Phonepe Interview Experience | 6 YOE | SDE-III
Summary
I cleared two technical rounds (Machine Coding and Data Structures & Algorithms) for a Backend Engineering, SDE-III role at Phonepe but was ultimately rejected in the System Design round, which felt complex and lacked clear communication from the interviewer.
Full Experience
Role - Backend Engineering (5-7 YOE).
Round 1: It was a Machine Coding round, where there were multiple candidates on call, interviewer came and gave the problem and then asked candidates to solve them on thier own, once done we were supposed to share the code in a zip file to the recruiter. There was a time limit of around 1.5 hour to solve that.
After submission there was a evaluation call where the interviewer came and discussed about the implementation and it was for around 30 mins.
Problem Stamement: : HackAthon Platform
Verdict: Pass
Round 2: It was DSA Round, there were two hard levels problems asked
Problem 1: Sliding Window Maximum I was not able to give the most optimal solution it was roughly O(nlog(n))
Problem 2: Burst Ballon I was able to solve this
Verdict Pass
Round 3: System Design round
Problem: Design a order feed system for a food ordering app where users can see the real time updates to their orders.
Requirements:
1. Different category services involved in order path publish realtime context data into feed service under
a global orderId during the order life cycle. Expected Latency: < 50ms
2. Client apps can poll feed service for a consumer in real time(<10 ms).
3. It should give search/filtering option to user based on orderId, restaurantId, order status, time-window etc.(<150 ms)
4. It should allow user to download summary of past orders with a relaxed SLA(<2 sec) with time window constraints for eg. Last 6 months.
Number of users: 500m
Number of daily active users: 100m
Number of orders: 80m
Number Restaurants: 50m
Read qps: 5000
Write qps: 1500
This was not a good round as interviewer made the problem complex even after asking questions was not giving proper answers. Did not went through the process just asked directly to give the design. Overall this round was not good.
Verdict Rejected.
Interview Questions (4)
HackAthon Platform Machine Coding
The problem statement was to build a HackAthon Platform. The candidates were asked to solve it on their own within 1.5 hours, then share the code in a zip file to the recruiter. An evaluation call followed for about 30 minutes to discuss the implementation.
Sliding Window Maximum
I was asked to solve the Sliding Window Maximum problem.
Burst Balloons
I was asked to solve the Burst Balloons problem.
Design Order Feed System
Design an order feed system for a food ordering app where users can see real-time updates to their orders.
Requirements:
- Different category services involved in order path publish real-time context data into feed service under a global orderId during the order life cycle. Expected Latency: < 50ms
- Client apps can poll feed service for a consumer in real time(<10 ms).
- It should give search/filtering option to user based on orderId, restaurantId, order status, time-window etc.(<150 ms)
- It should allow user to download summary of past orders with a relaxed SLA(<2 sec) with time window constraints for eg. Last 6 months.
Number of daily active users: 100m
Number of orders: 80m
Number Restaurants: 50m
Read qps: 5000
Write qps: 1500