Role: SDE
College: Not Specified
Interview Date: July 2025 (Last Updated)
Interview Type: Not Specified (Written Test followed by in-person/virtual rounds)
Result: Not Specified
Difficulty: Medium
Rounds: 4 rounds
Topics Asked: OOP, Project Discussion, Data Structures (Mirror Tree, Arrays, Heap, Hashmap), Algorithms (Best parking space), Java, Behavioral.
Experience:
This candidate attended an interview for an SDE position at OLA Cabs in Bangalore.
Round 1: Written Coding Test (1 hour)
- Design a Bowling game and write code for it, focusing on proper OOP concepts and good quality code. The problem statement was not difficult.
Round 2 (45 mins)
- "Tell me about yourself."
- Discussion about projects.
- Discussion on the coding test from Round 1.
Round 3 (1 hour 15 mins)
- "Tell me about yourself."
- Discussion about projects.
- Many technical questions.
- Mirror Tree (full code).
- Some questions on Arrays.
- Implementation of Heap and its complexity (explanation, not full code).
- Discussion on preferred language (Java), followed by basic Java questions, classes, and interfaces design.
- Given a parking lot with 3 entrances, find the best parking space for a vehicle. Initially used Hashmap, then came up with a Heap solution with hints.
- Detailed questions about Hashmap and its internal working, and hashing.
- "Why do you want to join a startup?"
Round 4 (45 mins) - Hiring Manager
- "Why do you want to leave your current organization?"
- "Why do you want to join a startup?"
- Current project details (emphasizing thorough knowledge of projects).
- Module diagram with a complete explanation for one of the projects.