Disney+Hotstar | SDE1 | Bangalore | April 2021 [Accepted]
Summary
I successfully interviewed for an SDE1 position at Disney+Hotstar in April 2021, receiving an offer after navigating through four elimination rounds, including coding, low-level design, and a bar raiser.
Full Experience
I applied for the SDE1 role at Hotstar through LinkedIn Jobs and, within two days, received a call from the recruiter to schedule interviews. They gave me a week to prepare for the process, which consisted of four elimination rounds, all completed on the same day.
Round 1 :: Coding Competency (1 hour)
This round was conducted by an SDE2. The interviewer asked me to implement unordered maps, focusing on achieving similar time and space complexity as standard implementations. We then discussed the bounds of my solution. The interviewer was very supportive and helpful throughout this round.
Round 2 :: Design Competency (45 mins)
The recruiter had specifically advised me to prepare for low-level design (LLD), stating that high-level design (HLD) wasn't a focus for this position. In this round, an Architect asked me to design the BookMyShow system. I presented my LLD, providing an overview of the solution. Specifically, I detailed the 'book a slot' use case and explained my approach to handling concurrency issues. This was another healthy conversation, with the interviewer being very supportive.
Round 3 :: Bar Raiser (1 hour)
This round, led by a Team Lead, began with a discussion about my past experiences and current role. At my previous company, we used distributed queues for microservice communication, which led to a challenge: the interviewer asked me to implement a Queueing Service as a Library. This round thoroughly tested my behavioral, coding, and design capabilities.
Round 4 :: HR Round (30 mins)
This was a standard HR discussion.
Interview Questions (3)
Implement unordered maps with similar complexity to standard library implementations. Discuss the time and space complexity bounds for the solution.
Design the low-level system for BookMyShow. Specifically, describe the 'book a slot' use case and explain how to handle concurrency issues.
Implement a Queueing Service as a Library. This problem was designed to test a combination of behavioral, coding, and design capabilities, likely in the context of distributed systems or microservices.
Preparation Tips
I was given one week to prepare for the interviews. The recruiter explicitly advised me to focus on low-level design for the design round. From my observations during the process, I learned that they are not looking for exact solutions but rather how one thinks, implements, and handles boundaries and scalability. It's crucial to be vocal about your approach, as it helps interviewers understand your thought process.