Flipkart SD2 [Offer]

My recent interview journey for an SD2 position at Flipkart spanned over two months and included a series of rigorous rounds. Here's how it unfolded:

Initial Contact

On June 5th, I was approached by a recruiter who had found my resume – I'm still not entirely sure how! They quickly scheduled my first interview for June 7th.

Round 1: Machine Coding

This round was a unique experience conducted in a group meeting. After a briefing from a helpful SDE 3, I had 90 minutes to code a solution in my preferred IDE. The problem involved building a small tech Q&A platform, similar to a simplified version of Stack Overflow. I had to implement seven mandatory features, and I successfully completed all of them using a modular approach. The interview concluded with a code evaluation and some cross-questioning, which I felt went very well.

Round 2: Problem Solving and Data Structures (PSDS)

In this round, I was asked to solve two medium-level problems that are common on LeetCode: House Robber and Gas Station. I provided both brute-force and optimized solutions for both problems, and this round was successful.

Round 3: System Design

This round was led by a Senior Software Engineer. My task was to design a rate limiter. The design discussion was comprehensive, evolving from a local implementation to a global one, and covered both high-level and low-level design aspects thoroughly.

Rounds 4: Hiring Manager Interviews

These final rounds were conducted by senior managers and focused on a blend of technical and behavioral aspects. I discussed my current project, the technologies I've worked with, team structure, and system design challenges from my past experiences. Both rounds lasted about 30 minutes each and concluded positively.

The Outcome

After a period of 15 days of negotiation following the interviews, I finally received an offer. The entire process was thorough and quite a journey, taking about two months from initial contact to offer.