Hashedin By Deloitte Interviews

I connected with the recruiter directly through LinkedIn, which initiated my interview process for the Python/Backend + GenAI role at HashedIn by Deloitte. The journey was structured into three distinct rounds.

Round 1: DSA + SQL (Online Coding + Technical Q&A)

This initial round evaluated my problem-solving skills with two DSA coding challenges and two SQL questions. The coding problems included the classic Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock, where I needed to find the maximum profit from a single transaction, and Search in a 2D Matrix, for which I applied an efficient binary search strategy across sorted rows and columns. For SQL, I was tasked with a problem requiring me to Swap Sex of Employees within a table. This round primarily focused on my familiarity and consistency with common interview patterns.

Round 2: LLD + HLD Discussion (System Design)

This round proved to be the most engaging and challenging. My task was to design a multi-tenant e-commerce platform, conceptually similar to Amazon. The design needed to address several critical aspects: supporting multiple vendors with separate product catalogs, maintaining shared infrastructure with proper isolation, and ensuring scalability, caching, availability, and partitioning. We delved deep into API design, database schema choices, and the trade-offs between monolith versus microservices architectures. I also had to demonstrate how to handle high read/write traffic. Key discussion points included tenant isolation strategies, selecting between SQL and NoSQL databases, designing core components like cart, order, and product catalog systems, incorporating cache layers using Redis, implementing event-driven flows with Kafka, and considering rate limiting, throttling, API Gateway, and various deployment & scaling assumptions. This round was a thorough test of my architectural thinking, clarity in communication, and ability to weigh design trade-offs.

Round 3: Managerial + Behavioral Round

The final round was conducted by a manager and focused less on pure technical skills and more on my fitment within HashedIn’s engineering environment. The discussions revolved around my previous project experience, my sense of ownership, and my approach to problem-solving. I shared instances of how I handled production issues, times I worked effectively under pressure, and my strategies for conflict resolution within a team. My motivation for switching roles was also explored. Overall, this round aimed to assess my cultural alignment, communication skills, and mindset.

After successfully navigating all rounds, I proceeded to the salary discussion phase.

🔹 Onsite Interview Experience of SDE Intern – Bengaluru Office (All rounds in 1 day)

Round 1: Online Coding Assessment 3 DSA Questions:

String Basics – Solved completely

Dynamic Programming on Strings (Medium) – Solved completely

Dynamic Programming on Strings (Hard) – Applied a backtracking-based approach

✅ Cleared the round by solving the first two completely and providing a working approach for the third.

Round 2: Technical Interview 1 Quick Self-Introduction and Internship discussion (S&P Global)

DSA Questions:

Valid Parentheses

Reverse a Linked List – Extended to reversing in K-groups

System Design Discussion:

E-commerce Database Design

Handling multiple items in a single order (focused on Atomicity)

Supporting various payment methods: UPI, Credit Card, Cash

Round 3: Technical Interview 2 Quick Intro + Project Deep Dive

System Design: Netflix Database

Base design followed by enhancement questions:

How to retrieve paused but not completed movies

How to retrieve location-specific movies (region availability filtering)

Round 4: Fitment Round Self-introduction + Family Background

Behavioral Questions Focused on motivation, team fit, and future goals

Online Assessment

The process began with a pool campus drive where approximately 600 students took an online assessment. I brought my own laptop for the OA, which consisted of 4 questions: 2 easy, 1 medium, and 1 hard. I managed to solve all of them, being mindful of hidden test cases and proper complexity by carefully analyzing constraints.

First Round (Technical - DSA & Web)

This round started with a self-introduction and a discussion about my projects. I was then presented with a coding challenge: add two very large numbers represented as strings, without using typecasting to int or long. I explained my logic, but the interviewer asked me to code first. After writing the code, I explained my approach.

The question was then modified to multiply both the numbers, also given as strings. This was also manageable; I broke the second string into parts and reused my addition function. To simplify, I reversed both strings before performing the multiplication from the back. There was a brief discussion where the interviewer initially seemed to misunderstand my approach, but we eventually got on the same page after I dry-ran the code.

