Target Sr Software Engineer Interview
- Posted
- 3 Apr 2026
Summary
I attempted the Target Sr Software Engineer interview, cleared the online assessment and most rounds but was ultimately rejected after the hiring manager round.
How it went
OA
Three questions
a. Find distance between two strings (delete, replace, insert) for Q queries and return minDis String from S strings.
b. Find LuckyNumbers from [l,r]. 1<= l,r <= 10^18 lucky numbers x are integers, which are divisible by floor(sqRoot(x)).
c. Synchronised ticket booking system where total N seats are available. you return for Q queries first seat available, if not available -1; First available seat is assigned (assuming enough seats are there).
Verdict : Cleared all test cases
Round 1 - DSA
2 LC easy question (don't remember).
Verdict : Positive
Round 2 - LLD Design Redbus LLD -> expectation was functional requirements and entities, classes, interfaces (no code, just listing out) and showing user journey flow while booking. Asked question about one SQL query which required join between 2 tables
Verdict : Positive
Round 3 - HLD
Design Google Drive - Functional Req, Non functional Req, Database tables and choice, Architecture and components were discussed
Verdict : Positive
Round 4 - Hiring Manager
Most challenging project, tradeoffs in decisions, production issue, mentoring, etc - mostly typical hiring manager questions.
Verdict : Negative - unprepared
Overall verdict : Rejected
Questions asked (3)
- 01
Edit Distance Query with Minimum Distance String
Data Structures & Algorithms
Find distance between two strings (delete, replace, insert) for Q queries and return the string with minimum edit distance from a set S of strings.
- 02
Lucky Numbers in Range
Data Structures & Algorithms
Find LuckyNumbers within the interval [l, r] where 1 ≤ l, r ≤ 10^18. A lucky number x is an integer that is divisible by floor(sqrt(x)).
- 03
Synchronised Ticket Booking System
Data Structures & Algorithms
Implement a synchronised ticket booking system with N total seats. For each of Q queries, return the first available seat; if none are available, return -1. The first available seat should be assigned assuming enough seats remain.