Kotak SDE-1 BarRaiser - 1st round
- Location
- India
- Posted
- 3 May 2026
Summary
Cleared the interview process which consisted of three rounds: DSA, LLD, and Distributed Systems.
How it went
Applied for Kotak SDE-1 role (India). I filled out a google form posted by a recruiter on LinkedIn. Got an email that I was shortlisted and below were the questions asked and format of interview.
90 mins interview.
3 rounds.
Round 1 - DSA (2 Questions)
Round 2 - LLD
- Design a food delivery system.
- Main focus was on DB choice for restaurant browsing.
- Design DB schema.
- APIs for any one module
Round 3 - Distributed Systems
- What is idempotency?
- What are LOCKS and where are they used?
- Why are replicas needed and what are the tradeoffs that come with it?
Questions asked (6)
- 01
Plus One
Data Structures & Algorithms · Easy
Open the problemYou are given a large integer represented as an integer array
digits, where eachdigits[i]is the ith digit of the integer. The digits are ordered from most significant to least significant in left-to-right order. The large integer does not contain any leading 0's.Increment the large integer by one and return the resulting array of digits.
- 02
Climbing Stairs
Data Structures & Algorithms · Easy
Open the problemYou are climbing a staircase. It takes
nsteps to reach the top.Each time you can either climb 1 or 2 steps. In how many distinct ways can you climb to the top?
- 03
Design Food Delivery System
System Design
Design a food delivery system. Focus on database choices for restaurant browsing, design the database schema, and define APIs for at least one module.
- 04
Idempotency Concept
System Design
Explain what idempotency is and why it matters in distributed systems.
- 05
Understanding Locks
System Design
What are locks and where are they typically used in system design?
- 06
Replicas Tradeoffs
System Design
Why are replicas necessary in distributed systems and what tradeoffs do they introduce?