Mindtickle

Role: SDE Intern (Backend)

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: Last week of May 2024

Interview Type: Internship

Result: Selected

Difficulty: Medium

Rounds: 5 rounds

Topics Asked: DSA (Hashing, Binary Trees, Dynamic Programming, Stack-based problems, Next greater/smaller element, BFS on matrix, Greedy algorithm, Priority Queues, Min Heap), Projects discussion, MySQL schema design, System Design (Google News), Behavioral questions, Company values

Experience:

This SDE Intern (Backend) interview process at Mindtickle took place over 4-5 days.

Round 1 (Online Assessment): This round consisted of 3 DSA questions (LeetCode medium difficulty) and 5 MCQs, to be completed in 1 hour 30 minutes. Topics covered included Hashing, Binary Trees, and Dynamic Programming. The candidate finished in about 60-65 minutes.

Round 2 (Interview Vector: Problem Solving): After introductions, there was a 15-minute discussion on the resume. Two DSA problems followed: a stack-based problem involving the concept of next greater/smaller element (brute force and optimized approach discussed), and a BFS problem on a matrix (optimized approach directly coded).

Round 3 (First Technical Discussion): This round started with introductions and was conducted by an SDE-3. It included 20-25 minutes of discussion and cross-questions on projects. The candidate was asked to design a rough sketch of MySQL schemas for a given scenario. A DSA problem involving a greedy algorithm and priority queues was then given, with a follow-up task of implementing a min-heap from scratch.

Round 4 (Hiring Manager round): After introductions, the candidate gave a brief demo of a hosted project, followed by deep-dive questions and situational questions on remodeling the project. The candidate was asked to give a brief approach to design Google News. The interviewer also explained the company's work and potential teams.

Round 5 (HR Round): This 30-minute round included questions about the candidate's knowledge of the company, its values, and recent achievements, along with behavioral questions. The HR informed the candidate of selection and discussed the offer.