My Interview Journey: Rejections, Grind, and an Unexpected Tier-1 Offer

Before the final offer came, my journey wasn’t smooth. I had a few rejections, some interviews that went nowhere, and months of silence from companies I really wanted to join. I had kept my target list small: only a handful of tier-1 companies. For practice, I gave interviews at 2-3 service-based firms. Meanwhile, I was preparing consistently -

- Followed LeetCode 75 + 150,
- Completed a Udemy DSA course to build fundamentals,
- Read interview experiences from LeetCode + Google’s real-world interview blogs,
- And even got the chance to interview with Google and Amazon during this phase.

JPMC - Where It Started

I had applied to multiple positions on JPMC’s portal without any response. Then suddenly, in early June, I received the online assessment. The questions were easy - medium and I cleared all test cases, so I was hopeful… but HR never responded, even after multiple follow-ups. At that point, I thought it was over.

PhonePe - The Unexpected Turn

I initially applied for the SDE role, but it didn’t move. So I applied for the PSE role, and surprisingly got a call the very next day.

Round 1 - Technical
- One LeetCode medium coding question → solved
- Linux scripting + commands
- SQL queries (missed one complex one initially, but solved it after the interviewer reframed it)

Round 2 - Hiring Manager
- Deep dive into my TCS project work
- A few SQL queries again

End of August, I got the offer. The package wasn’t high, but PhonePe > TCS on my resume, and I wanted to move. I accepted and resigned. At this point, I had mentally closed the chapter on all tier-1 hopes.

Then… JPMC Called Back

After months of silence, in mid-September, I suddenly received a call:
“We’re moving forward with your application.” I honestly didn’t believe something would come out of it. But then the Super Day was scheduled - 3 rounds back-to-back (45 mins each + 15 min break).

Round 1 - Technical Debugging + Coding
- Given ~100 lines of code and asked to find bugs
- Apart from all technical bugs, I found a logical bug too, which the interviewer appreciated
- Then a sorting + pattern-maintenance problem with numeric array - completed ~80% before time ran out(nearly 1 hour long)

Round 2 — System Design
A very standard, commonly-practiced system design question. (Everyone who has done SD prep has seen this one.)

Round 3 — Techno-Managerial
More technical than managerial - framework choices, scenario-based problem solving, and reasoning.

After 1–2 days, I got the call:
I cleared the Super Day.

Then came team matches - I had two. Matched with the second team.

And finally… the offer rolled out.