Dream11 SDE-2 Interview Experience | Offer

I recently interviewed for the SDE-2 position at Dream11, and the process was thorough, with five rounds in total. The first two rounds were conducted virtually, and upon clearing them, I was invited to Dream11’s Mumbai office for the remaining three rounds. Dream11 took care of all travel arrangements, including flight tickets and cab transportation, making the experience smooth and well-organized.

Round 1: Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA)

This round focused on DSA concepts, where I was asked to solve 2 problems within a limited time (1 hour). The first problem involved using maps with string keys and list values, requiring a custom binary search implementation. The second problem asked me to remove k digits from a numeric string to form the smallest possible number. This was a straightforward DSA round, and the interviewers were supportive, providing helpful hints as needed.

Round 2: Database

The recruiter mentioned this round would focus on database concepts and a deep dive into my resume. The interviewer explored my past experiences, delved into my design choices, and thoroughly examined the tech stack I used in previous projects. They asked me to describe my current project, understand my design decisions, and justify my tech stack choices. There were also questions around PostgreSQL concurrency control, isolation levels, locks, replication, and how to scale PostgreSQL reads and writes. Some questions touched upon reactive stack, Netty, and R2DBC. I was also asked the classic question: how would I implement a BookMyShow ticket booking feature at scale, specifically how to ensure a selected seat is immediately unavailable to others. I have never experienced such an interview round; interviewers kept me on edge, and I felt they had the technical expertise to grill me hard if I messed up any questions.

Round 3: High-Level Design (HLD)

This was a high-level design round aimed at assessing my system design skills. The interviewer, a senior engineer, guided the discussion. I was tasked with designing an alerting and monitoring system similar to Prometheus and Grafana. The expectation was to first define the system's scope (NFRs and FRs), estimate scale and database storage, and discuss Consistency vs. Availability. We discussed how time-series data would be stored and in what format. Questions included how a Prometheus server would discover new pods for metric scraping and how to maintain active web connections with many clients simultaneously to scrape metrics. This was a fun round; discussions were mostly open-ended, and they were judging my ability to think about solutions and the pros and cons of each approach. Challenging questions were asked to assess my technical skills. Interviewers were also helpful if I got stuck on the problem statement.

Round 4: Hiring Manager

This round was taken by a Vice President who has been with Dream11 for over 8 years. Questions revolved around my previous work experience and certain scenario-based situations. I was asked how I would prepare my system for high-traffic events like the IPL, to explain the SDLC process I follow for feature development, and to describe the most challenging problem I solved at my previous company (Navi) and my contribution to it. They also asked how I keep myself updated with new technologies and the procedure I follow to solve incidents/bugs. He was a very humble person and wanted to understand my mindset and how I would handle challenging situations. This was roughly a 40-45 minute discussion, and no technical questions were asked.

Round 5: HR

This round was conducted by a very experienced HR professional. It included common questions, focusing on getting to know my background more personally. She asked about my childhood, schooling, college experiences, and how I developed an interest in coding. We also discussed my reasons for wanting to leave my current company and my perspective on my current colleagues. Additionally, she presented a few scenario-based questions to understand my approach in various situations, such as describing a time I went above and beyond to complete a task, what my manager would say about my strengths and weaknesses, and a situation where I failed but it proved to be a blessing in disguise. This was an overall fun round; we had a discussion for about 40-45 minutes, and she even told me about places I should visit in Mumbai before I left for Bangalore.

Two days after the interview, I received an email requesting documentation. I am currently in the salary negotiation phase.