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Summary
I interviewed for an SSE position at agoda in Gurgaon. The process involved four challenging technical rounds covering problem-solving, system design, low-level design, and design patterns, ultimately resulting in a rejection.
Full Experience
I interviewed for the SSE position at agoda in Gurgaon, with 4 years of experience. The interview process consisted of four technical rounds, starting on June 7th, 2023.
Round 1: Problem Solving (45 Min)
This round involved a LeetCode Medium problem, quite similar to the "longest non-repeating substring." I was also asked to write down all possible test cases for my solution, which I did. I felt this round went well.
Round 2: Technical Discussion (1 hour)
This round began with questions about my past experience and projects. Following that, I was asked to design a High-Level Design (HLD) for an event streaming platform. I proposed a solution utilizing Kafka for service decoupling and to ensure independent scaling between producers and consumers. I remember clearing this round.
Round 3: Technical Discussion (1 hour)
This round was scheduled two weeks after the first two and was conducted by an Engineering Manager. We had a deep dive into my projects from my previous organization. Since I had worked on the payment side, the interviewer was particularly interested in refund flows. I explained my contributions, and he cross-questioned my approaches. Afterwards, I was given a Low-Level Design (LLD) problem for a Hotel Booking System and was expected to explain the code. I outlined the entities, their relationships, and the necessary APIs. This round felt okayish.
Round 4: Technical Round (1 hour with Senior Manager)
The final round started with questions about the design patterns I had used in my projects. I was then asked to implement specific patterns like Strategy, Singleton, and Factory, and the interviewer seemed satisfied with my implementations. Next, I was tasked with designing a rate limiter. We had a long discussion covering tradeoffs, essential system components, and suitable database types. I proposed a solution using Redis with TTL, but the interviewer didn't react much, and the time for the round ended. Despite that, I felt it was a healthy discussion.
Two days later, I received a rejection email. Overall, it was a good learning experience.
Interview Questions (5)
I was asked a LeetCode Medium problem similar to finding the longest non-repeating substring. Beyond just solving it, I also had to write down all possible test cases for my solution.
I was tasked with designing a High-Level Design (HLD) for an event streaming platform. The core requirement was to ensure decoupling of services and independent scaling.
I was given a scenario to perform a Low-Level Design (LLD) for a Hotel Booking System and was expected to explain the underlying code. The focus was on the structure and interaction of components.
After discussing the design patterns I'd used in my projects, the interviewer asked me to implement specific design patterns: Strategy, Singleton, and Factory.
I was given a problem to design a rate limiter. The discussion was comprehensive, covering various aspects like design tradeoffs, essential system components, and suitable database types for implementation.