Tekion Interviews

I had an interview with Tekion for a DSA round. I was asked two questions. The first was Trapping Rain Water. I was able to solve this problem and explain my approach thoroughly, demonstrating a deep understanding of the core concepts. The second question was Find the K-th Character in String Game II. For this problem, I devised and implemented the correct solution. However, I made a small error, using < instead of <= in a comparison, which led to incorrect results. I was actively debugging the issue, but the interviewer stopped me at the 55-minute mark. I mentioned that I believed my solution was very close, and I later confirmed the comparison mistake using an LLM. After calling HR, I received notification of my rejection. I found the interviewer uncollaborative, and it was difficult to get any acknowledgment or feedback. It felt like they deliberately gave me a hard second question. I'm left wondering what more one needs to do to successfully clear such a round.

Tekion SDE 2

Offline drive at tekion office bangalore

dsa round:

1. Best time to buy and sell the stock
https://leetcode.com/problems/best-time-to-buy-and-sell-stock

2. minimum-size-subarray-sum
https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-size-subarray-sum

I recently went through an interview process with Tekion for an SDE-1 position, which consisted of three offline rounds.

Round 1 (45 min to code): Machine Coding

I was tasked with designing a file management system and implementing fully functional methods for cp, mv, mkdir, and pwd.

Round 2 (1 hour round): Low-Level Design (LLD)

I had to design a parking lot system, focusing on outlining all the necessary methods and classes. This round also included several follow-up questions:

• How to make the system fast while fetching empty slots.
• A deep dive on Redis cache, including questions about why it cannot be used in place of a primary database.
• A discussion on Parallelism vs. Concurrency.
• Some questions derived from my resume.

Round 3 (30 min): Managerial

This round involved discussions about my current project and the components of a movie ticket booking system from a High-Level Design (HDL) perspective. I was also asked which database I would choose for such a system (e.g., MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, etc.) and had to explain the CAP theorem in relation to my chosen database, specifically identifying which aspect wouldn't be possible.

After these rounds, I received a call within a week, indicating I was shortlisted. The salary negotiation and the final offer letter took an additional three weeks. I was offered an SDE-1 role with a base salary of 29 LPA, 4000 units of ESOPs (which I found to be of no use), and a joining bonus of 2 LPA. I attempted to negotiate for a 32 LPA base, but it didn't go well, leading me to ultimately reject the offer.

I recently participated in Tekion's SSE hiring drive in August 2025. I hold a B.Tech from a Tier-1 university and am currently an SDE-2 at a FAANG company (though I presented myself as an SDE-1 during the process). My expected CTC was 35LPA+, which they seemed open to exceeding.

Round 1 – DSA (Onsite, pen + paper)

This round consisted of two DSA problems which I had to solve using pen and paper. One was a DFS-based problem and the other was a sliding window problem with a small trick. I successfully solved both and discussed my approach with a Staff SWE, as all SSEs were occupied. Later, the recruiter confirmed that I received positive feedback for this round.

Round 2 – HLD (Staff SWE)

This Higher-Level Design round caught me a bit off guard. The problem statement was simply: "Design a system that accepts a continuous stream of data." I decided to approach it with an event-driven pipeline, utilizing tools like Kafka or SQS for message queuing, an ECS-based processing layer, and Redis for quick data access, with an option to persist data in a traditional database. The interviewer pressed me on why not just use a simple database, and I explained the trade-offs involved. It wasn't my best performance, but I managed to navigate through it.

Round 3 – LLD (SSE)

The Low-Level Design round focused on designing a Food Delivery System. The expectation was to start with a quick HLD overview, then dive into detailed aspects like DB schema design, specifically considering geospatial databases for efficient nearby restaurant queries. I also had to design APIs and the service-level architecture, concluding with discussions on design patterns such as Factory or Observer. I did all of this live on Excalidraw and felt very confident about my performance, receiving a positive signal.