Following the coding, I was asked questions about web technologies like JWT (JSON Web Tokens) and its underlying principles, cookies, and OAuth, as well as general questions about my resume. I answered most of these, though I couldn't recall the default encoding format of JWT tokens.

Second Round (Technical - DB Design & DSA)

The panelists in this round seemed impressed by my resume. It started with a database design question for an e-commerce platform. I was given loose sheets to draw out all necessary tables (e.g., customer_details, product_category, pricing, supplier_data), establish relationships (one-to-many, primary_key, foreign_key), and normalize them. The interviewer challenged some of my choices, asking if certain tables were truly required due to overlapping attributes. I defended some tables, arguing that extensive normalization could lead to overly complex and slow queries, which they accepted.

After finalizing the DB design, they presented 5-6 complex SQL queries, such as fetching customer names, emails, and orders from the last 4 days at a specific residential address. Strong SQL skills with complex joins were definitely tested here, and I performed well.

Towards the end, we moved to DSA. I don't recall the exact problem, but it was a variant of the Next Greater Element. The interviewer provided a story and a test case, which immediately made me think of a stack-based approach. Interestingly, the interviewer had a mistake in his test case, which I pointed out after completing my O(N) stack solution. After a brief formal argument, he checked his laptop and confirmed my observation, both panelists smiling and acknowledging my confidence in DSA.

Behavioral Round

This was, in my opinion, the toughest round for a fresher. The questions were tricky and designed to test honesty and ethical responses. Examples included: "We offer around 9 LPA. Tomorrow, if another company offers you more, what would you do?" and "We saw your performance and feedback; how are you still unplaced?". Initially, I tried a more diplomatic approach regarding salary, but then shifted to being completely honest, as they delved into more complex moral questions. I clarified the reason for being unplaced (related to 12th-grade marks). They also inquired about my family, home location, and willingness to relocate, mentioning the possibility of a transfer closer to home after converting to full-time.

Result

After about an hour of waiting, the results were announced. Out of 600 initial applicants and 30 interviewed candidates, 8 of us received offers. I was among the 5 who received an intern + FTE offer. It was a very positive experience, and I consider HashedIn one of the best companies for a fresher.

My interview journey for the SDE I position at Hashedin by Deloitte began with an Online Assessment. It was a 90-minute test comprising three coding questions: one easy and two medium LeetCode-type problems. A unique aspect was the absence of automated test cases; I had to code, generate my own custom test cases, identify edge cases, and then submit my solution.

Technical Interview - Round 1

The next day, I was shortlisted for the first technical interview. It started with a personal introduction, where they inquired about my passions and extracurricular activities. Following this, the interview delved into core computer science subjects like OOPS, C++, and DBMS. I was asked about topics such as diamond inheritance in C++, different types of Joins in SQL, and the concept of a virtual constructor. Additionally, I had to write an SQL query to find the second largest element in a table.

The coding questions in this round were to be solved on paper, though explaining the logic was also acceptable. I was given a problem related to Longest Palindromic Subsequence (LPS), specifically asking me to reverse a string and find its Longest Common Subsequence (LCS), a common approach for LPS. After successfully solving the optimal approach for this, they posed a challenging follow-up: to find the second largest palindromic subsequence. This was quite tricky; I took some time, asked for hints, and eventually managed to solve it, albeit not with the most optimal solution. There was also another DP question on array partition, which I was able to solve.

Technical Interview - Round 2

In the second technical round, the interviewers began with some fundamental coding questions. I was asked about detecting a cycle in a Linked List using the Hare and Tortoise method and how to implement a Stack using Queues. The round then transitioned into System Design. I was tasked with designing a high-level application similar to Flipkart, incorporating specific features they mentioned. I created API call flow diagrams and designed a database schema complete with foreign key references. They then guided me through the process of normalizing the database. I made significant progress but couldn't finalize it exactly as they expected. A SQL query based on the tables I had designed was also part of this discussion.

