SSE (Backend) @ Sprinklr interview experience
Summary
I completed three technical rounds for a Backend SSE role at Sprinklr, receiving a hire after the first round, a strong hire after the second, but ultimately was not selected after the final system‑design interview.
Full Experience
I recently gave interview at Sprinklr for SSE role backend. The process consists of 3 rounds total (All three technical)
Round 1: DSA - 1hr
Problem:
Find the total distinct subsequence possible in an array A such that a[i] - a[j] = (i-j) * d
Was able to solve this after a little hint. You can try doing some math around the above equation and can solve it.
Verdict: Hire
Round 2: DSA + System design - 1hr
This was one of the best round I have given, how interviewer carried this whole problem was interesting.
Problem: This was the question: https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/685338/microsoft-onsite-design-the-t9-predictiv-ef6a/
PS: Didn't knew this feature exists in all phone, discovered in the interview :)
Was able to suggest a typical trie structure based solution and then discussed how we can modify the standard trie structure to search contacts more efficiently.
Later, I was asked how I would productionize this system and what the table schema would look like.
Verdict: Strong hire
Round 3: Hiring manager - 1hr
This was the first system design round I had given. I was not able to structure my answer properly and panicked a lot because I was unfamiliar with the system. Somehow, I was able to design a working solution, but it was not the most optimal one.
I was also not communicating with the interviewer throughout the discussion. I explained the design only after completing it entirely. I think that was the point where things went wrong.
Problem:
Channel: FB, IG, TW.. Partners: Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, Google Accounts: DellFB, AmazonTW, GoogleTK..Millions of messages across thousands of these accounts daily
Design a scalable Alert Aggregation and Notification System for a social media message ingestion pipeline at Sprinklr.
Monitoring failures Deduplication of alerts Escalation policy Auto Recovery
Verdict: No hire
After this round, I received feedback from the HR stating that they would not be moving forward with my application. However, detailed feedback was not provided.
Interview Questions (3)
Distinct Subsequence with Linear Difference
Find the total number of distinct subsequences possible in an array A such that for any two indices i and j in the subsequence, the relation a[i] - a[j] = (i - j) * d holds.
Design the T9 Predictive Text System
Design a system that implements T9 predictive text functionality, similar to the feature available on phones. Discuss how a trie can be used to store the dictionary and how you would modify the standard trie to search contacts more efficiently. Also cover production considerations and database schema design.
Scalable Alert Aggregation and Notification System
Design a scalable alert aggregation and notification system for a social media message ingestion pipeline. The system must handle millions of messages across thousands of accounts daily, support monitoring failures, deduplication of alerts, escalation policies, and auto‑recovery.