Flipkart SDE2 | June 2024 (Offer)

I applied for the SDE-2 (Backend) position at Flipkart via LinkedIn, and the recruiter reached out to me on June 5th to schedule an interview for June 7th.

Round 1: Machine Coding Round
This round started with a briefing from an SDE 3, who patiently answered all our questions for 30 minutes. Following this, I had 90 minutes to code a solution in my preferred IDE. Initially, all candidates were in a shared meeting, but midway, we were moved to separate meetings with individual interviewers to continue working on the problem.

The question involved building a Tech Q&A platform where users could ask or answer tech-related questions and follow topics. I was given 7 mandatory features to implement and 2 bonus features. I managed to implement a workable and modular code covering all 7 mandatory features. After submitting the code via a Google form, I had an evaluation round where the interviewer cross-questioned me on my code. I was able to answer all questions, and this round went well, leading to my next interview.

Round 2 (PSDS - Problem Solving & Data Structures)
In this round, I was asked two LeetCode medium-level questions.
The first question was Longest Repeating Character Replacement, for which I provided an optimal solution.
For the second question, Pacific Atlantic Water Flow, the interviewer provided a hint, which helped me arrive at the solution. This round also went well, and I received a call to schedule my system design and Hiring Manager rounds for the same day.

Round 3 (System Design)
An SDE2 interviewed me and asked me to design a payment processing system with support for multiple payment gateways. I presented a High-Level Design (HLD) of the system, including APIs and entities.

Round 4 (Hiring Manager)
I was interviewed by a senior manager who focused on my current project, team structure, technologies I've worked on, and some behavioral questions. This round lasted 1.5 hours.

After a week without a call from HR, despite my attempts to reach out, I finally heard from the recruiter. They informed me that my feedback from previous rounds was positive and they wanted to conduct another Hiring Manager round.

Round 5 (Hiring Manager)
This round involved two interviewers, one of whom was a Senior Manager. They questioned me about my current project, delved into Java specifics, and discussed system design topics.

Again, there was a week-long delay before I got a call for a discussion with the Director. This was not a technical round but rather a conversation about my experience and Flipkart's work culture. About 4-5 days later, I received an email requesting documents for verification.

Verdict
The entire process spanned roughly a month, but I ultimately received an offer for the SDE-2 role.