Smartsheet Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience

HR Screening (15 mins)

Initially received a call from HR through a referral.
The discussion was around:
Current project and responsibilities
Tech stack being used
How I handle scale and high-traffic scenarios
It was a brief and smooth conversation.

Round 1: DSA Round

Question 1:
Given a set of numbers and a target value, return all possible ways to construct a set whose sum equals the target.
The same number can be used multiple times.
(This is similar to a backtracking / combination sum problem.)

Follow-up Question:
Modify the solution such that:
A number can be used only as many times as it appears in the input set.
Also generate set of number used.

Focus was on:
Correct approach
Handling edge cases
Time and space complexity

Round 2: System Design (Live Chat Application)

The round started with discussion about:
Past projects
Overall experience
Then I was asked to design a chat application for users watching a live event.
Key discussion points:
Functional requirements (real-time messages, ordering, scalability)
Handling large number of concurrent users
How to fetch old message
High-level architecture and data flow

Round 3: System Design (Playo-like Application)

Asked to design an application similar to Playo.
Requirements included:
Users should be able to view free playground
Users should be able to make and modify booking
Admin should be able to revise bookings and manage data

Discussion focused on:
Entity design
API design
Handling conflicts in bookings(most imp)
Scalability considerations

Round 4: Hiring Manager Round

This round was a deep dive into:
Projects I have worked on
Technical challenges faced and how I solved them
Key learnings from past experience
Also included leadership and behavioral questions such as:
How I resolve conflicts within a team
Decision-making in difficult situations

Final Step: Aptitude Test

There was a short aptitude test at the end, mainly to assess logical and analytical thinking.

Verdict : selected