HR Round

The HR round was the most relaxed part of the process. We discussed projects from my resume, including my motivations for building them, their purpose, and technical details. There were also casual questions, like my preference between CR7 and Messi, inquiries about my family background and personal interests, and situational questions such as “What would you do if you received ₹10 crore today?”. I learned that reaching this stage often signifies selection, as everyone who made it to the HR round was offered a position.

Hey everyone! I recently appeared for the HashedIn by Deloitte placement drive conducted at my college, and I'm thrilled to share that I was SELECTED! I'm writing this post to walk you through my interview rounds and share some tips that might help you in your journey.

### Interview Rounds Overview
Round 1: Online Assessment (90 mins)
This was an online test consisting of three coding questions of varying difficulty levels. While I don't recall the exact problems, I solved all three questions. Consistent practice, especially from platforms like GFG and LeetCode, helped me perform well.

Round 2: Technical Interview 1 (45-50 min)
The interviewer was extremely friendly and supportive. The session began with introductions and a brief discussion about my internship experience. Following this, I was given 3-4 DSA questions to solve, after which the interviewer asked a series of DBMS-related questions, including SQL queries and some resume-specific questions. I solved all four DSA questions, starting with brute force approaches and optimizing them to better solutions. However, I got slightly stuck while optimizing the fourth problem. I was able to answer all the other questions, and the interviewer seemed satisfied with my responses.

Round 3: Technical Interview 2 (1 hr 10min)
This round began with my basic introduction, after which the interviewer asked me to explain one of my projects. I described an e-commerce application I built using Next.js. Since the project utilized a MongoDB database, the interviewer delved into a discussion about SQL vs. NoSQL databases. Following this, I was asked to solve a DSA problem based on the graph data structure. I solved this problem using DFS (Depth First Search). Afterward, I was tasked with designing a database for a restaurant table booking application. With the interviewer's guidance and my preparation in database design, I successfully completed this task.

Round 4: HR/Managerial Interview (20 min)
This was the final round, and it primarily consisted of common HR questions along with a few situation-based questions. I answered all questions confidently.

Finally, the results were declared, and I was thrilled to be among the 7 students offered a position by HashedIn from my campus. I would like to thank my mentors, peers, and seniors who guided me throughout my preparation journey. Their support and advice were invaluable. I am also grateful to the HashedIn by Deloitte team for providing such a wonderful opportunity and conducting the process so smoothly.

My interview process for the Intern+FTE Software Engineer position at HashedIn by Deloitte in Bangalore consisted of four rounds.

Round 1: Coding Round

This round was conducted on the Codility portal and lasted 1.5 hours. It included three problems: one medium-level question on queues, one hard-level question on graphs, and another hard-level question on dynamic programming. I successfully solved the first two problems and achieved 93% test case pass rate for the third. Clearing this round led to an interview scheduled one week later.

Round 2: Technical Interview - 1

This 1-hour interview involved both theoretical and practical questions. I was asked theoretical questions on OOPS, DBMS, and Computer Networks. Additionally, I had to solve two DSA problems: "Sort an array in wave form" and "Max Area of Island." Although I struggled with some networking theoretical questions, I easily solved both DSA problems. Following this, my second interview was scheduled after four days.

Round 3: Technical Interview - 2

This round lasted approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes. It covered theoretical questions based on projects I had built during college, and then delved into coding and system design. I was asked to optimize the Fibonacci series calculation and solve the "Coin Change Problem." The system design part involved designing the DB schema and writing endpoints for an app similar to Instagram, including defining tables, relationships, normalization, writing data fetching queries, and implementing an infinite scrolling feature. I confidently answered all technical and design questions, thanks to my experience creating multiple MERN stack projects, even though I made some syntactical errors in the "Coin Change" problem.

Round 4: Behavioral + HR Round

The final round was a 35-minute behavioral and HR discussion. The questions primarily revolved around my resume and projects. I was asked about my role in projects, how I managed my team, the toughest situations I've faced and how I tackled them, and how I would convince a team member who isn't serious about the project to perform better.

I received a "Selected" verdict. The HR was very responsive throughout the process, and the interviewers were polite and supportive. I hope my experience helps others.