HashedIn by Deloitte – On-Campus Interview Experience (SDE Role)

Company

• HashedIn by Deloitte
• CTC - 8.1 LPA

Drive Type

On-Campus (Multiple Colleges)

Shortlisting Criteria

• Minimum 75% in UG

---

Round 1: Online Assessment (OA)

• Duration: 90 minutes
• Mode: On-campus
• Questions: 3 DSA problems
• Difficulty: Easy–Medium–Hard (varied per candidate)

Observations:

• Question sets were random:
  • Some got Easy–Medium–Hard
  • Some got Medium–Medium
  • Some got Medium–Hard
• Most problems were from:
  • Arrays
  • Strings
  • DP
  • Graphs

Outcome:

• ~400+ students appeared across multiple colleges
• Results were declared the same day
• Only 40 students shortlisted for the next round

My performance:

• I solved all 3 questions
• One of my friends solved 2.5 questions
• Both of us got shortlisted

Insight: Completing all questions matters, but partial solutions can still get you through.

---

Round 2: Technical Round 1 (TR-1)

(DSA + Core CS + SQL)

• Duration: ~1 hour
• Mode: Face-to-face

Surprise Start

• The round started with a React component
• I was not expecting frontend here, but managed to write the code

DSA Section

• 5–6 Medium level questions, including:
  • Longest Common Substring
  • Buy and Sell Stock (variation)
  • Balanced Parentheses
  • Other array/string problems

For another candidate, one of the questions was:

• Generate all possible valid IP addresses from a given string (GFG)

SQL + Core CS

• SQL queries (JOIN-based)
• Questions from:
  • DBMS
  • OOPS
  • OS
  • DNS (high-level working)
  • TCP vs UDP

Interviewer Experience:

• Extremely supportive
• More discussion-oriented than interrogation
• Felt like problem-solving together rather than a stress interview

Outcome:

• Out of 40 candidates,
• Only 12 were shortlisted for the next round

---

Round 3: System Design Round

⚠️ This was NOT DB design / ER diagram.
It was a full-fledged System Design round.

Structure of the Round

1. Introduction & deep dive into my projects
2. Given a system description and asked to:
   • Write Functional Requirements
   • Write Non-Functional Requirements
3. Draw complete architecture, including:
   • API Gateway
   • Load Balancer
   • Middlewares
4. Design the database
5. Write 5–6 SQL queries based on the schema
6. Explain:
   • Scaling strategy
   • Handling concurrent users
7. Asked to write a prompt for AI integration into the system

Where I struggled

• I wrote:
  • ~7 Functional Requirements
  • Only 2 Non-Functional Requirements
• I was prepared for ER diagrams, not full system architecture
• Most online experiences mentioned DB/ER design, so this caught me off guard

Interviewer Behavior

• He pushed and grilled hard
• Even after realizing I wasn’t strong in system design, he:
  • Gave hints
  • Asked follow-up “why” questions
  • Challenged my design decisions
• Asked what preparation I had done for system design

Honestly, the depth of questioning and perspectives he brought were things I had never thought about before.

---

Results

• Out of 12 candidates,
• Only 2 moved to the final round (Fitment / HR)
• My journey ended here

---

Final Thoughts / Takeaways

• This interview boosted my confidence in DSA
• It exposed a major gap in my preparation:
  • 👉 Requirement-driven system design
• The system design bar felt very high for a fresher, but:
  • It gave me a clear direction on what to learn next
  • The questions genuinely improved my thinking
• Overall experience was good
• The main HR was friendly and professional — we even had some casual conversation

Key Lesson

Don’t rely only on online interview experiences.
Be prepared for full application-level system design, even as a fresher.