DP World | Group SDE 1 | Software Engineer | India | Oct 2026 | Reject
- Experience
- 3.25 years
- Posted
- 3 Nov 2026
Summary
I interviewed for the Group SDE 1 role at DP World, cleared the online assessment and two DSA rounds, but was rejected after the third round.
How it went
DP World | Group SDE 1 | Software Engineer | India | Oct 2026 | Reject
DP World Group SDE 1 Interview Experience
Experience: 3 years 3 months Current Role: Software Engineer, ~FAANG, India Education: B.Tech, CS, Tier 1, India Current Compensation: ₹33 LPA
Application
- I applied to DP World on Company Portal in May 2026 without referral for 5 roles, all for Group SDE 2.
- In Aug 2026 I got OA for Group SDE 2 and completed the OA successfully.
- The recruiter called me after a week and said that sorry, Group SDE 2 requires 4+ YOE and you have 3.5 YOE.
- For next 2 months, I was ghosted. Then in October he called me again and said if I want to interview for Group SDE 1.
Round 1: Online Assessment
This was the OA, I don't remember the exact questions, but I do remember that:
- It had MCQ questions about: REST, HTTP, APIs, DBs, etc
- It had 2 DSA questions: I'd say easy to medium LeetCode
- It had 1 SQL question
Verdict: Selected
Round 2: DSA
Duration: 60 minutes
Question: https://leetcode.com/problems/edit-distance/description/
- I had already done this question before on LeetCode
- I first did it using Recursion and coded it
- Then applied Memoization to it and coded it
- Then ran a few test cases and showed that it was correct
- Then just explained verbally about Tabulation method
- Since we had ~15 minutes left, he said how will you print what operation you took at each step. I explained that this can be first filling up the DP table and then traversing the DP table from (M, N) until (0, 0)
Overall I felt I provided good enough solutions, communication and justifications for followup.
Verdict: Selected
Round 3: DSA
Duration: 60 minutes
Question 1: https://leetcode.com/problems/min-stack/description
- I had never done this question before on LeetCode
- So it explained various approaches using: Heap (priority_queue<>), Balanced BST (map<>), Arrays (vector<>), but I realized that none of them will give me O(1) for getMin()
- So it took me some time to figure out that I need a monotonic stack here and once I figured that out, I explained and wrote perfect code in 5 minutes and ran it on a few cases and it worked.
Question 2: https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-sorted-array/description/
- I had already done this question before on LeetCode
- So I first gave naive solution to: combine both arrays and sort in O(M+N log(M+N)) time
- Then I told him that since they are already sorted, so I will use two pointers at i=0 and j=0 and do it in O(N+M) time.
- Followup: He said that you cannot use extra space, you have to put first N elements at arr1 and next M elements in arr2.
- Now, this was unique to me, and I spent 10 minutes but could not come up with an algorithm that runs in O(N+M) time and not take extra space.
- During this 10 mins, I explained various approaches like: swap(), cyclic sort, etc and how they cannot solve this issue.
- After the interview, I looked at this online and noticed that a solution in O(N+M) time and not take extra space is not possible. We need to use more time here. And this is something I believe the interviewer could have made a bit more clear to me.
Verdict: Rejected
Final Outcome
I called the recruiter and he said that my Round 3 feedback was "not that great", so he has sent my candidature to HM and it is currently on hold. If they don't get enough candidates, then they might call me back. But I am counting this as a reject for now.
Rejected
If I had cleared Round 3, then Round 4 would be the final round with the HM where it's the usual HM things like past projects, tech stack and some cultural fit and behavioral questions.
Note
- Notice Period: 45 days
- Group SDE 1 : 1.5 YOE to 4 YOE
- Group SDE 2 : 4+ YOE
- 3 days Work From Office + 2 days WFH
All Interview Outcome
I have been applying to jobs since May 2026 and actively interviewing. Below is the list of companies where I have interviewed till now. Will keep updating this.
Questions asked (3)
- 01
Edit Distance
Data Structures & Algorithms · Medium
Open the problemGiven two strings word1 and word2, find the minimum number of operations (insert, delete, replace) required to convert word1 into word2.
- 02
Min Stack
Data Structures & Algorithms · Easy
Open the problemDesign a stack that supports push, pop, top, and retrieving the minimum element in constant time.
- 03
Merge Sorted Array
Data Structures & Algorithms · Easy
Open the problemGiven two sorted arrays nums1 and nums2, merge nums2 into nums1 as one sorted array. The first array has enough space to hold additional elements.