127 questions · from 34 interviews · 10 asked more than once
Kotak Mahindra Bank interview questions
Every question candidates reported from their Kotak Mahindra Bank interviews, most frequently asked first. Each links to the write-up it came from, so you can see the round and how it went.
Kotak Mahindra Bank coding and DSA questions
- 01
Search in Rotated Sorted Array
LeetCode problem: Search in Rotated Sorted Array.
Medium · Asked 6 times · From Kotak SDE-2 Interview Experience | Bar Raiser
- 02
Longest Common Prefix
LeetCode problem: Longest Common Prefix.
Easy · Asked 4 times · From Kotak SDE-2 Interview Experience | Bar Raiser
- 03
Roman to Integer
Convert a Roman numeral string to its integer value.
Easy · Asked 4 times · From Kotak SDE2 Backend Hyd Bar Raiser
- 04
Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array
Given a sorted integer array, remove the duplicates in-place such that each element appears only once and return the new length. The relative order of the elements should be maintained.
Easy · Asked 2 times · From Kotak SDE 2 Backend Interview | Round 1 - Bar Raiser
- 05
Word Ladder
Find the length of the shortest transformation sequence from beginWord to endWord, such that only one letter can be changed at each step and each intermediate word must exist in the given word list.
Medium · Asked 2 times · From Kotak SDE 2 interview exp
- 06
Climbing Stairs
You are climbing a staircase. It takes n steps to reach the top. Each time you can climb either 1 or 2 steps. In how many distinct ways can you reach the top?
Easy · Asked 2 times · From Kotak Interview experience for SDE-I
- 07
Two Sum
Given an array of integers nums and an integer target, return indices of the two numbers such that they add up to target. You may assume that each input would have exactly one solution, and you may not use the same element twice.
Easy · Asked 2 times · From Kotak SDE 1 Interview Round 1
- 08
Set Matrix Zeroes
Given an m x n integer matrix matrix , if an element is 0, set its entire row and column to 0's. Do it in-place.
Medium · Asked 2 times · From Kotak Mahindra Interview Experience (SDE2)
- 09
Maximum Sum of Coins - 1D
Problem Statement: You are given a 1D array representing a row of coins. Your task is to pick a set of coins to maximize your total sum. Constraint: You cannot pick two adjacent (continuous) coins. Example: Input: coins = [4, 5, 6, 7, 8] Output: 18…
- 10
Maximum Sum of Coins - 2D Grid
Problem Statement: Given two rows of coins of equal length (a 2xN grid), maximize the sum of selected coins. If a coin is selected, you cannot select any coin that is adjacent horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Adjacency includes left/right in the same…
- 11
Find the Index of the First Occurrence in a String
Given a haystack string and a needle string, return the index of the first occurrence of needle in haystack, or -1 if needle is not present.
- 12
Return Subarrays with Sum as Power of Two
Given an integer array, return all subarrays whose sum is a power of two.
- 13
Course Schedule
Given a list of courses and their prerequisites, determine if it is possible to finish all courses. This is a graph cycle detection problem.
Medium · From Kotak | SDE-2 interview Experience
- 14
House Robber II
Given an array of non-negative integers representing the amount of money of each house, determine the maximum amount you can rob tonight without alerting the police, where the houses are arranged in a circle.
Medium · From Kotak | SDE-2 interview Experience
- 15
Trapping Rain Water
Given n non-negative integers representing an elevation map where the width of each bar is 1, compute how much water it can trap after raining.
Hard · From Kotak | SDE-2 interview Experience
- 16
Valid Parentheses
Determine if a string containing only the characters '(', ')', '{', '}', '[' and ']' is valid. A string is valid if open brackets are closed by the same type of brackets in the correct order.
Easy · From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 17
Valid Palindrome
Given a string, determine if it reads the same forward and backward after removing non-alphanumeric characters and ignoring case.
Easy · From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 18
Coin Change
You are given an integer array of coin denominations and an amount. Compute the fewest number of coins needed to make up that amount. If it is not possible, return -1.
