Birla Pivot

Role: SDE-1 (Backend Role)

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: Late 2023 (Video posted Nov 6, 2023)

Interview Type: Off-Campus (Recruiter reached out via Naukri.com)

Result: Selected (Candidate cracked the offer but did not join)

Difficulty: Medium

Rounds: 3 rounds

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms, Project Discussion (Low-Level Design, High-Level Design), System Design, Database (MySQL, Redis), UUIDs, Object-Oriented Programming, Behavioral Questions, Business Acumen.

Experience:

The candidate, with one year of experience from Paytm, was contacted by an HR recruiter via Naukri.com for an SDE-1 Backend role at Birla Pivot. The overall interview process consisted of three rounds.

Round 1: This round focused on Data Structures and Algorithms and in-depth project discussion. The interviewer primarily wanted to understand the thought process rather than requiring complete code. Two DSA questions were asked. The first was a standard problem: "Find the Minimum element in a rotated sorted array." The second involved an array like `[3,4,9,7,8,9,13,5]` and a target sum of `12`, where the task was to find all subarrays by splitting array elements to achieve the sum. The candidate was asked to explain their approach and pseudo-code.

Round 2: This round was conducted by a senior individual. It began with an extensive discussion about the candidate's projects at Paytm, including low-level design (LLD) and high-level design (HLD) aspects. Questions were asked about technology choices, such as "Why MySQL?", "Why Redis?", and alternatives to UUIDs (e.g., sequential counters). A DSA question was also posed: find the highest frequency word in a document and handle cases where frequencies are tied. The candidate was expected to provide a solution and discuss follow-up scenarios.

Round 3 (CTO Round): This round was taken by the CTO of Birla Pivot. Contrary to expectations of more HLD or DSA, this round was a healthy discussion about the overall software engineering domain. Topics included the difference between developers and engineers, the importance of business perspective in decision-making, and general discussions about the role of a software engineer. No DSA or LLD questions were asked in this round.

Overall Experience: The candidate found the interview experience unique as it heavily emphasized thought process and project discussions over extensive live coding. Two days after the final round, an offer was received.