💼 WorkIndia Internship + Full-Time Interview Experience

✨ Overview

I recently had the opportunity to interview with WorkIndia for a Backend SDE Internship + Full-Time Role. It was a referral-based process, and I’d love to share the detailed experience here so it can help others preparing for high-growth startups and backend-intensive roles.

📩 How I Got the Interview

I got referred by a SDE-1 at WorkIndia. After my resume was reviewed, I was directly shortlisted for the assignment round.

🧪 Round 1: Take-Home Assignment (Backend Heavy)

Type: Real-world Backend Project
Time: ~2 Days

📌 Task Details:

• Build a backend system for a train booking platform with the following features:
  1. Booking Seat: Handle concurrency properly to avoid race conditions.
  2. Find Trains: Show available trains between two sources.
  3. Cancel Booking: Implement a cancel feature with proper validations.
  4. Admin Panel: Allow admin to create train routes (source to destination).
  5. User View: Users should be able to view trains between selected stations.

⚙️ Tech Stack used: Node.js, Express, PostgreSQL, MySQL

✅ Tip: Focus more on clean architecture, error handling, and concurrency-safe logic.

💻 Round 2: Technical Interview 1 (Assignment Deep Dive + DSA)

Time after submission: ~10-12 days
Duration: ~1 Hour
Mode: Google Meet

👨‍💻 What Happened:

1. Interview started with a quick self-introduction.
2. We dived straight into the Assignment Review.
3. The interviewer asked me to demo the system live and explain the structure and logic.
4. I was asked to implement a feature live: Cancel Booking — edge cases were discussed.
5. One DSA Question at the end:
   🧠 Problem: Delete Nth node from the end of a Linked List

✅ Tip: Make sure you’re very confident with your own code. They may go into the smallest of implementation details.

💻 Round 3: Technical Interview 2 (DSA + System Design)

Duration: ~1 Hour
Mode: Google Meet

📌 Questions:

1. Again, started with a brief self-intro.
2. DSA Question:
   🔥 Count Inversions in an Array – classic merge sort-based problem from Striver’s Sheet.
3. System Design Question:
   🛠️ Design Instagram
   • Focus areas: Posts, Feeds, Users, Likes, Comments, Storage, Scalability.
   • Discussed about database choices, schema design, caching, queues, etc.

✅ Tip: Keep your basics of Low-Level Design (LLD) and High-Level Design (HLD) clear. Be ready to justify your tech choices.

💬 Round 4: HR + Behavioral

Duration: ~30 Minutes
Type: Conversational

🌱 Topics:

• Why WorkIndia?
• Long-term career goals?
• How do you handle pressure or deadlines?
• Tell me about a challenge in your project and how you solved it.
• Are you considering other offers?

The HR was super friendly and it was more of a culture-fit discussion than a test.

🎉 Final Verdict

✅ Selected!
However, I politely declined the offer as I had another opportunity that aligned better with my career goals.