Academic snapshot
Marks: 65% or 6.5+ CGPA throughout 10th, 12th, graduation (candidate-reported)
Degree: B.E./B.Tech/M.E./M.Tech/MCA
Backlogs: None active
Year: Final-year and recent grads (often within 1 year)
OLA Placement Papers 2026
Ola, formally ANI Technologies, is an Indian mobility platform founded in 2010 and known for ride-hailing and large-scale marketplace logistics. Its engineering teams build real-time matching, mapping, and payments systems used by millions of riders and drivers. Ola recruits software engineers from campuses for backend, mobile, and data roles.
Explore: Online Assessment · Download PDF · Placement Process · Interview Experience · Preparation Guide · Certifications & Career
Ola fresher eligibility for campus drives
Ola is a product mobility hirer, not a mass IT GET paper. The printed floor is often 6.5 throughout. The real cut is a timed coding OA, then design talk that sounds like cabs, payments, and maps.
This hub is Ola / ANI Technologies (olacabs.com). Ola Electric is a separate listed company with its own careers track. Read the legal name on your mailer before you prep ride-matching for a battery-pack role, or vice versa.
Who this hub is for
- For: Final-year and recent grads targeting SDE-1 (and some SDE-2) via campus, olacabs.com/careers, referral, or contests such as Tech Hunt.
- Not the same track: Pure sales/ops, or Ola Electric manufacturing loops. This page is software OA + interviews.
- Circuital: ECE/EE often appear on notices. You still sit the same DSA paper.
On-campus vs off-campus
| Route | What usually changes | What stays the same |
|---|---|---|
| Campus | PPT, college list, batch OA | 2-3 coding problems |
| Careers / recruiter | Resume volume; some 2025 notes start after outreach | Still a coding screen |
| Tech Hunt / hackathon | Visibility | You still sit OA |
Off-campus does not mean easier graphs. It often means more applicants who skip debugging practice.
Degree, 6.5, and “is 6.5 enough?”
Is 6.5 CGPA enough? It matches the commonly reported floor across 10th, 12th, and graduation. A 6.6 who finishes two OA problems with all tests beats an 8.8 who submits one partial. A 7.8 with 62% in 12th still dies if the JD says throughout.
Branches: CS, IT, ECE, EE, and listed cousins. If your college lists only CSE, read the notice.
Gaps and backlogs: Active backlogs are a usual blocker. Max about 1 year education gap on many tables. Full-time degrees only.
What helps the resume screen: One backend or maps/payments project with a metric. Certificates are optional. See certifications after DSA, not instead of them.
Skills they actually filter
OA: 2-3 DSA + debug, all tests
Tech: Live coding + mobility design
Fit: Ownership, customer, on-call stories
Languages: Java, C++, Python, Go
Detailed eligibility criteria breakdown
| Item | Typical expectation (candidate-reported) | Reality check |
|---|---|---|
| Graduation | 65% or 6.5 | Mailer wins |
| 10th & 12th | Same throughout rule | Keep scans |
| Branches | CS/IT/ECE/EE related | Confirm drive |
| Backlogs | None active | Offer-stage check |
| Gap | ≤ ~1 year | Explain a skills year |
Who usually fits and who struggles
Good fit: You like marketplace problems, you will relocate to Bengaluru, and you can finish medium DSA under a clock. You can talk about matching drivers to riders without a 40-slide deck.
Harder path: You only grind aptitude; you freeze on graphs; you want remote-only on a Bengaluru SDE form; you confuse Ola Cabs with Ola Electric.
Ola placement papers - last few years
Download 2026 Ola placement papers
2026 in detail
2025 placement papers
2024 placement papers
Previous year question papers
Comments & Suggestions
What Ola previous year papers actually train
Ola does not publish one permanent official paper set. Papers on this site are pattern trainers for the coding OA and mobility interview themes, not leaked live assessments.
| Round (typical) | What to practice |
|---|---|
| OA | Arrays, strings, trees, graphs, DP, debugging |
| Technical 1 | Live DSA + project metrics |
| Technical 2 | Harder DSA or HLD/LLD (matching, payments, cache) |
| Managerial | Ownership, 2 a.m. prod, customer |
| HR | Why Ola, Bengaluru, CTC band |
Think of papers as simulators for OA stamina. Ola reuses themes (sliding windows, graphs/islands, caches, matching) more than exact clones.