Round 4 – Hiring Manager (Sr. SDM)

The final round was with a Senior SDM and primarily involved deep dives into my current services and projects, along with various ownership and behavioral questions. The goal was also to assess my alignment with the team's culture and needs. The Hiring Manager appeared satisfied with my responses.

What Happened Next?

After completing Round 3, I was informed that Round 4 would be virtual on a subsequent Monday. I requested a one-week extension as I was preparing for a Meta OA. I completed Round 4 later and felt it went well, but then I was met with complete silence – I was ultimately ghosted by Tekion.

Total 4 rounds, held online

1)DSA 2)LLD 3)HLD 3)Hiring Managerial

Round 1

1. Count sub-sequences having sum of their elements equal to K Input: arr[] = {5, 5, 1}, K = 6 Output: 2 Input: arr[] = {3, 2, 5, 1, 2, 4}, K = 5 Output: 5 | Explaination [3,2], [5], [1,4],[2,1,2],[3,2]
2. Design a data structure / class that supports the following operations in O (1) time. void insert(Object x): Inserts an item x to the data structure if not already present void remove(Object x): Removes an item x from the data structure if present boolean search(Object x): Searches an item x in the data structure Object getRandom(): Returns a random element from current set of elements

Round 2 Questions to explain:

• SOLID Principles
• Design Patterns (then specific design patterns such as Chain of Responsibility, Decorator, Observer, PubSub)
• How do you measure a system's performance

LLD: Design Meeting Scheduler.

Round 3 Had brief discussion about my experience, few questions for clarifications and details. HLD: Design worksplace chat application like Slack

Round 4 It was discussions around projects, experience with technical and business situations and leadership scenarios. It was taken by manager.

1 hour of DSA discussion. I was given below problem to solve with slight variation, instead of returning the length, I had to return the start and the end indices of the subarray.

https://leetcode.com/problems/shortest-subarray-with-sum-at-least-k/description/

I solved using sliding window pattern, but didn't work out as I received rejection email a day later.

Hope this helps to anyone!

Round 1 - DSA(2 ques)

1. https://leetcode.com/problems/jump-game-ii/description/
2. https://leetcode.com/problems/rotting-oranges/description/

Interviewer started the discussion with brute force approach and then went on to discuss optimized soln.

Round 2 - LLD

Design Book my show
Discussion: detailed entity models, API contracts, concurrency control for bookings

Hi All,

I recently interviewed at Tekion for the SDE1 position. I’m a 2023 graduate, and I got this opportunity after reaching out to a friend who kindly shared my profile with the HR team, also applied on job portal. The position was for the Chennai location.

Round 1 - DSA

Q1 - Find Peak Element

Q2 - Find Leaves of binary tree

I was able to solve both the questions within 45 mins.

Round 2 - LLD + HM

This round focused on system design and managerial fit.

He asked me to design a system like Bookmyshow, where user could add theaters, book the seats, see all the shows and so on.

The LLD round did not go well for me, as he asked multiple questions related to the design that I created and wasn't able to answer them.

At the end he asked few managerial questions as well.

1. What will you do if you are stuck with an issue and you have release of that feature coming up in next 5 days.
2. What will you make sure before the production release?

I’m still waiting for the result, but considering how the second round went, I’m not expecting a positive outcome.

Round 1 – DSA

• Solving Questions With Brainpower
• Largest Divisible Subset

Result: Strong Hire

Round 2 – System Design (HLD + LLD)

Question: Design a Booking.com-style hotel reservation system.
Result: Strong Hire

Covered:

• High-Level Design (HLD): service boundaries, data flow, scaling strategies, component interactions (API Gateway, Search Service, Booking Service, Review Service, etc.)
• Low-Level Design (LLD): detailed class/data models, DB schema, API contracts, concurrency control for bookings

Key Requirements:

1. Search & Filtering (location, dates, price, ratings, amenities)
2. Availability & Booking
   • Real-time room availability, concurrency control to prevent double-booking
   • Booking creation, modification, cancellation
3. User Reviews & Ratings
4. Scalability & Reliability
   • Caching, load balancing, DB sharding by region
   • High-QPS handling during peak seasons
5. API Design & Data Model
   • Endpoints: /search, /book, /cancel, /reviews
   • Schema: Hotel, Room, Booking, User, Review tables

Round 3 – Hiring-Manager

This was the most difficult round in my opinion. The HM asked a mix of behavioral and past-experience-based questions, along with a couple of technical deep dives.

