Kotak Mahindra Bank

Role: SDE-2 (Frontend)

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: Not Specified (Experience from 2023)

Interview Type: Full-Time (Applied through LinkedIn)

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Medium

Rounds: 3 Technical Rounds (2 Bar Raiser, 1 Kotak's panel)

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms, React.js, Low-Level Design, Web App Basics, Machine Coding, Behavioral

Experience:

The candidate applied through LinkedIn and received an email about the interview process, which consisted of two phases: one with a bar raiser and the other with the company's senior developer.

Technical Round 1 (Bar Raiser - 1 Hour): After an introduction, the interviewer asked a DSA question.

• Coding Question: Length of the longest substring without repeating characters.

Following the DSA question, the interviewer asked about React.js concepts:

• What is Virtual DOM?
• What is a diffing algorithm?
• Difference between class-based and function-based components of React.
• Concept of selectors in React Redux.
• How to improve performance and help with data retrieval in large-scale applications.

Technical Round 2 (Bar Raiser - 1 Hour): This was a low-level design round.

• Problem Statement: Design a JIRA-like app with buckets containing tasks (each with unique ID, task ID, user email). The candidate needed to provide a client-side solution with pseudocode for:
  • Suggesting correct data type to store data and perform operations.
  • Searching a task using user email.
  • Sorting tasks based on 'created at' date.
  • Deleting any task.

After providing pseudocode, the interviewer asked for Component design for the same, followed by basic web app questions:

• What is CDN?
• What is HTTP2 protocol?
• How do we keep track of the version of an application (Version Control)?

Both Bar Raiser interviewers were kind and helpful, providing positive feedback. The candidate was selected for the third (onsite) round.

Technical Round 3 (Kotak Panel - Onsite): A senior developer from Kotak conducted this round.

• Coding Question: Write a function to flatten an array, taking an array and depth as arguments (e.g., `arr=[ 1, 2, [ 3, 4, 5, [ 6, 7 ] ], 8, 9 ]`, `depth = 1` -> `arr=[ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, [ 6, 7 ], 8, 9 ]`).
• Machine Coding Question: Design a progress bar with Start and Stop buttons in React.js with proper UI. The progress should start from 0 and increase to 100. If Stop is pressed, it should stop and resume from the same value when Start is clicked again.
• Behavioral Question: Tell me about a feature you have worked on and found most challenging. How did you implement it, and what challenges did you face?

Despite feeling the interview went well and expecting to be shortlisted, the candidate received a rejection the next day.