Themes that keep repeating (2024-2026)
- OA shape: 90-120 minutes, 2-3 medium-hard coding, plus debug on many invites. Student rumours: roughly 10-15% reach interviews. Treat that as a vibe, not a published cutoff.
- June 2025 SDE-1 backend (Medium): Recruiter loop. Round 1 mixed sliding-window strings with Number of Islands plus a largest-island follow-up. Round 2: expected LLD, got HLD URL shortener with cache, TTL, and access counting.
- April 2025 SDE-2 Pune (Roundz): Four rounds, flexible scheduling. Two array/string problem-solving rounds, collaborative BookMyShow-style seat booking, then a 1 hour 45 minute hiring-manager loop on microservices, Kafka vs RabbitMQ, Kibana/Grafana, and conflict stories.
- 2026 prep expectation: Keep OA completes first. Add one matching/payments sketch. Do not wait for Ola to become an aptitude-only company.
How to use one paper set in a single sitting
- Timed: 90-120 minutes, two or three problems, submit something that runs.
- Untimed: rewrite the one you almost finished; list the failed test.
- 20 minutes: one debug or one complexity rewrite.
- 15 minutes: ride-matching or payments sketch on paper.
- 5 minutes: Why Ola + city answer out loud.
Related drills
| Theme you saw | Drill next | Why Ola asks it |
|---|---|---|
| Sliding window / strings | Longest unique, anagrams | OA speed |
| Graphs / islands | BFS/DFS + follow-up size | Connectivity on maps |
| LRU / hash + list | O(1) get/put | Caching, sessions |
| Matching / geo | Drivers to riders | Core product |
| Payments | Idempotency, retries | Money paths |
| Debug | Off-by-one, null, TLE | OA extra |
Debugging block people skip
Many invites add 1-2 broken functions. The bug is usually an off-by-one, a wrong visited set, or a comparison that should be <=. Read the spec comment, write one failing example, then patch. Do not rewrite the whole file. Ten minutes of that in mocks is worth more than another unused hard on LeetCode.
Pacing a 120-minute OA
Minute 0-8: read all prompts, pick the finishable one.
Minute 8-40: first problem to green.
Minute 40-85: second problem; if stuck at 20 minutes, write a correct slower solution.
Minute 85-105: third or debug.
Minute 105-120: re-run tests, fix nulls and empty arrays.
If you only ever practise one problem in isolation, the 120-minute paper still feels new. Sit the clock.
What “pattern trainer” does not mean
A 2024 graph on this site will not appear verbatim. The cousin will: another BFS on a grid, another cache with TTL, another matching constraint. If you only memorise the PDF answer, the follow-up (“now return the size of the largest island”) is the fail. Train the move, not the prompt text.
Ola placement process, round by round
Ola hires freshers through campus cells, olacabs.com/careers, referrals, and occasional Tech Hunt / intern funnels. After eligibility, the shape is product SDE: timed coding, live DSA, mobility design, then values.
Application methods
Campus recruitment
Through college placement cells. Batch HackerRank, then virtual or onsite interviews.
Online applications
Apply on olacabs.com/careers for SDE and related roles. Follow the invite for duration.
Contests / referrals
Tech Hunt, hackathons, and employee referrals improve screen odds. You still need passing OA.
1. Resume / eligibility screen
Placement cell or recruiter checks degree, 6.5 / 65% throughout when printed, backlogs, year of passing. A project with a latency or throughput number helps when volumes are high. This is a gate, not the hard filter.
