My Flexport SDE-1 Interview Experience

I recently went through the interview process for an SDE-1 position at Flexport, which consisted of five distinct rounds. Overall, it was a very positive experience, and the interviewers were consistently nice and helpful, guiding me whenever I faced challenges.

Round 1 (Online Assessment)

This round was conducted on Hackerrank and comprised 4 questions: 3 focusing on Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA) and 1 related to API design or usage.

Round 2 (Problem Solving - 1 Hour)

In this round, I was presented with a grid-based graph question. The core task was to perform 'Q' queries, and for each query, determine if a path existed from point A to point B within the grid. I started by proposing a brute-force approach involving Q separate DFS traversals. The interviewer then prompted me to optimize, and I proceeded to code a solution using a single DFS. We further discussed more advanced optimizations, specifically a combination of Binary Search, DFS, and Hashing, though this approach was only discussed and not coded. The interviewer was very supportive and provided helpful hints.

Round 3 (HR Call - 15 Mins)

This HR call was explicitly mentioned as an eliminatory round. The discussion began with my tech stack and current project. I was asked several questions about my work, such as the problem statement my current project solves, its target customers, and various other related queries. Following this, we moved to basic HR questions like my future plans, my interest in joining Flexport, why I preferred a startup environment, my current compensation, and notice period. Before concluding, the HR advised me to research Flexport's work and their teams in India, which I noted for subsequent rounds.

Round 4 (Machine Coding - 1 Hour)

This round commenced with a 20-25 minute discussion about my resume and current project. Following that, I was given a problem statement for a Low-Level Design (LLD) question, where the expectation was to implement two APIs. I engaged in a thorough discussion for about 20 minutes on various edge cases and different 'what if' scenarios, outlining my approaches to handle them. With the remaining 10 minutes, I began coding. I successfully wrote all the necessary classes and implemented one API. Time ran out before I could code the second API, so we discussed its implementation and had a brief chat about Flexport's teams.

Round 5 (Hiring Manager - 1 Hour)

The final round started with a detailed introduction, after which the hiring manager extensively reviewed every line of my resume. We discussed alternative approaches for some of the solutions or implementations I had mentioned. Subsequently, I was given a LeetCode hard graph question. I struggled to come up with an optimized solution, so the manager asked me to think about and solve the brute-force approach. We ended up discussing a pseudocode for it rather than writing a working solution. We then shifted to a High-Level Design (HLD) discussion of my current project, specifically why certain tech stacks were chosen. The round concluded with more HR and situation-based questions, similar to 'how will you...' and 'what will you...' scenarios. I was also asked specific questions about Flexport, for which I had prepared based on the HR's earlier advice.

Overall, my experience was very positive. All the interviewers were supportive and helpful, making it a good learning experience.