Intuit || SWE-2 || Bangalore || Accepted

My Intuit SWE-2 Interview Experience (Offer Received 🎉)

I recently interviewed for a Software Engineer 2 role at Intuit and wanted to share my full journey so it can help others preparing for similar roles. I have 1.9 years of experience.

📍 Process Overview

The entire process included a phone screen, a take-home project, and then four onsite rounds conducted on the same day.

Round 0 – Phone Screening (DSA + HLD)

This round focused on Data Structures & Algorithms and High-Level Design. For DSA, I was given three linked list problems:

1. Reverse a Linked List (expected both iterative and recursive solutions).
2. Find the Middle of a Linked List.
3. Reverse nodes in k-sized groups.

All these questions were tested thoroughly with edge cases. For HLD, we discussed concepts like the CAP Theorem and ACID properties. We also delved into my previous project work and the intricacies of transactions and their mechanisms. I received positive feedback and cleared this round.

Round 1 – Take-Home Spring Boot Project

Before the onsite rounds, I was provided with a Spring Boot project and had approximately one week to set it up locally. The expectation was that I would have it running for the subsequent rounds.

Onsite (4 Rounds on the same day itself)

🛠 Round 1 – Spring Boot Development (90 mins, 4 interviewers)

This was a practical development round where I was tasked with developing two new APIs within the provided Spring Boot project. We also had extensive discussions on various topics:

• Pagination: how, why, and when to use it.
• Designing the Data Layer and Service Layer.
• Implementing Global Exception Handling.
• Security and Rate Limiting.
• I had to explain my code structure and where each piece of functionality would fit within the project. I developed two APIs end-to-end and the interviewers seemed satisfied.

💻 Round 2 – DSA + HLD (2 interviewers + 60 mins)

This round combined DSA with HLD and debugging. For DSA, I was asked to reverse words in a string in-place using Java, without extra space, which was a bit of a twist since I usually code in C++. I also had to perform time complexity analysis for given loops, making certain assumptions. On the HLD/Debugging front, I was asked to set up a given LLM endpoint locally using a properties file. We discussed pagination, specifically the maximum possible page numbers and what would happen with absurdly large values (I missed part of this discussion). My approach to debugging in a Java client was also explored, and I was asked how I would write test cases for different APIs, including unit and integration tests, though I didn't code them.

🤖 Round 3 – AI/ML Concepts (Scheduled 30 mins → went 45 mins)

This round focused heavily on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning concepts. Questions included:

• What is Machine Learning?
• How do you know if a model is “trained enough”?
• Explanation of K-Means Clustering.
• How images are converted to vectors.
• What is a Vector Database?
• How vector similarity is calculated.
• Basics of Reinforcement Learning.
• Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Agentic AI / AI Agents / Generative AI.
• How Neural Networks work.
• Discussion on AI usage in my previous company.

🧑‍💼 Round 4 – Managerial (30 mins)

The final round was managerial, focusing on my motivations and career path. I was asked:

• Why Intuit?
• Why I believed I was a good fit for this particular role.
• Where I saw myself in 5 years.
• My expectations regarding team roles and alignment.