45 questions · from 8 interviews
Zepto interview questions
Every question candidates reported from their Zepto interviews, most frequently asked first. Each links to the write-up it came from, so you can see the round and how it went.
Zepto coding and DSA questions
- 01
Minimum Cost for Tickets
Given a list of travel days and the costs of three types of tickets (1‑day pass, 7‑day pass, 30‑day pass), determine the minimum total cost required to cover all travel days. Input: days = [1,4,6,7,8,20], costs = [2,7,15] Output: 11 The problem requires…
- 02
Daily Temperatures
Given an array of daily temperatures, return an array where each element is the number of days you have to wait until a warmer temperature. If there is no future day with a higher temperature, put 0 for that position. Example: Input: [73,74,75,71,69,72,76,73]…
- 03
Separate Squares 1
No detailed description provided in the post.
Medium · From Zepto SDE-1 interview DSA round
- 04
Container With Most Water
Refer to the provided LeetCode link for the full problem description.
- 05
Word Ladder
Refer to the provided LeetCode link for the full problem description.
- 06
Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree
The problem asks to find the Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in a binary tree.
- 07
Reverse String Excluding Special Characters
Given a string, reverse only the alphabetic characters while keeping special characters in their original positions. For example, given 'I am$& Groot', the output should be 'toorG ma$& I'.
Medium · From ZEPTO | SDET2 | Interview Experience
- 08
Find Third Highest Salary
How would you find the third highest salary from an employee table?
Medium · From ZEPTO | SDET2 | Interview Experience
- 09
Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock II
I was given the problem of finding the maximum profit from buying and selling stock multiple times. The interviewer focused on time and space complexity.
Medium · From Zepto | SDE 2 | Bengaluru | September 2024 [Offer]
- 10
Rotting Oranges
The second question was about rotting oranges, a standard BFS problem.
Medium · From Zepto | SDE 2 | Bengaluru | September 2024 [Offer]
- 11
Insert into Sorted Circular Linked List
The problem was to insert new nodes into a Circular Linked List (CLL) while maintaining its sorted order.
Medium · From Zepto | SDE 2 | Bengaluru | September 2024 [Offer]
- 12
Number of Closed Islands
Given a 2D grid grid of 0s and 1s, where 0s represent land and 1s represent water. An island is a maximal 4-directionally connected group of 0s. A closed island is an island that is completely surrounded by 1s (water). That is, none of the 0s of a closed…
- 13
Largest Rectangle in Histogram
Given an array of integers heights representing the histogram's bar height where the width of each bar is 1, find the area of the largest rectangle in the histogram.
- 14
First and Last Occurrence of an Element
I was asked to solve the First and Last Occurrence of an Element problem, which involves finding the first and last positions of a given target element in a sorted array.
- 15
Find Binary String Not in Array
Another question was about finding a binary string of length N that doesn’t occur in a given array of distinct binary strings of the same length.
- 16
Word Search
Given an m x n grid of characters and a string word , return true if word exists in the grid. The word can be constructed from letters of sequentially adjacent cells, where adjacent cells are horizontally or vertically neighboring. The same letter cell may…
From Zepto | Software Engineer - II | Backend | Bangalore | June 2024 [Rejected]
- 17
Validate Binary Search Tree
Given the root of a binary tree, determine if it is a valid binary search tree (BST). A valid BST is defined as follows: The left subtree of a node contains only nodes with keys less than the node's key. The right subtree of a node contains only nodes with…
From Zepto | Software Engineer - II | Backend | Bangalore | June 2024 [Rejected]
Zepto system design questions
- 01
Coupon Creation Service - LLD/HLD
Designed DB schema and system for different coupon types: percentage off, flat off, discount, cashback, etc.
- 02
Frequency-Based Coupon Selection System
Given a list of coupons with frequency, designed a system to randomly select coupons based on frequency.
- 03
Jenkins Setup on Cloud
Describe the process and considerations for setting up Jenkins on a cloud platform.
- 04
Docker vs. Microservices
Explain the key differences between Docker and microservices.
- 05
Microservice Architecture
Define microservice architecture and its core principles.
- 06
- 07
API Automation Framework: Handling Payload Changes
In an existing API, a new field is added to the payload, causing regression failures in your automation. What code changes would you implement in your automation framework to support both the old and new versions of the API?