Questions which I couldn’t answer properly:

1. API Latency Debugging (without code changes):
   “Without adding new logs or deploying changes, how would you pinpoint whether high latency is due to DB access, business logic, or network?”
2. PATCH Endpoint Design:
   “How would you design a RESTful PATCH API for partial updates?”
   • The interviewer was specifically focused on JSON Patch semantics.
   • I was only familiar with JSON Merge Patch, which led to some confusion in articulating the request/response format.

Overall Result: Reject

Hi

YOE 4.5+

1.https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-equal-sum-of-two-arrays-after-replacing-zeros/description/

2.https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-cost-to-make-array-equal/description/

able to solve 1 question

Verdict : Rejected

PS/DS 1.Minimum steps for knight to reach Destination follow up : print Paths 2. Process vs Thread 3. Context switching 4. PCB(Process control Board) 5. polymorphism with code

🧪 My Experience with the Tekion SDE-1 Backend Hiring Drive (April 13, 2025)

I attended the Tekion in-office hiring drive for the SDE-1 Backend role at their Bangalore office.

⚙️ Round 1: DSA + Puzzle

This round had 2 coding questions and 1 puzzle:

• Construct Binary Tree from Preorder and Inorder Traversals
• Largest Rectangle in Histogram
• Camel and Banana Puzzle

I was able to solve all of them within the time limit and cleared the round.

🧱 Round 2: Low-Level Design

The LLD round was focused on designing an Elevator System. I discussed:

• Entities like Elevator, Floor, Request, Controller, etc.
• Design patterns like Strategy, Observer, and Singleton
• Class relationships and interaction flow

But I couldn’t complete the code implementation within the given time.

🚫 Final Outcome

Was not shortlisted after the LLD round.

Round 1
1. Given a fixed camera in a forest (with predefined trees), give the best angle in which the camera pictures the maximum of trees. Input angle is given in radian, return angle from 0 (say north)

int ForestCover(vector<Pair<int,int>> coordinateList, int angle) 
{ 
}

I recently interviewed for the Senior Software Engineer position at Tekion. I have 5 years of experience and come from a Tier 3 college with a B.Tech in CSE. The interview process, which took place in May 2024, consisted of several rounds.

Problem Solving Round: This round involved solving 2 Leetcode Medium-tagged questions.

LLD Round: I was asked to design an Airplane Booking System. The discussion delved into its underlying Model, APIs, and the detailed Seat Selection Process.

HLD Round: This round began with a discussion about the High-Level Design of my current system. Following that, I was tasked with designing the IRCTC system, with the scope specifically limited to the Search and Booking functionalities.

HM Round: In the Hiring Manager round, we again discussed the design of my current system, and I also answered some behavioral questions.

I was offered the position and accepted it.

I participated in Tekion's hiring drive, which consisted of four rounds. The process started with an Online Test, followed by a Problem Solving & Data Structures round, a Low-Level Design (LLD) round, and finally, a Hiring Manager (HM) round. I managed to clear the first two rounds but unfortunately received a rejection after the LLD round.

1. Online Test: This round had two medium-difficulty questions. I found them quite manageable, likely because I have a good grasp of LeetCode medium problems.

2. Problem Solving & Data Structures: This round was conducted on the BarRaiser platform. The first question was a DSA problem focused on priority queues, quite similar to the classic 'N-meetings in one room' problem. The second question was an interesting puzzle involving ropes and a lighter to measure time, much like the one found in the provided link.

