How I Cracked ZS Associates (BTSA) : My Journey from LeetCode to a 14.2 LPA Offer

Getting placed on campus is a journey filled with preparation, uncertainty, self-doubt, and a few moments where you genuinely have no idea what is going to happen next.

For me, that journey ended with an offer from ZS Associates for the Business Technology Solutions Associate (BTSA) role with a 14.2 LPA CTC.

Here is the complete story of how it happened.

Round 1: Online Assessment

ZS Associates visited our college for campus placements with two roles - BTSA and DAA.

Since I was a Computer Science student and BTSA involved a technical assessment, I applied for the BTSA role.

Around 500 students appeared for the first round.

The first round was an online assessment consisting of aptitude and problem-solving questions. The biggest challenge was the extremely limited time - we had around 5 minutes to solve 25 questions.

The assessment included:

8 Logical Reasoning questions 8 Quantitative Aptitude questions 8 Verbal/English questions An unstructured problem-solving question involving a guesstimate

With only a few minutes available, there was almost no room for overthinking. Speed, accuracy, and the ability to quickly identify the right approach were extremely important.

Out of around 500 candidates, 115 were shortlisted for the next round.

Thankfully, I was one of them.

Round 2: Communication Round

The second round was a communication assessment.

This round was less about technical knowledge and more about how clearly and confidently you could communicate.

We were asked to speak out loud, complete sentences, respond to different prompts, and express our thoughts clearly.

One of the activities involved talking about a special gift given by a friend, along with other similar communication-based tasks.

At the end, we were also asked to write an essay.

After this round, the number of candidates was reduced from 115 to around 72.

The next round, however, was where things became much more technical.

Round 3: Technical Assessment

The third round consisted of three different technical components, each testing a different skill.

1. DSA

The first problem was a DSA problem that had to be solved specifically in Python.

This tested our problem-solving ability and understanding of data structures and algorithms.

1. SQL

The second problem was a medium-to-hard SQL problem.

It tested our ability to write queries and work with data efficiently.

1. Software Development Simulation

The third part was probably the most interesting one.

We were given a proper project folder/codebase and two tickets representing issues or complaints with the project.

Our task was to understand the existing project, identify what needed to be changed, and implement the necessary fixes - whether that meant modifying existing code or adding new code.

We were also given access to 30 Copilot AI messages.

This meant we could use AI for assistance, but we had to use those messages wisely. Once the 30-message limit was exhausted, we could no longer take assistance from Copilot.

I found this round interesting because it wasn't simply testing whether you could write code from scratch.

It was testing whether you could understand an existing codebase, debug it, solve problems, and use AI as a development tool effectively.

After this round, 41 candidates were shortlisted for the BTSA role.

And I was one of them.

Now came the most important part of the process - the interviews.

Round 4: Technical Interview

The first interview was scheduled for around 60 minutes.

It started with the usual introductions. I introduced myself, and the interviewer introduced himself.

We then moved into a discussion about my projects.

I had three projects on my resume, and we discussed them in considerable detail.

The interviewer asked questions such as:

Why did I choose a particular technology? Why did I use that specific tech stack? Why did I choose MongoDB? Why did I use a non-relational database instead of a relational database? How did my database work? Why did I make certain architectural decisions?

This part of the interview reinforced something I had learned during preparation: If you put something on your resume, be prepared to explain every single line of it.

After the project discussion, we moved to the technical questions.

The interviewer asked me which language I was most comfortable with. I told him that I was comfortable with both Java and SQL, and he gave me a choice of which one he should question me on.

I chose SQL because I was more prepared for it.

He then gave me three SQL problems.

The questions involved concepts such as:

Finding the top salaries by department Finding the fifth-highest salary within a department Finding duplicate email addresses

Some of these problems were similar to questions I had encountered while practicing on LeetCode, which was where my preparation started paying off.

He also asked a follow-up question about what should happen if multiple employees had the same salary.

In that situation, I had to think about how to make the ordering deterministic - for example, using a unique ID as a secondary ordering factor.

After the technical questions, the interview moved away from coding.

The interviewer gave me a classic two-candle puzzle.

Each candle takes exactly 60 minutes to burn completely, but they don't necessarily burn at a uniform rate. The task was to measure exactly 45 minutes using the two candles.

After the puzzle, he asked me some HR and situational questions.

And after roughly an hour, the first interview was over.

One round down.

One more to go.

Round 5: Managerial + EBI Interview

The second interview was with a Senior Associate who had been working at ZS for around 13 years.

Interestingly, this interview started very differently.

We first had a casual conversation about my background - where I lived, my home, how I travelled to college every day, and so on.

I believe this was also a way of evaluating my communication skills, something I knew would be important for the role.

Then came the first guesstimate.

Guesstimate 1: Number of Planes Taking Off from India

I was asked to estimate the total number of planes taking off from India annually.

I explained my approach and started working through the estimation.

However, according to the interviewer, my approach wasn't the best way to structure the problem. There was a better way to approach the estimation.

At this point, I started getting nervous internally.

I didn't panic during the interview, but I realized that I had to be careful because I felt I was losing my chance if I continued like this.

Then the interviewer gave me another guesstimate.

Guesstimate 2: Number of Phones Sold in India

The second question was to estimate the total number of phones sold annually in India.

This time, I approached the problem differently.

I structured my assumptions properly, worked through the numbers, and eventually arrived at an answer that was very close to the expected figure.

The interviewer acknowledged that I was close and seemed satisfied with my approach.

That was a huge relief.

After the guesstimate, the conversation moved back toward more personal and managerial questions.

We discussed:

Why I wanted to join ZS Which other companies had visited our campus Why I wanted to join ZS specifically My motivations and career goals

For these questions, I tried not to give the standard answers that interviewers hear from every candidate.

Instead, I tried to give answers that were genuinely my own and approached some of the questions from a slightly different perspective.

The interviewer seemed quite interested in my answers, which gave me some confidence.

And after around an hour, the second interview ended.

The Wait

We were asked to wait at the placement cell because ZS usually announced the results on the same day.

So we waited.

But there was a catch.

The ZS employees had a flight to catch, so they had to leave before the results could be announced.

We were told that the results would be announced the next day.

That night was probably the most uncertain part of the entire process.

I spoke to some of the other candidates, and almost everyone I asked felt that their interviews had gone really well.

Meanwhile, I kept thinking about my first guesstimate.

I hadn't approached it in the way the interviewer expected.

And because of that, I had almost convinced myself that I wasn't getting selected.

After making it through multiple rounds, I was now thinking: "There is no way my name is going to be on that list."

The Result

The next day, the final list was released.

Out of the 41 candidates shortlisted for BTSA, only 7 were finally selected.

I opened the list.

And there it was.

My name.

I had made it.

After going through: 500 -> 115 -> 72 -> 41 -> 7 I was one of the seven selected candidates.

And just like that, I had received an offer for the Business Technology Solutions Associate (BTSA) role at ZS Associates with a 14.2 LPA CTC.

The ironic part? I had gone into the result almost completely convinced that I had lost my chance because of the first guesstimate.

And yet, I was selected.

That taught me one of the biggest lessons from this entire experience: You rarely know how an interview actually went until the result is in your hands.