Agoda | Staff SE | OA
Summary
I recently completed an Online Assessment for a Staff Software Engineer role at Agoda. The assessment included two problems: one focused on Data Structures & Algorithms and another on REST API design. Unfortunately, I received an automatic rejection shortly after submitting my solutions.
Full Experience
I applied for a Staff Software Engineer position at Agoda through LinkedIn Easy Apply. Following my application, I was invited to an Online Assessment hosted on the Hackerrank platform. The assessment had a strict 90-minute time limit and presented two distinct challenges. The first was a Data Structures & Algorithms problem, while the second involved designing a REST API. After submitting my solutions, I unfortunately received an automatic rejection email, which left me feeling that it might have been a ghost hiring scenario.
Interview Questions (2)
Given an array of integers, find the minimum number of operations required to make all array elements equal. In one operation, you can either increment or decrement an element.
Example:
Input: [1, 2, 3]
Output: 2 (To make all elements 2: 1 -> 2 (1 operation), 2 -> 2 (0 operations), 3 -> 2 (1 operation). Total operations: 1 + 0 + 1 = 2)
Design a simple REST API to manage a list of books. The API should support basic CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete) for books. Each book should have attributes such as an ID, title, author, and ISBN. Additionally, the design should incorporate pagination for listing books and robust error handling mechanisms.