2. Online Assessment (90-120 min)
Candidate reports commonly describe 2-3 coding problems plus 1-2 debugging items. Platforms: HackerRank or an internal tool. No negative marking is the usual story. Your invite wins.
| Section (typical) | Questions (reported) | Time feel | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2-3 | 60-90 min | Arrays, trees, graphs, strings, DP |
| Debugging | 1-2 | 15-30 min | Broken logic, edge cases |
Pass habit: read both prompts before deep-coding one. Correctness first, then complexity. Leave 10 minutes to re-run tests. A clever partial that fails half the suite loses to a clean medium.
Success rate (older hub estimates): roughly 10-15% of the OA pool. Treat as a vibe.
3. Technical interviews (2-3 rounds, 45-60 min each)
Live coding (Java/C++/Python/Go), project deep-dive, then system design at fresher or SDE-2 depth: ride matching, location, payments, surge, caches, URL shortener, seat booking.
Pass habit: talk while you code. State complexity. For design, name actors, one API, one store, one bottleneck. The June 2025 writer expected LLD and got HLD. Practise both so a surprise does not blank you.
4. Managerial / team fit (~45 min)
Ola values language in write-ups: customer focus, innovation, ownership. Scenario: production at 2 a.m., conflict, ambiguous ETA bug. STAR with a metric. This is not a soft skip round.
5. HR / offer (20-30 min)
Why Ola, Bengaluru (or named city), joining date, CTC band. Know ₹16-22 LPA as the commonly cited SDE-1 range. The letter wins.
Timeline from application to offer
| Phase | Typical duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Apply / screen | 3-7 days campus; longer off-campus | Recruiter outreach exists |
| OA | 1 sitting | Results may be same week |
| Technicals | 1-2 weeks | Virtual common |
| Manager + HR | Days | Sometimes stacked |
| Offer | 2-3 days after last round | Written letter wins |
| End to end | ~2-4 weeks campus often | SDE-2 can stretch |
OA skip rules that save the 120-minute paper
- Skim all prompts. Mark the one you can finish.
- Write a brute that passes samples, then tighten.
- If a graph problem needs a library you do not remember, switch to the array.
- Debug last unless it is a 5-minute fix.
- Never sit on one TLE for 40 minutes.
Log every mock: which pattern ate the clock. That log is the prep plan.
Ride-matching sketch (12 minutes on paper)
- Goal: assign a nearby available driver to a rider request under latency.
- Actors: rider app, matching service, driver location store, dispatch.
- Data: geo index (geohash / grid), driver state, surge multiplier.
- Failure: no driver in radius → expand ring or queue; payment fail → do not dispatch.
- Scale: partition by city; cache hot cells.
That is SDE-1 depth. A 20-box Kubernetes pastiche is not.
Payments sketch (10 minutes)
Rider pays, driver should get settled, retries will happen.
- Charge intent with an idempotency key.
- States: created, authorised, captured, failed, refunded.
- Never dispatch on a failed capture.
- Webhook may arrive twice; the key saves you.
- Store enough to explain a duplicate callback in on-call.
If you can say those five lines without naming a vendor, you are ready for a fresher payments probe. If you only say “we will use Kafka,” you are not.
Surge sketch (8 minutes)
Demand in a geohash exceeds supply. Multiplier goes up. Drivers see a heat map. Riders see a quote before they confirm.
Say: compute demand/supply in a short window, cap the multiplier, show the quote, log the decision. Mention a fairness or PR risk in one sentence. That is enough. A 12-factor pricing thesis is not.
Go vs Java vs Python on the OA
Pick the language you debug fastest. Go shows up on Ola metadata more than on TCS papers; that does not mean you must switch in week one. If your mocks are Java, sit Java. If the invite list omits Go, ignore blog panic. Confirm the dropdown on HackerRank the night before.
Managerial STAR that is not a slogan
Ownership: a production bug you stayed with until a metric moved, not “I am very passionate.”
Customer: a time you chose the rider/driver outcome over a prettier design.
Conflict: a disagreement on an API or a deadline, with what you changed.
