Upswing

Role: SDE-1 (Founding Engineer)

College: Not Specified (2019 Passout)

Interview Date: April 2022 / May 2022

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Rejected (Offer Revoked)

Difficulty: Medium-Hard

Rounds: 4 rounds

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms, Database Design, System Design, Behavioral

Experience:

The candidate, a 2019 passout, interviewed for an SDE-1 (Founding Engineer) position at Upswing Financial Technologies in Bangalore, India. The overall process involved four rounds.

Round 1: DSA Round (1 hour)
This round focused on Data Structures and Algorithms. The specific question asked was "Combination Sum II" (LeetCode problem).

Round 2: Database Design Round (1 hour)
This round involved discussions about the candidate's current projects. It also included questions on database design and writing some SQL queries.

Round 3: Technical Round - System Design
The core of this round was a system design problem: "Design a retry module that would take any function and retry it based on the retry configs."

Round 4: Founder's Round
This round was primarily behavioral. Questions included "what do you know about the company and its products" and other general questions like "what do you do in your free time" and "how well do you take feedbacks."

Overall Experience and Result:
The candidate was initially selected and received an offer letter. They were asked to reduce their notice period by one month. However, two days later, the offer letter was revoked due to reasons like an "internal call" and the company deciding to "go for this" (implying another candidate). The recruiter had previously mentioned that HR and others were internally deciding whether to hire, as they felt the candidate didn't know much about the company's domain. The HR later stated that they found an "immediate joiner" and closed the position. The candidate advises caution when interviewing with this company.