Blackrock

The process consisted of an Online Assessment followed by two Technical Interviews. The OA pattern had changed significantly and included sections on basic/advanced coding, Design Patterns, DBMS, AI and Aptitude. Coding questions varied between candidates; some received DSA questions in both sections, while others received Java-specific problems or Selenium debugging. The assessment tested a combination of programming, technical fundamentals and reasoning rather than following a fixed coding pattern. Technical Round 1 was highly project and resume driven. The interviewers focused on the problem being solved, the tech stack, data flow and the reasoning behind technical decisions. Questions arising from the project covered API performance, scalability, caching, p95/p99 latency, rate limiting, Base62 encoding and high-level system design. The main focus was not just knowing a technology, but being able to explain why it was used, how the system worked and how it could be improved or scaled. Technical Round 2 again focused heavily on projects, technology choices and alternatives that could have been used. I was asked what I would do differently if I were to rebuild a project, testing my ability to evaluate previous decisions and approach new problems. This was followed by DSA/coding questions, including sorting a permutation using an optimized approach such as Cycle Sort, sorting a 2D array based on the sum of internal elements using a comparator, and questions related to Generics/Templates. The discussion also went into AVL and Red-Black Trees after I mentioned using related structures. Overall, the process strongly emphasized deep understanding of projects, system design thinking, scalability, technical decision-making and clean problem-solving. Different panels had different interview styles, so the exact questions varied considerably between candidates. The key was to clearly justify every technology and design decision mentioned on the resume and think aloud while solving problems.