Kotak

Role: SDE-1

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: Feb 2024

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Not Specified

Rounds: 3 Technical Rounds

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms, System Design, Java, Microservices, Database, API, CS Fundamentals

Experience:

The candidate applied through a referral and had a telephonic conversation with HR where CTC, tech stack, and reason for switching were discussed. HR clarified the role would be SDE-1 due to years of experience. The interview process consisted of 3 technical rounds.

Technical Round-1 (Bar Raiser): This round lasted 1.5 hours and was conducted by a senior developer with 8 years of experience. The interviewer asked 1 DSA problem and 1 Design problem. The DSA problem was "Merge Intervals" (LeetCode Medium). The candidate explained the approach, coded the solution, and discussed time and space complexity. For the design problem, the candidate was asked to design a cab booking service similar to OLA/Uber, focusing on API and DB designs. Discussions included API flows, DB schema, reasons for choosing an SQL database, and ACID properties.

Technical Round-2: This round lasted 1 hour and was conducted by an SDE 3 from Kotak. It involved an in-depth discussion (20-25 minutes) on the candidate's previous project, particularly focusing on Java and Spring. Questions were asked about Microservices, Database, and API. Following this, Java-specific questions were posed, including the implementation of HashMap (collisions, loading factor), how to make a class immutable, and differences between method overloading and overriding, and inheritance.

Technical Round-3 (LLD): The details for this round were not explicitly detailed by this candidate, but HR mentioned it would be an LLD round.