Medium · From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 19
Largest Rectangle in Histogram
Given an array of non-negative integers representing the heights of bars in a histogram, find the area of the largest rectangle that can be formed within the bounds of the histogram.
Hard · From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 20
Number Palindrome Check
Given an integer, determine whether it reads the same backward as forward (i.e., it is a palindrome).
Easy · From Kotak SDE 2 interview exp
- 21
Valid Parentheses (Stack)
Given a string consisting only of characters '(' and ')', determine if the string is valid. A string is valid if every opening parenthesis has a matching closing parenthesis and the pairs are properly nested.
Easy · From Kotak SDE 2 interview exp
- 22
Merge Two Sorted Arrays In‑Place
Given two sorted integer arrays arr1 and arr2 , merge them into a single sorted array without using extra space beyond O(1). The result should be reflected in the original arrays.
Medium · From Kotak Interview experience for SDE-I
- 23
Implement a Load Balancer
Design and implement a simple load balancer that distributes incoming requests across a set of server instances. Consider thread‑safety and memory efficiency in your implementation.
Medium · From Kotak Interview experience for SDE-I
- 24
Plus One
You are given a large integer represented as an integer array digits , where each digits[i] is the ith digit of the integer. The digits are ordered from most significant to least significant in left-to-right order. The large integer does not contain any…
Easy · From Kotak SDE-1 BarRaiser - 1st round
- 25
DB Schema Design for Food Delivery App
Design a database schema for a food delivery application like Swiggy, considering entities such as users, restaurants, orders, menus, payments, etc.
23 more in the Kotak Mahindra Bank write-ups.
Kotak Mahindra Bank system design questions
- 01
Distributed locks
How would you implement and use distributed locks?
Asked 2 times · From Kotak SDE-2 Interview Experience | Bar Raiser
- 02
Network partitioning
How would you handle network partitioning?
Asked 2 times · From Kotak SDE-2 Interview Experience | Bar Raiser
- 03
Design a Restaurant Ordering System
Design a restaurant ordering system covering authentication, restaurant and menu management, cart management, order flow, payment, API design, database schema, class design, design patterns, and authentication/authorization.
- 04
Idempotency while creating an order
How would you handle idempotency while creating an order?
- 05
Restaurant System Design
Design a restaurant system covering authentication, menu management, cart management, and payment. Focus on defining APIs, database schema, class design, and appropriate design patterns.
- 06
Handle Idempotency in Create Order
Explain how you would ensure that creating an order is idempotent, preventing duplicate orders when the request is retried.
- 07
Design Event Management System
Design an Event Management System focusing on API design, database schema with indexes, class diagrams with pseudocode, relevant design patterns, and considerations for locks and consistency.
- 08
Design BookMyShow Platform
Design a BookMyShow platform, covering class structures, database choices, and user flows. The design should address scalability and typical operations such as event browsing, ticket booking, and payment processing.
- 09
Design Payment Gateway System
Design a payment gateway system focusing on scalability, monitoring, and reliability. Discuss components such as API endpoints, transaction processing, fraud detection, and system monitoring.
- 10
Food Delivery App LLD
Discuss requirements, identify entities, draw a class diagram, and explain appropriate design patterns for a food delivery application similar to Zomato. Topics include SOLID principles and object‑oriented concepts.
From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 11
Network Partition Behavior
Explain how a distributed system behaves during a network partition, factors to consider, and key trade‑offs involved.
From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 12
Locks and Their Types
Define what a lock is, describe different types of locks, and discuss when to use or avoid them.
From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 13
Consistency vs Availability Trade‑off
When would you favor consistency over availability, and when would you favor availability over consistency in a distributed system?
From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 14
Strong vs Eventual Consistency
Describe the difference between strong consistency and eventual consistency and discuss the trade‑offs of each approach.
From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 15
Idempotency in Transactions
Explain what idempotency is, how to define an idempotency key, and how it can be used for a transaction such as placing an order in a food‑delivery application.
