SDE-1 interview experience (2025)
Profile: B.Tech CS, 8.2 CGPA, Tier-1 college, 2 internships
Result: Selected for SDE-1 role (₹28 LPA)
Round 1 - Online Assessment (OA)
Platform: HackerRank
Questions: 1) Find maximum sum subarray with at most k elements, 2) Clone a graph with random pointers
Work Simulation: Email scenarios about handling customer complaints and prioritizing tasks
Behavioral MCQs: Questions about ownership and customer obsession
Result: Cleared all test cases, shortlisted for next round
Round 2 - Technical Interview 1
Duration: 50 minutes
Question 1: Design a data structure that supports insert, delete, and getRandom in O(1) time
Approach: Used HashMap + ArrayList combination
Question 2: Find the longest substring with at most k distinct characters (sliding window)
Follow-up: Optimize space complexity, handle edge cases
Feedback: Explained approach clearly, optimized solution
Round 3 - Technical + Behavioral Interview 2
DSA Problem: Maximum path sum in binary tree (DP on trees)
Behavioral Questions:
- “Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a customer” (Customer Obsession)
- “Describe a situation where you took ownership of a project” (Ownership)
- “Give an example of a quick decision with incomplete data” (Bias for Action)
Tip: Used STAR method for all behavioral answers
Round 4 - System Design
Question: Design a bookstore system (OOP focus for SDE-1)
Discussion: Classes (Book, Customer, Order), relationships, methods, database schema
Follow-up: How would you handle concurrent orders? (Basic concurrency concepts)
Round 5 - Bar Raiser
DSA: Design a LRU Cache (medium-hard)
System Design: How would you scale the bookstore to handle millions of users?
Behavioral: Detailed discussion into ownership principle with multiple follow-up questions
Outcome: Selected - strong technical skills and Leadership Principles alignment