Write three bullets each. Record once. Cut “basically” and “leverage.”
Weekend mock that matches a real drive
Saturday 10:00: 120-minute OA (3 problems).
Saturday 13:00: rewrite the failed tests.
Saturday 16:00: 20-minute matching or payments sketch.
Sunday 11:00: one live coding with a friend.
Sunday 12:00: ownership STAR + Why Ola.
Two weekends of that beat twelve nights of random mobility YouTube.
Documents pack
10th, 12th, degree, ID, resume one page with a metric. Throughout 6.5 means the 12th PDF matters.
Night-before checklist
- Charger, ID, HackerRank login
- One language warmed (not a new one)
- One matching sketch you can restart if you blank
- City yes/no written
- Sleep. A 9 a.m. OA after a 3 a.m. contest is how easy arrays go wrong
What’s on the Ola test & where to practice
Online assessment
OA format, timing, and question types.
Coding questions
DSA patterns for OA and technical rounds.
Aptitude / mock quiz
Quant, logic, and timed mock quiz.
Interview experiences
Candidate stories and round notes.
HR interview questions
Common HR questions, sample answers, STAR tips.
Week-by-week prep
Study plan and round-by-round strategy.
How students actually prep for Ola
If a Ola invite is 3-8 weeks out, treat this hub as the map and the linked practice pages as the drills. Do not reread eligibility ten times. Check the JD once, then spend hours on the filter that actually rejects people.
Typical fresher CTC chatter for Ola sits around ₹16-22 LPA (candidate-reported - confirm the letter). Languages students mention most often: Java, C++, Python, C. Pick one and stay with it in OA and interviews.
Eligibility reminder (from student reports): Candidate-reported campus floors commonly cite 65% or 6.5+ CGPA across 10th, 12th, and graduation; B.E./B.Tech/M.E./M.Tech/MCA in CS, IT, ECE, EE, or related; final-year and recent grads (often within 1 year); no active backlogs; max about 1 year education gap; full-time degrees. Strong DSA and mobility system-design basics matter after the resume screen. Always verify the drive notice or olacabs.com careers.
What you are training for: Typical fresher SDE loop: Online Assessment (90-120 min, 2-3 DSA plus debugging on HackerRank or similar) → Technical interviews (2-3 rounds, 45-60 min, DSA plus ride-matching/payments design) → Managerial / team fit (~45 min, Ola values) → HR / offer (20-30 min). Campus batches often finish in about 2-4 weeks. Off-campus and SDE-2 loops can add a long hiring-manager round.
Short version of the prep split: Split time roughly: 50% timed DSA (arrays, trees, graphs, DP, strings), 20% mobility system design (matching, ETAs, payments, surge), 15% debugging and OA mocks, 15% values STAR plus Why Ola. Languages: Java, C++, Python, or Go. Full week calendar: /ola/preparation-guide/.
A four-week plan that actually gets used
Week 1 - pattern, not vibes. Timed aptitude + one easy coding problem a day, plus a one-page cs fundamentals sheet. Open the Ola previous-year sets on this site and mark which sections ate your time. Write the timing on a sticky note. That number is more useful than a 200-problem LeetCode streak you never timed.
Week 2 - the steep filter. Most Ola drives fail people on the first timed paper or OA. Do three timed sits this week. After each one, log every miss in a two-column note: topic and why (slow, wrong formula, bad edge case, panic). The next sit should only add problems from that log.
Week 3 - talk tracks. Technical interviews at Ola usually want a clean project story, one or two CS fundamentals, and (if the process has it) a behavioral or values round. Write STAR stories on paper, not in your head. Practise “Why Ola?” with one concrete product, lab, or business line - not a slogan.
Week 4 - mocks and logistics. Two full mocks, then only error-log topics - no new patterns. If you still have energy, redo only the questions you failed in week 2.
