SDE-1 (Backend)
Interview Date
Off-Campus 2021
Result
Selected (Implied as the experience is detailed th
Difficulty
Medium
Rounds
4 rounds
Drive Type
Off-Campus, Full-Time
Topics asked
Detailed experience
College: Not Specified
Interview Date: Off-Campus 2021
Interview Type: Off-Campus, Full-Time
Result: Selected (Implied as the experience is detailed through all rounds)
Difficulty: Medium
Rounds: 4 rounds
Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms, Machine Coding, Object-Oriented Design, System Design, Behavioral, Projects, OS, DBMS, OOPs
This candidate had a 6-month internship and 4 months of full-time experience before applying for the SDE-1 Backend role.
Round 1 (Online Assessment): Conducted on HackerRank for 75 minutes. It consisted of 3 coding questions: 1 Easy, 1 Medium, and 1 Hard. The candidate was selected for the next round.
Round 2 (Machine Coding Round): This round was conducted on an offline code editor with screen sharing for 120 minutes with 4 interviewers. The question was to "Design a Snake and Ladder Game" with working code, focusing on an Object-Oriented approach with mandatory and optional requirements. The candidate spent 10 minutes reading, 15-20 minutes discussing the approach (classes like Player, Game, Board), and 45 minutes coding, completing all mandatory requirements and running the code successfully. They also solved optional requirements.
Round 3 (Problem Solving / DS Algo Round): Conducted on an online IDE (GFG IDE). The interviewer asked 3 coding questions. The first was "Total number of possible Binary Search Trees for a given N," solved using Catalan numbers. The second problem was "Minimum time required to rot all oranges" (LeetCode Medium). The third was "Gas Station" (LeetCode Medium), where the candidate provided an O(N^2) brute force solution and then optimized it to a linear time solution with two pointers.
Round 4 (Hiring Manager Round): The hiring manager was a Director of Engineering. The discussion involved the candidate's current role, projects, and general SDE life. The interviewer asked about OS, DBMS, and OOPs concepts. The candidate felt the interviewers were friendly and discussed all possible approaches and edge cases.