Medianet Interviews

I recently interviewed with Media.net for an on-campus SDE role. While I was rejected after the first technical round, I wanted to share my experience in hopes it helps others.

Online Assessment (OA)

The OA consisted of three coding problems of Hard difficulty, covering complex String Manipulation, a tricky Binary Search problem, and a Graph problem. I managed to solve two out of the three problems. A critical piece of advice from my experience: Do not cheat. Their plagiarism detection is very strong, and many students who solved all three problems were not shortlisted, likely due to plagiarism flags. It's truly better to submit your own honest work.

Technical Interview (Round 1)

This round lasted about an hour and was divided into two sections: CS Fundamentals and an Algorithmic Problem.

Part 1: CS Core Fundamentals

The interviewer started with a series of questions on core computer science concepts. I was asked about Referential Integrity Constraints and how to write the SQL query for it, the main differences between TCP and UDP with real-world examples, the purpose of the static keyword, the difference between Method Overriding and Method Overloading, and whether a static method can be overridden and why. I answered all the questions, though my SQL query had a minor syntax error.

Part 2: Algorithmic Problem

For the algorithmic part, the problem statement was given verbally, which required a fair amount of time and clarifying questions to fully grasp. The question was: "Given an integer N representing the total number of matches played in a tournament, find all possible values for the number of teams (k) that could have participated." I discussed a brute-force approach, but the interviewer clearly indicated they were looking for a highly optimized solution, hinting at a direct mathematical formula for a constant-time solution. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, and I wasn't able to arrive at the final expected solution.

Ultimately, I was rejected after this round. It was a tough interview, and running out of time on the final step was disappointing, but it was a valuable learning experience.

I had a comprehensive interview experience with Media.net in July 2021 for a Senior Software Engineer/Lead Software Engineer position in Bengaluru. The process spanned four distinct rounds.

The first round focused on Data Structures. I was presented with two DS questions; one involved String anagrams, while I couldn't recall the other. The expectation was to provide complete working code along with its time complexity.

The second round was a machine coding challenge. I was given a problem statement, which I discussed with the interviewer to clarify any doubts. Following that, I outlined my proposed approach. The goal was to deliver running code with a proper Low-Level Design (LLD), specifically to implement the Splitwise application. I successfully designed the classes but ran out of time before completing the driver class. Afterwards, the interviewer asked me questions about the tech stack I had experience with, specifically Kafka.

The third round was a High-Level Design (HLD) discussion. I was tasked with designing a Vaccine Booking application, with a significant emphasis on handling the peak traffic when booking slots become available.

The fourth and final round was another HLD session. This time, the challenge was to design the system implementation for 'Mutual Connections' in LinkedIn. I initiated the discussion by detailing Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs), such as anticipated QPS and the estimated data size for the database. I was also questioned about my database choice. Unfortunately, I struggled with the NFR part, which was my downfall, and the problem then shifted to how a unique userID would be generated.

Ultimately, I could not clear the last round as I felt I bombed it, and thus, I did not receive an offer.