Dezerv Investments

Role: Senior Software Engineer

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: August 2024

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Medium-Hard (Online Assessment)

Rounds: 4 rounds (Online Assessment + 3 Interview Rounds)

Topics Asked: Data Structures & Algorithms (DP variation), Low-Level Design (ledger and payments system, database design), High-Level Design, Hiring Manager questions (challenging tasks, business context)

Experience:

The candidate applied for a Senior Software Engineer role through Instahyre, with 5+ years of experience as a backend developer.

Round 0 (Online Assessment): This round consisted of two LeetCode medium-hard problems. The candidate solved one problem completely and half of the other.

Round 1 (DSA): The interviewer introduced himself and discussed his work and team for about 20 minutes. A DSA problem, a variation of a classic DP problem, was given. The candidate was able to code it in time, covering all edge cases for positive and negative numbers, and discussed optimization with constant space. The interviewer was one of the earliest members of the engineering team. The candidate was selected for the next round.

Round 2 (Low-Level Design): This round involved a problem related to a ledger and payments system. The discussion focused on low-level design and database design, with the interviewer asking for solutions and trade-offs for various scenarios. This was a healthy discussion for an hour. The candidate was selected for the next round, which was told to be a combined HLD+HM round.

Round 3 (HLD + Hiring Manager): This round was taken by the engineering head. After a brief introduction, the candidate was asked to talk about their most challenging task. After 30 minutes, the candidate was stopped, and the interview ended abruptly. The candidate felt they were probably looking for someone with more customer-facing product experience, whereas their experience was with internal services/products. The candidate noted that the interviewer did not allow them to elaborate on other challenges and seemed rushed. They also suggested that HR should conduct managerial rounds before technical rounds if specific work experience is a strict requirement, to save candidates' energy. The candidate was rejected.