Zomato (Eternal) | SDE | Gurugram | August 2025 [Offer]
Summary
I recently interviewed at Zomato for an SDE-1 position in Gurugram, successfully completing three rounds and receiving an offer, which was a dream come true for me.
Full Experience
Zomato SDE-1 Interview Experience 🍕🚀
Working at Zomato has been my dream since college days, and I recently got the opportunity to interview there. I had 3 rounds in total — 2 technical + 1 managerial. Here’s the full breakdown:
Round 1 (DSA + System Design)
Interviewer: Abhinav Bansal
This round focused on Data Structures & Algorithms and System Design.
Question 1: Minimum Swaps to Sort
I was given an unordered array consisting of consecutive integers [1, 2, 3, ..., n]. I had to find the minimum number of swaps required to sort the array, being allowed to swap any two elements.
Question 2: Banner Scheduling Schema
I was asked to design a schema and approach for showing a banner X times in Y hours for Z such durations. I explained how we can track frequency, enforce limits, and reset counters using the proposed tables. I successfully cleared Round 1.
Round 2 (Projects + LLD + DSA)
Interviewer: Kartik Khariwal
This round was very project-heavy. The interviewer wanted to dig deep into scalability & design trade-offs related to my previous experience.
Discussion on my Previous Experience (AI-based transcription & summary generation):
- How did I handle audio input from mic/system?
- How did I transfer heavy audio files to backend?
- How did I manage LLM token limits for >1 hr meetings?
- Why MySQL for the database? What were table schema & data types?
- Which external APIs did I use?
LLD Question: Restaurant Menu System (Zomato specific 🍕)
I had to model restaurant menus with multiple configs like size, crust, toppings (focusing on Domino’s case).
DSA Question: Suggest Dish Price
Given a merchant’s previous dish prices, I had to suggest a price for a new dish such that it was greater than 1/3rd of the dish’s price and less than 2/3rd of the dish’s price. I provided both an O(n log n) sorting solution and an optimized O(n log log n) solution using two heaps. I wrote pseudo-code for the optimized approach. I successfully cleared Round 2.
Round 3 (Managerial + HR)
Interviewer: Gyanendra Kumar (VP, Eternal)
This was a purely managerial round. We discussed:
- Why Zomato?
- My short-term & long-term goals.
- How I see myself growing here?
It was more about mindset, cultural fit & career goals than coding.
Final Verdict 🎉
I got a call the same day from HR — Selected for SDE-1 at Zomato 🚀. This is honestly a dream come true. Since college, I wanted to work at a big tech product company, and now I’ll be working on projects impacting millions of users. I'm super excited to begin this journey!
Interview Questions (4)
You are given an unordered array consisting of consecutive integers [1, 2, 3, ..., n]. You are allowed to swap any two elements. Find the minimum number of swaps required to sort the array.
Example:
4 1 2 3
1 4 2 3
1 3 2 4
1 2 3 4
3Design schema + approach for showing a banner X times in Y hours for Z such durations.
Example:
- Show banner 2 times in 24 hours, for 3 durations.
Model restaurant menus with multiple configs like size, crust, toppings (focus on Domino’s case).
Given a merchant’s previous dish prices, suggest a price for a new dish such that:
- Greater than
1/3rddish’s price - Less than
2/3rddish’s price
10 20 30 40 50 60
Suggested Price: Between 20 and 30
Preparation Tips
My preparation involved having strong DSA fundamentals, particularly with topics like cycles, heaps, and sorting. It's crucial to be prepared to explain your projects in depth, discussing design choices, trade-offs, and scaling considerations. Additionally, one should not ignore LLD/HLD, especially when applying to product-based companies. Finally, managerial rounds are more significant than many juniors might realize, so preparing for those is also essential.