Where the hours should go
| Slice | Share of weekly hours | What “done” looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Timed papers / OA | ~40% | You finish a Ola-style sit without guessing the clock |
| Coding / role technical | ~30% | You can explain a solution out loud in your chosen language |
| Fundamentals / domain | ~20% | You can teach one OS/DBMS/networks (or domain) topic to a friend |
| Stories + HR | ~10% | Two STAR stories and a specific Why-this-company answer |
If you only have 10 days, keep the same ratios and cut volume, not the timed sits.
Practice pages to open this week
- OA / assessment notes
- aptitude mock quiz
- coding question bank
- interview experiences
- HR question bank
- week-by-week guide
- previous year papers
- 2026 paper page
Use this hub for the Ola story (eligibility, rounds, salary). Use those pages for timed reps and interview notes.
Common ways students waste a month
- Collecting 12 Ola PDFs and never sitting one under a timer.
- Switching languages every weekend because a senior used a different one.
- Memorising HR answers before they can finish the OA.
- Ignoring the company-specific quirk on this page (unique round, exam name, or role band) and preparing like a generic service-company drive.
If you do one thing after reading this: schedule three timed Ola papers on three different days, then interview prep on the leftovers.
How to train for Ola mobility OA
Week calendars live on the preparation guide. This H2 is the focus split.
Time split
| Bucket | Share | What “done” looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Timed DSA / OA | ~50% | Two complete submits in 90-120 min |
| Mobility design | ~20% | One spoken matching/payments sketch / week |
| Debugging + complexity | ~15% | Failed tests rewritten the same day |
| Values + HR | ~15% | Ownership STAR + city + Why Ola |
If you already clear OA and freeze on design, invert 50/20 for two weeks. If you talk design and fail tests, stop watching architecture videos.
This week
- One timed OA from online assessment and coding questions.
- Two graph or DP problems submitted end-to-end.
- One debug pass on an old solution.
- One 12-minute ride-matching sketch.
- Record Why Ola once. Cut fillers. Record again.
What not to waste time on
- Buying “Ola dumps.” Themes repeat; live papers do not.
- Starting Go the week of the drive if your mocks are in Java.
- Staff-level geo papers for an SDE-1 cabin.
- Quoting Uber US CTC in HR.
- Treating Tech Hunt as a skip-OA ticket.
Two-week focus if the drive is soon
Week A: daily 90-minute coding; two islands/graph variants; one LRU.
Week B: one full 120-minute mock; matching + payments sketches; ownership STAR; sleep.
How to say “why Ola” without a brochure
You want to build marketplace systems at India scale. You have practised matching and payments at fresher depth. You will relocate to Bengaluru (or the city on the letter). You know the SDE-1 band and you will read the letter. That is enough. “Passionate about leveraging mobility ecosystems” is how people sound like a template.
OA patterns worth a month, not a lifetime
You do not need 400 LeetCode hards. You need representatives:
- Sliding window / two pointers
- Hash maps + prefix
- Trees (LCA, traversal)
- Graphs (BFS/DFS, islands, shortest path lite)
- DP (knapsack / coins style)
- Design-y coding (LRU, insert-delete-getRandom)
For each type, do three timed, then explain one to a roommate in 90 seconds. If you cannot explain it, you do not own it. Ola interviewers will ask a cousin, not the same prompt from a PDF.
Error log that actually gets used
After every mock, write four lines: problem name, what failed (TLE / wrong test / blank), the fix, the next cousin to drill. Review only that log the night before. Re-reading 40 solved threads is how people feel busy and still miss Number of Islands.
On-call sentence for the manager round
“I would acknowledge, check dashboards, roll back if we have a flag, page the owner, write a timeline.” That beats “I would stay up all night because I am passionate.” Ola’s 2025 SDE-2 note spent almost two hours on microservices and conflict. Have a calm incident voice even as an SDE-1.
If Uber, Swiggy, and Ola land the same week
Share the OA clock. Customise the design sketch (cabs vs food assignment vs global Uber). Compare city, letter, and whether you want marketplace on-call. Do not pick on brand memory from 2018 campus stories.
