HLD (Good experience)

Rounds: 3 rounds (Online Assessment, Data Structures & Algorithms, System Design (LLD), Hiring Manager (HLD + Discussion))

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms (Sliding Window, Binary Search, N-ary Tree DP, Line Sweep Algorithm (Meeting Rooms), Bitmasking (Generate Valid Parentheses)), Low-Level Design (Design Splitwise), High-Level Design (Design a Coupon Service for an E-commerce Platform), Resume-based, experience discussion, scalability, optimizations, trade-offs, APIs, DB schema

Experience:

The candidate was contacted by a Talent Acquisition representative for an SDE-1 opportunity. The entire interview process was completed efficiently within 3 days.

Online Assessment (OA): This test consisted of three coding questions: a Sliding Window problem (Easy-Medium), a Binary Search problem (Easy-Medium), and an N-ary Tree DP problem (Slightly harder). The candidate successfully solved all three.

Round 1: Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA) – Coding Round: This round focused on problem-solving and coding ability. The interviewer asked two questions:

• Meeting Rooms – Solved using the Line Sweep Algorithm.
• Generate Valid Parentheses – Solved using an unconventional approach with bitmasking.

The candidate received positive feedback and moved to the next round.

Round 2: System Design (LLD) – Taken by a Technical Lead: The round began with a discussion about the candidate's current experience. The design problem was to design Splitwise (an expense-sharing app). The candidate was given approximately 40 minutes to code in an IDE. They designed an extensible architecture, explained design choices and trade-offs, and even suggested a better design during the interview. Although the candidate exceeded the time limit and couldn't complete a fully working implementation, their thought process and improvements were well-articulated, leading to positive feedback.

Round 3: Hiring Manager (HM) – High-Level Design (HLD) + Discussion: This round started with a general discussion about the candidate's experience and past projects. The HLD problem was to design a Coupon Service for an E-commerce Platform. The candidate effectively clarified requirements, designed REST APIs and the database schema, and discussed scalability, optimizations, and trade-offs. The feedback for this round was also positive. The candidate received an offer but later resigned after 10 days to join LinkedIn.