- 08
Quick Commerce Order & Delivery System Design
Design a system for managing customer orders and deliveries in a quick commerce platform. Specifically, I needed to cover: How to structure the system for customer orders, inventory, and deliveries. How to design for order prioritization, especially during…
- 09
API Authentication Mechanisms
I was asked how to implement authentication for the APIs designed in the previous question, along with follow-up questions on JWT tokens.
- 10
Application of Design Patterns
The interviewer asked about suitable design patterns for the quick commerce platform. I was specifically asked to implement a Factory Pattern for payment processing.
- 11
Google Calendar-like App Design
Design an application similar to Google Calendar, covering features such as: User meeting creation. Scheduling events/meetings with title, description, start/end time, location, and participants. Adding participants and notifying them. Sending notifications…
- 12
System Design for Ride-Hailing Service (Ola/Uber)
Design a scalable and highly available ride-hailing service similar to Ola or Uber. The discussion should cover key components such as user authentication, ride request processing, driver matching, real-time location tracking, fare estimation, payment…
- 13
Design an E-commerce Application
I was asked to design an e-commerce application. This involved detailing the database schema, identifying important services, defining API endpoints, and discussing stock management (quantity, expiry, updates) and discount coupon handling (new coupons,…
- 14
Indexing Differences (MongoDB vs MySQL)
I had to explain indexing and how it differs between MongoDB and MySQL. This included discussing the drawbacks of indexing.
- 15
ACID Properties and CAP Theorem
I was asked about my understanding of ACID properties and the CAP theorem, including their implications.
- 16
Scalability of Current Project
I was asked to explain how I made my current project scalable.
- 17
Design Google Calendar
Design a system similar to Google Calendar. The focus was on database design, facilitating API responses, handling concurrency issues, and a comparative discussion on different types of databases (SQL vs. NoSQL) and their fundamental differences.
From Zepto | Software Engineer - II | Backend | Bangalore | June 2024 [Rejected]
Zepto behavioural and HR questions
- 01
Explanation of Resume Metrics
I had to explain numbers I provided in my resume, such as reduced costs by 15%, and how I calculated them.
- 02
Approach to Learning New Technologies
I was asked about my approach to learning new technologies and concepts.
- 03
Motivation for Joining Zepto & Current Learnings
I was asked about my motivation for joining Zepto, why they should hire me, my current location, and recent learnings.
- 04
Biggest Technical Challenge Faced
Discuss the biggest technical challenge you have faced in your career and how you approached or resolved it.
From Zepto | Software Engineer - II | Backend | Bangalore | June 2024 [Rejected]
- 05
Bug Resolution and On-Call Practices
Describe your approach to resolving bugs and how you handle on-call responsibilities.
From Zepto | Software Engineer - II | Backend | Bangalore | June 2024 [Rejected]
Zepto other questions
- 01
Selenium: Handling Alerts
Write Selenium code to open a browser, navigate to a URL. If an alert opens on the webpage, demonstrate how to send text to the alert, accept it, and then close it.
Medium · From ZEPTO | SDET2 | Interview Experience
- 02
RestAssured: API Interaction and Validation
Using RestAssured, write code to send a request to an API, retrieve its response, verify the HTTP status code, and extract a specific value from the JSON response body.
Medium · From ZEPTO | SDET2 | Interview Experience
- 03
Design Patterns Experience
Discuss design patterns you have experience working with.
- 04
Usage of POJO Classes
Explain the concept and usage of POJO (Plain Old Java Object) classes, and discuss whether similar concepts exist in other programming languages.
- 05
Playwright: What and Why
What is Playwright, and why would you choose to use it?
- 06
Explain Circuit Breaker Pattern
Explain the Circuit Breaker pattern, its purpose, and how it is implemented in systems.
From Zepto | Software Engineer - II | Backend | Bangalore | June 2024 [Rejected]
Zepto interview questions FAQ
What questions are asked in Zepto interviews?
Candidates reported 45 distinct questions across 8 Zepto interviews. 17 coding and DSA questions, 17 system design questions, 5 behavioural and HR questions, 6 other questions.
How difficult are Zepto interview questions?
Of the questions candidates rated, 0% were easy, 100% medium and 0% hard.