FlipKart | SDE2 | Offer Accept | Aug 2023

I interviewed at Flipkart for an SDE2 Backend role in August 2023. The entire process was quite fast, taking just one week from application to offer acceptance.

Application Process

I applied through a referral after spotting the job posting on their careers page. My friend of a friend helped with the referral, and the very next day, HR called me to inform me that my resume had been shortlisted. They explained the full interview process, emphasizing that this position needed to be closed quickly, which meant there wasn't much time for preparation.

The interview consisted of four rounds:

• Round 1: Machine Coding
• Round 2: Data Structure and Algorithm / Problem Solving
• Round 3: High-Level Design (HLD) and Low-Level Design (LLD)
• Round 4: Hiring Manager

Interview Process

Round 1 - Machine Coding

This round was scheduled the day after my resume was shortlisted. It lasted 2.5 hours, broken down into 30 minutes for problem explanation and clarification, 1.5 hours for coding, and 30 minutes for code walkthrough and inspection. During the problem explanation phase, I made sure to clarify all potential use cases. The problem involved 6-7 entities, and I focused on writing modular code with proper error handling and logging, ensuring all expected cases worked.

In the code evaluation segment, the interviewer probed my thought process behind each design decision. It was crucial that my code was runnable and easy to debug, as they asked me to implement a new feature, and my code allowed for minimal changes. I received strong positive feedback within 15 minutes of the interview.

Round 2 - DSA / Problem Solving

This 1-hour round took place the day after Round 1 and involved two DSA problems. I successfully solved the first problem with running code and provided a working solution for the second, discussing further optimizations. This resulted in "Good hire" feedback.

Round 3 - Design Round (LLD & HLD)

Again, this round was scheduled for the very next day. A popular design problem was presented. I discussed the database schema, the high-level design encompassing all services and their responsibilities, and argued why a microservice architecture would be preferable over a monolith for the given use case. We also covered concurrency issues and their handling.

The interviewer delved deeply into my knowledge, asking in-depth questions about Redis, such as how its cluster scales, how replication works internally, what happens during failures, how to prevent them, and how to ensure consistency. Similar detailed questions were posed regarding MongoDB. The final 15 minutes were dedicated to discussing my current company project, its HLD and LLD, my major contributions, tools used, and how scalability and load testing were handled. I received "Strong hire" feedback for my performance, especially on the HLD questions.

Round 4 - Hiring Manager

This round began with a basic introduction and a discussion of my current projects, focusing on my major contributions and their impact on the product. Following standard HM questions, I used the remaining 25 minutes (and even an extra 5 minutes past the scheduled end) to ask extensively about the team, its structure, system architecture, and how teams collaborate. The HM was very patient and happy to answer all my inquiries. I received "Strong hire" feedback from this round as well.

The HR called me the very next day to confirm my qualification and informed me that they were rolling out the offer. I received and accepted the offer by the end of the day.