Nike SDE 3 Interview experience

***Time to give back to the LeetCode community..*

This is my experience of SDE 3 interview with Nike (India, Bangalore).

How did I apply:
Got a LinkedIn notification → redirected to Nike’s career portal → applied to all relevant openings (no referral).

Screening & HR Call:
HR reached out within a week to discuss the interview process and share some insights on what to expect. Nike gives generous prep time — but take it from someone who’s given plenty of interviews in the last 3 months — keep your prep short, around 2 days between each round max.

Interviews:
I had calls for two different teams under the same vertical, so sharing both experiences below.

Team 1:
R1: System Design (HLD-focused, minimal LLD) – 90 mins
Not your typical HLD/LLD — it was an open-ended discussion around scalability and distributed systems.

Problem Statement:
Design an online store for a retail brand like Nike.

LLD:
We started by writing a small server with a few APIs (Python + FastAPI) and discussed best practices for secure APIs.

HLD:
CI/CD: Talked through every step of a CI/CD pipeline — tools, experiences, pitfalls, and bridging CI with CD. Got deep into real-world scenarios I’d faced as a developer.

Design Flow:
Discussed a complete backend flow, with some pushback on design decisions and tool choices for core components.

Scalability:
This part got intense. We dove into both sides of the CAP theorem — designing for high consistency vs high availability. The interviewer had tons of real-world experience and challenged every design choice, especially around database scaling and trade-offs.

Result:
Cleared the round, but the position got filled.

Team 2:
R1: DSA – 30 mins
[LeetCode – sqrt(x)](https://leetcode.com/problems/sqrtx/description/)
A bit unconventional — the interviewer was more interested in the approach and analysis behind the optimized solution than the actual code.

R2: System Design – 60 mins
Problem Statement:
Design a backend system to manage incoming streams of concert ticket bookings from multiple vendors and provide efficient data flow to multiple analytics teams.

(Although more aligned with a Data Engineer/Scientist role, the focus wasn’t on that.)
We discussed a high-level design with key components and data flow, focusing mainly on scaling challenges and how to address them.

R3: Manager Round – 60 mins
Open-ended discussion on leadership principles — very similar to an Amazon-style round.
Scenario-based questions around crisis management, design conflicts, and failures.
Also covered "Why Nike?" and what I associate most with the brand.

R4: Regional Manager / Director Discussion
(Got confirmation of selection before this round)
Mostly resume-based — they asked about the applications I’d worked on in past roles and explained the reporting structure and hierarchy.

Result:
Got the offer :)

All the best for your shot at Nike or anywhere else.

P.S. A lot of you asked hence, sharing my prep work.
Refer to this comment :
[https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/7318007/nike-sde-3-interview-experience-by-anony-xd5y/comments/3220998/?parent=3220982](https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/7318007/nike-sde-3-interview-experience-by-anony-xd5y/comments/3220998/?parent=3220982)