Ola fresher CTC in India (2026)
Figures below are candidate-reported India bands (as of August 2026).
| Track | Typical CTC (candidate-reported) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| SDE-1 | ₹16-22 LPA | Primary fresher band |
| SDE-2 | ₹24-30 LPA | 2-4 YOE; not campus default |
| Senior SDE (indicative) | ₹40-55 LPA | Experience |
| QA (entry-mid) | ₹7-12 LPA | Testing / automation |
| Data / ML (entry-mid) | ₹12-25 LPA | Not the default SDE letter |
| DevOps (entry-mid) | ₹8-18 LPA | Infra flavour |
Confirm base, bonus, and ESOP language on the written offer. Do not treat blog midpoints as guarantees.
Benefits students actually care about
Health cover, hybrid language on some teams, ESOPs on many engineer offers, Bengaluru office norms, discounted rides in some notes. Ask HR about joining location. Do not assume Mumbai if the team is Koramangala.
How to talk CTC in HR
Know ₹16-22 LPA for SDE-1. Ask how the package splits. One calm question beats a 40 LPA demand copied from a US Uber blog.
Offer-stage discipline
- Read city
- 10th/12th/degree % must match
- Classroom “selected” is not an offer PDF
ESOPs and the letter
Many engineer notes mention stock. The number that matters is the split on the PDF: base, bonus, ESOP, joining bonus if any. Do not negotiate from a Telegram screenshot. One question: “Can you walk me through the components?” is enough.
QA / data / DevOps if that is your form
This hub is written for SDE. If the posting is QA, automation, data, or infra, keep DSA lighter and add the stack on the JD. Do not walk into a QA loop with only ride-matching HLD and no testing story.
Recent Ola placement trends
- OA stays the door. 2-3 DSA plus debug. Coding-only prep still fails if you never submit under a clock.
- Design depth surprised people in 2025. HLD when they expected LLD; long HM rounds for SDE-2 with Kafka and on-call language.
- ₹16-22 LPA remains the commonly cited SDE-1 band; confirm the letter.
- Tech Hunt / intern paths exist but do not replace OA.
- Bengaluru remains the city HR will name for most engineering seats.
Net for 2026: treat Ola like a product SDE loop with a mobility vocabulary, not like TCS NQT and not like a pure LeetCode contest with no design.
Bengaluru as the default answer
Most fresher engineering notes still name Bengaluru. Other cities appear. Write a yes/no this week, before HR, not after the PDF. Students who “will decide after the offer” stall joining. Decide the city on paper the same way you decide an OA language.
FAQs students ask about Ola placements
Papers & process
Can I download Ola placement papers PDF for free?
Yes. Start with the 2026 PDF or the archive. Pattern trainers, not live leaks.
What is the Ola placement process for freshers?
Typical path: OA (90-120 min) → 2-3 technicals → managerial/team fit → HR. About 2-4 weeks on many batches. Details: online assessment.
How many rounds does Ola usually have?
Most fresher loops report 4 stages after apply. Some SDE-1 notes merge HR. Some SDE-2 notes add a long HM. Count the mailer.
What is the OA pattern?
Student-reported 90-120 minutes: 2-3 DSA plus debugging. HackerRank common. All tests matter. Roughly 10-15% rumoured to interviews.
Eligibility & offer
What eligibility / CGPA do fresher drives usually expect?
Commonly 65% or 6.5 throughout; CS/IT/ECE/EE related; no active backlogs; gap ≤ ~1 year. Your notice wins.
What is Ola fresher salary in India?
Candidate-reported SDE-1 CTC often ₹16-22 LPA (as of August 2026). SDE-2 notes ~₹24-30. The written offer is the only number that matters.
Do I need to relocate?
Bengaluru is the main hub. Other cities appear. Answer a city in HR.
Prep & Ola-specific
How should I prepare?
Roughly 50% timed DSA, 20% mobility design, 15% debug, 15% STAR/HR. Guide: preparation guide.
What languages are allowed?
Java, C++, Python, or Go on most invites. Pick one and keep it.
