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PhonePe online assessment

PhonePe online assessment (OA) is the first hard filter for most fresher, campus, and off-campus SDE-style drives. This page covers the PhonePe OA format, what happens after you clear it, sample PhonePe OA questions with approaches, an 8-week prep plan, and mistakes that sink otherwise-strong candidates.

Patterns below are candidate-reported for 2025-2026. Platforms and section names can change by drive. Always confirm the invite mailer for your window.

Stage What candidates report What you must show
1. Online assessment Usually 90-120 min with 2-3 medium-hard DSA problems on HackerRank / internal OA Correctness + reasonable complexity under time
2. Technical interviews DSA + projects; payments/system thinking shows up in later rounds Explain approach, edge cases, complexity
3. Later rounds Hiring manager / culture fit; HR for role and location Depth beyond the OA pattern
4. HR / offer Role, location, CTC discussion Consistency with resume
Component Candidate-reported details
Platform HackerRank or PhonePe internal OA
Duration About 90-120 minutes
Question mix 2-3 DSA coding problems; occasional tech MCQ mix by drive
Languages Java, C++, Python
Scoring Automated test cases; partial credit varies by drive
Advance rate About 10-20% advance in many candidate reports
  • Strong medium-hard DSA bar similar to other top product fintechs
  • Domain flavor: UPI / wallet / merchant settlement style constraints in many practice sets
  • Clean edge cases (idempotency, retries, duplicates) matter
  • Less aptitude volume than service-company papers
  • Hashing, sliding window, two pointers
  • Graphs, heaps, union-find
  • DP and greedy
  • Simulation problems that model transactions or queues
  • Occasional MCQs on OS/DB/OOPs in mixed papers
  • Debugging incorrect settlement logic
  • Full payments system design (later interviews)
  • Long verbal essays
  • Bank clerk-style quantitative papers

Sample PhonePe Online Assessment Questions

Section titled “Sample PhonePe Online Assessment Questions”
Q: Given a stream of transaction IDs, detect duplicates within a sliding window of size W.

Hash set + queue for window eviction. Evict the oldest ID when the window exceeds W.

Practice related patterns in PhonePe coding questions.

Question 2: Minimum transfers to settle balances

Section titled “Question 2: Minimum transfers to settle balances”
Q: Minimize number of transfers to settle balances among parties.

Collect non-zero balances. For small n, backtracking with pruning; explain greedy largest-debtor/creditor matching when n is tiny.

OA often accepts a correct pruned search for n around 12-15.

Q: Sorted timestamps of failed attempts. Count attempts within K seconds of a previous attempt.

Two pointers / sliding window on sorted timestamps. Watch inclusive vs exclusive window edges.

Q: Batch payouts so each batch sum is at most Limit; minimize number of batches.

Often a greedy sort + packing heuristic or exact DP for small n. Read whether order must be preserved.

Question 5: Graph of users and payment edges

Section titled “Question 5: Graph of users and payment edges”
Q: Detect whether a set of directed payment obligations contains a cycle.

DFS colors or Kahn topological sort. Cycle means inconsistent settlement order.

Q: Your solution is correct on samples but TLE on hidden tests. Why?

Hidden n is large. Prefer O(n log n) or better when constraints allow. Always read constraints before coding.

How to Prepare for PhonePe OA (8-Week Plan)

Section titled “How to Prepare for PhonePe OA (8-Week Plan)”
Weeks Focus Exit criteria
1-2 Arrays, hashing, two pointers, sliding window 40+ easy/medium solved cleanly
3-4 Trees, graphs (BFS/DFS), heaps Can code BFS/DFS without notes
5-6 DP + greedy patterns (add payments-flavored simulation drills) 25+ medium DP/greedy with recursion to bottom-up
7 Timed full mocks matching About 90-120 minutes Finish 2 of 3 problems fully green, or both if only 2 are asked with passing tests
8 Weak-topic repair + complexity review Re-solve every miss within 48 hours
  1. One timed medium problem (45-60 min hard cap)
  2. Write complexity and 3 edge cases before coding
  3. If stuck past 20 minutes, peek pattern name only, then re-solve tomorrow cold
  4. Log misses by topic on a simple sheet
  1. Ignoring constraints on transaction-volume style inputs
  2. Not handling duplicates / retries in stream problems
  3. Backtracking without pruning on settle-debt style tasks
  4. Weak Java/C++ STL fluency under time
  5. Skipping mocks and discovering platform I/O issues on test day
  1. Stable internet, charged laptop, quiet room
  2. Confirm language template compiles on the platform before starting hard problems
  3. Skim all problems for 3-4 minutes, order by familiarity
  4. Submit a correct brute force early if constraints allow, then optimize
  5. Leave 8-10 minutes for edge-case tests you invent yourself

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