From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 16
Vehicle Booking and Loan Processing Design
Design a vehicle booking and loan processing application for a Hyundai showroom. Include requirements gathering, entity identification, high‑level architecture (including components like MQs, caches, load balancers), and detailed class diagram with…
From Kotak | SDE 2 | Backend Engineer | India | Aug 2026 | Reject
- 17
Design ATM Machine
Design an end‑to‑end ATM system covering user flow, entities, APIs, and scalability considerations.
- 18
Design Event Ticket Booking System
Design a low‑level design for an event ticket booking system, covering API design, database schema, class design, and appropriate design patterns.
- 19
When and where to use a distributed lock
Explain where a distributed lock works and when it should be avoided.
From Kotak Mahindra Bank - SDE2 Interview Experience March 2026
- 20
Leader election in practice
Describe how leader election works in practice and what problem it solves.
From Kotak Mahindra Bank - SDE2 Interview Experience March 2026
- 21
Outbox Pattern
Explain what the outbox pattern is and how it ensures reliable event publishing.
From Kotak Mahindra Bank - SDE2 Interview Experience March 2026
- 22
Backpressure in distributed systems
Define backpressure in a distributed system and discuss how to implement it end‑to‑end.
From Kotak Mahindra Bank - SDE2 Interview Experience March 2026
- 23
Consistency during network partition
Discuss how to maintain consistency when there is a network partition between two services in a distributed system.
From Kotak Mahindra Bank - SDE2 Interview Experience March 2026
- 24
Design a Parcel Delivery System
Design a parcel delivery system that supports user registration, shipment creation, lifecycle management, tracking, delivery partner assignment, and weight‑plus‑distance based pricing. Include database schema, class structure, APIs, service design, and…
From Kotak Mahindra Bank - SDE2 Interview Experience March 2026
- 25
Meeting Scheduler Design
Design a meeting scheduler system. Define functional and non‑functional requirements, entities, relationships, and a database schema. Implement the core method that schedules a meeting, supports recurring meetings (e.g., every Friday), and prevents…
46 more in the Kotak Mahindra Bank write-ups.
Kotak Mahindra Bank other questions
- 01
Consistency, Circuit Breaker, and Idempotency
Explain strong consistency vs eventual consistency, describe how a circuit breaker works, and discuss how to handle idempotency when a user clicks the book‑seat button multiple times.
- 02
Distributed Systems Concepts
Questions related to caching strategies, load balancing techniques, horizontal vs vertical scaling, and general principles of building scalable distributed systems.
- 03
Distributed System Concepts
Answer conceptual questions on distributed systems, including: - What is backpressure and how to handle it? - What is eventual consistency and how would you explain it to a stakeholder? (Additional related questions were asked but not recalled.)
From Kotak Mahindra Bank
- 04
Discuss API Status Codes
Discuss the common API Status Codes and their appropriate usage.
- 05
Handle Large Files in Chunks (Pseudocode)
Provide pseudocode for efficiently handling and processing large files by dividing them into manageable chunks.
- 06
Java vs. Node.js Tech Stack Choice
The interviewer asked why my current company was using Java instead of Node.js for their projects.
- 07
Specific Java Version Justification
The interviewer inquired why my company was using a particular version of Java instead of an alternative one.
- 08
Latest Java Updates Knowledge
I was asked to describe the latest updates in the current Java version my company uses, with the expectation that I, as a developer, should be aware of them.
Kotak Mahindra Bank interview questions FAQ
What questions are asked in Kotak Mahindra Bank interviews?
Candidates reported 127 distinct questions across 34 Kotak Mahindra Bank interviews. 48 coding and DSA questions, 71 system design questions, 8 other questions.
Which Kotak Mahindra Bank interview questions are asked most often?
The most repeated are "Search in Rotated Sorted Array" (6 times), "Longest Common Prefix" (4 times), "Roman to Integer" (4 times), "Distributed locks" (2 times), "Network partitioning" (2 times).
How difficult are Kotak Mahindra Bank interview questions?
Of the questions candidates rated, 28% were easy, 43% medium and 30% hard.