Do they ask ride-matching or surge?
Often yes in later technicals. Sketch actors, APIs, geo store, one failure. SDE-2 notes also hit payments and messaging.
Does Tech Hunt skip the OA?
No. Contests help visibility. You still code.
Ola vs Uber vs Swiggy / Zomato?
Ola is India mobility with a Bengaluru-heavy engineer story and a commonly cited ₹16-22 LPA SDE-1 band. Uber is global brand with its own India loop. Swiggy/Zomato share marketplace DSA plus delivery design. Share OA muscles; customise matching vs food-assignment sketches.
Is this the same as Ola Electric?
No. This hub is Ola / ANI Technologies (cabs/platform). Electric is a separate company. Read the legal name.
Any pro tip that actually changes outcomes?
Finish two OA problems with all tests. Rehearse one matching sketch and one ownership STAR. Be ready for HLD even if you expected LLD.
Where can I read real interview experiences?
Ola interview experience plus the Medium and Roundz notes in the stories section.
How important is the debugging section?
On invites that include it, it is free marks if you practise broken off-by-ones. It will not save a zero on both coding problems.
Is Ola WFO or hybrid for freshers?
Candidate notes vary by team. Bengaluru office-first is the safe assumption for SDE-1. Ask HR. Do not demand remote-only on a campus form unless the posting says so.
Real Ola interview notes from candidates
SDE-1 backend, June 2025 (Medium)
After recruiter outreach, three eliminatory rounds. Round 1 mixed sliding-window strings with Number of Islands plus a largest-island follow-up. Round 2: “Initially, I expected this to be a Low-Level Design (LLD) round, but to my surprise, it turned out to be a High-Level Design round” - a full URL shortener with caching, TTL, and access counting. Source: Medium SDE-1 Ola.
Takeaway: practise HLD and LLD. A surprise depth is a real cut.
SDE-2, Pune, April 2025 (Roundz)
Four-round loop with flexible recruiter scheduling. Two array/string problem-solving rounds, collaborative BookMyShow-style seat booking, then a 1 hour 45 minute hiring-manager round: microservices, Kafka vs RabbitMQ, Kibana/Grafana, conflict stories, then offer. Source: Roundz Ola SDE-2.
Takeaway: SDE-2 is not “two more LeetCode hards.” On-call and messaging vocabulary show up.
What to steal from both notes
- OA cousins: sliding window, grid BFS, then a follow-up.
- Design surprise: HLD when you packed LLD, or a booking LLD when you packed only graphs.
- HM length: almost two hours is possible for SDE-2. Calendar buffer. Water. A working laptop.
Composite notes students repeated
What helped: finishing OA tests; talking while coding; one matching sketch; ownership STAR with a metric; city answer ready.
What hurt: one partial OA; silent design; quoting US CTC; treating manager round as HR small talk; mixing up Ola Electric.
After you clear OA
- Re-work every failed test with a spoken chain.
- One matching or payments sketch.
- One live coding with a friend who interrupts.
- Re-read your project metric.
- Sleep and city answer. Do not open a new distributed-systems course the night before.
Interview-day logistics
Laptop charged if the OA is remote; college ID if on campus; quiet room and a hotspot. Do not sit a proctored HackerRank on hostel Wi-Fi that drops every three minutes. Have water. Read both prompts before you type.
Pool or multi-college
Denser OA. Same DSA. Your college rank in the pool does not replace two green submits. Treat it as a contest with a job at the end, not a classroom test where partial credit exists.
Keep the same email thread from PPT to offer. Classroom “selected” is not a letter. Wait for the PDF. If Ola and Uber and Swiggy all land the same week, compare city, letter, and whether you actually like marketplace on-call. An 18 LPA SDE-1 you will join beats a rumour 22 LPA with a city you will reject in HR.
More narratives: Ola interview experience.
Related companies to compare
Uber · Swiggy · Zomato · Flipkart · Razorpay · PhonePe
Last updated: August 2026.