Sharechat

Role: SDE-1 (Backend)

College: Tier-3 college (Not from IIT, NIT, IIIT or BITS)

Interview Date: Not Specified (Post Date: November 2, 2022)

Interview Type: Off-Campus (Recruiter outreach via email)

Result: Offer Received (Declined/Skipped the offer)

Difficulty: Not Specified (OA questions provided)

Rounds: 4 rounds

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms, Low-Level Design, System Design, Behavioral questions, Trade-offs/Edge cases

Experience:

The candidate was approached by a recruiter via email for an SDE-1 (Backend) position.

Round 1: Online Assessment (70 minutes): This round had 3 coding questions.

• Problem 1: Given two arrays `a` and `b`, all possible coordinates are `(ai,0)` and `(bi,1)`. Find the largest area of a rectangle that can be formed. Return 0 if no rectangle is possible.
• Problem 2: Given a matrix of size N*M, starting at (1,1) and target (N,M). Allowed moves from `(i, j)` are `(i + mat[i][j], j)` or `(i, j + mat[i][j])`. Find the minimum number of moves to reach the end.
• Problem 3: Given a list of laptops (price, quantity), and Q queries with two price ranges `[p1, p2]`. For each query, find the maximum laptop rating in the given price range.

Round 2: Data Structures and Algorithm round (90 minutes): The round started with introductions. The interviewer, who worked in the ShareChat Ads team, seemed interested in the candidate's freelancing profile. This round focused on DSA problems.

Round 3: LLD round (2 hours): The design problem given was to design a YouTube video views counter API, including viewing counts for recent 1 minute, 1 hour, and 1 day. The candidate, new to LLD, was able to satisfy the interviewer by discussing future scope and improvements.

Round 4: Hiring Manager round: This round included behavioral questions such as "Why ShareChat?", "How did you learn new technologies?", "How much different is working solo freelance and working in a team?", and "On what things you can improve upon?", and "If not tech then what?". The interviewer also asked about trade-offs and edge cases for the solutions provided in previous rounds. The candidate received an offer but decided to skip it after negotiations.