FlipKart Interview for SDE2 Backend

Interviewed at FlipKart for SDE2 Backend role. The entire process took just a week. Accepted the offer.

1. Application Process :

Applied through a referral as soon as I saw the job posting on the careers page.

Asked my friend of friend to refer me.

2. Screening :

First level is ATS sorting. So make sure your resume is very relevant to Job Description

Received the call from HR the next day of my application, stating that my resume has been shortlisted. The HR explained me the entire interview process.

This position had to be closed very fast, so no scope of having time to prepare.

The interview had following rounds –

Round 1 – Machine Coding round

Round 2 – Data Structure and Algorithm / Problem Solving round

Round 3 – HLD and LLD round

Round 4 – Hiring Manager round.

Round 1 – Machine coding round

This round was scheduled the very next day of resume shortlisting

Duration – It was 2.5 hrs (30 minutes problem explanation + 1.5 hours to code + 30 minutes code walkthrough and inspection)

A question was explained within first 30 minutes. We had to clarify all our usecases during this time.

Next 1.5 hrs spent coding. The problem had 6-7 entities, Had to write modular code and ensure all the expected cases are working with proper error handling and logging.

Next 30 minutes was code evaluation – Interviewer basically kept asking my thought process behind each design decision I made. Make sure your code is in running condition and easy to debug, they will ask you to implement new feature and your code should require minimum changes

Result – received feedback just after 15 minutes of interview. It was strong hire

Round 2 – DSA / Problem Solving

This was scheduled the very next day of Round 1

It was 1 hr round with 2 DSA problems.

First problem – Medium Binary Search Problem

Tough graph with DP problem

Result – Solved first question with running code, solved second question with working code and discussed further optimisation. –Good hire

Round 3 – Design Round (LLD & HLD)

It was scheduled the very next day again.

Popular Design problem was given.

Discussed DB schema

Discussed HLD and all the services and their responsibilities.

Discussed why microserive would be a better alternative over monolith for this usecase.

Discussed concurrency issues and how to handle them.

The interviewer kept digging the dept of my knowledge. Like he kept on asking in-depth question about redis – how is redis cluster scaled, how replication works inside of it, what will happen in case of failure. How will you prevent this. How will you ensure consistency etc. Again similar thing happened with mongoDB.

Next 15 minutes – discussed my current company project. It’s HLD and LLD and what were my major contributions here. What tools I have used. How is scalability ensured, how do we do load testing etc etc. basic questions only.

Result – Strong hire – since I answered HLD questions very well.

Round 4 – Hiring Manager

Basic intro.

Current projects – what was my major contribution. How did it impact the product.

Basic HM questions.

Remaining 25 minutes – I kept asking more and more about the team, its structure, the system architecture and how teams work on them. I kept asking even 5 minutes after the interview end time.

The HM was very calm and more than happy to answer all my questions.