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Summary
I interviewed for an SDE role at Zomato in December 2021 as a new graduate from a tier 1 college and successfully received an offer after completing an online assessment and a technical interview round. The process primarily focused on my problem-solving skills and approach to coding challenges.
Full Experience
Round 1: Online Assessment
This round was an online assessment consisting of four Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) problems, which were in the medium to hard range of LeetCode. The duration of this round was 60 minutes. After completing the assessment, I was asked to fill out a Google form with details such as my JEE rank, coding platform ratings, GitHub profile, and CGPA. Approximately 50 students were shortlisted from this round.
Round 2: Technical Interview
This round took place on day 1 of the on-campus interviews and was a face-to-face interview conducted via Google Meet. The interviewer started by asking for my introduction, and then immediately moved to a DSA question. The problem was a slightly modified version of the LRU Cache problem. He first asked me to discuss my approach. I began by explaining a basic brute-force approach using 3-4 hashmaps, which had linear time complexity. I then optimized it to achieve O(log n) time complexity. I further attempted to convert it into an O(1) time complexity solution using a LinkedList, but my initial logic did not cover a few edge cases. The interviewer then gave me a hint, which enabled me to solve the question properly. The discussion for arriving at an O(1) solution took around 30 minutes. As the round was only 40-45 minutes, he told me not to write the code as he was satisfied with my explanation. Afterward, he spoke about his work at Zomato and his recent achievements. I asked a few questions regarding his work and how they tackled specific problems, particularly about the search option in the Zomato app, as he worked on this feature. This discussion continued for another 5 minutes, and he concluded the interview by sharing a few points on the work culture at Zomato.
Interview Questions (5)
Given N number of pages in N different books and M students. The books are arranged in ascending order of the number of pages. Every student is assigned to read some consecutive books. The task is to assign books in such a way that the maximum number of pages assigned to a student is minimized.
Count the number of ways to partition a binary string such that each resulting substring contains exactly two '0's.
A problem similar to Largest Rectangle in Histogram. This problem can be solved efficiently using a stack-based approach.
A slightly modified version of the LRU Cache design problem. This typically involves designing a cache that evicts the least recently used items when it reaches its capacity.
Preparation Tips
After being shortlisted for the face-to-face rounds, the focus was entirely on problem-solving skills and my approach to problems, with no discussion on past internships or projects. It is crucial to communicate continuously with the interviewer throughout the process. Paying attention to their work at Zomato and asking insightful questions can be a significant bonus point that boosts your selection chances. For candidates not from a CSE background, I recommend having 2-3 software-related projects or internships on your resume and GitHub profile. This provides a platform to discuss your work in HR and hiring manager rounds. I believe this might have been a reason for rejections I faced in final rounds from other companies, as one HR even provided feedback to improve my resume with more projects and open-source contributions, as they felt my resume was more suitable for a core role rather than an SDE position.