3. LLD (Low-Level Design): In this round, I was asked to design the classic Snake and Ladder game. The problem seemed straightforward enough for an LLD round. I was confident in my solution, covering all edge cases, but the interviewer appeared to be in a hurry, which might have impacted the discussion.

Verdict: I was rejected after the LLD round.

Recently, I interviewed with Tekion for an SDE-1 Role. The first round focused on Problem Solving. I was asked some questions on Java and Spring Boot. Following that, I tackled a coding question about string abbreviation (e.g., if s="AKNS", then abbr="A2S" is a valid abbreviation).

The third question was the classic Word Break problem. I managed to answer all the questions, though I needed a small hint from the interviewer to arrive at the optimal approach for Word Break.

The second and third rounds were scheduled to be for Low-Level Design (LLD) and Hiring Manager (HM) discussions, but I was unfortunately ghosted by HR; they stopped picking up calls and responding to emails. This experience, especially after being laid off, made the job search process quite exhaustive.

I went through a total of three rounds for the Software Engineer role at Tekion Corp. The first round was focused on Problem Solving and Data Structures, where I was given two coding questions. One was a stack-based problem, a variation of 'Daily Temperatures,' and the other was 'Swap Nodes in Pairs.' The second round was a Low-Level Design session, where I had to design the 'SplitWise App,' covering class and interface diagrams, entity relationships, service class method implementations, and API design. Finally, the Hiring Manager round involved a detailed discussion about my past projects and various technical topics such as Kafka, caching, transactions, load balancing, parallelism versus concurrency, and more. I was excited to receive an offer after these rounds.

Round 0: Online Assessment

This round consisted of 10 MCQs covering Debugging, OOPS, and DSA topics. There were also 2 coding questions; one involved Segment Trees and the other was a combination of priority queues and BFS. Unfortunately, I don't recall the exact problem statements.

Round 1: Technical Interview 1

The interviewer started by asking me to tell them about myself. Following that, we moved to the technical questions:

1. I was asked to dry run the Quicksort algorithm on a specific test case.
2. We discussed the Minimum Absolute Difference in BST problem.
3. I was given the Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array problem.
4. A conceptual question on "What is a deadlock?"
5. A question about "What is indexing?"
6. I had to explain the "Four Pillars of OOPS."
7. A question asking "What is a friend function?"

I successfully solved all the coding questions with optimal solutions.

Round 2: Technical Interview 2

This round also began with an introduction and then a deep dive into my projects. The interviewer asked:

1. A coding question involving a BST and finding a number within a particular range of intervals. I couldn't find a similar question anywhere online.
2. The classic Egg Drop Problem with infinite eggs and K floors.

Additionally, there were a few conceptual questions on Operating Systems, DBMS, and OOPS. I managed to solve both coding problems, and the interviewer was very helpful throughout the process.

Round 3: HR Interview

The HR round started with the usual "Tell me about yourself" and then moved into a deep discussion about one of my projects. We talked about the business aspects of my project, how to scale it, and make it profitable. It was a friendly and engaging discussion overall.

I applied for the Associate Software Engineer role at Tekion through a referral I got via LinkedIn. About ten days later, I received an email inviting me to an online HackerEarth test.

The HackerEarth test was 1.5 hours long and consisted of 10 MCQs, primarily covering OOPs, DBMS, time/space complexity, and code output, along with 2 coding questions. The MCQs were of easy-medium difficulty, and the coding questions were medium-hard. My camera was off throughout the test. For the first coding question, which was LeetCode's 'Find the Minimum Number of Fibonacci Numbers Whose Sum Is K,' I managed to solve it completely, and all test cases passed. For the second coding question, I wrote some code, but unfortunately, it didn't pass all the test cases. Despite this, I received a positive result and an invite for the next round after two days.

Round 1 was a one-hour session with a single coding question, which was LeetCode's 'Combination Sum.' I approached it with a recursive solution and implemented it. When the interviewer asked if I could optimize the solution, I struggled and couldn't find a better approach. Overall, I felt my performance in this interview was average.