2024 Off-Campus Interview Experience for Flipkart SDE1 Role

Landing a job at a company like Flipkart has been one of my key goals. Recently, I was fortunate enough to receive an offer for the role of Software Development Engineer 1 (SDE-1) at Flipkart. In this blog, I would like to share my interview experience, preparation strategy, and lessons I learned along the way.

Application process:

It all started with the job application. I applied for the SDE-1 (Off-Campus) position in a google form Flipkart had rolled out. I had filled out the form on July-21-2024. After a few days of waiting, I received an email for the first round of assessments. Flipkart’s recruitment process is well-structured, and I was promptly informed about each step of the process.

Round 1: Online Assessment

The first stage of the interview process was an online coding assessment. It was scheduled on July-28-2024 The test was conducted on Unstop and it consisted of 3 easy to medium level DSA questions. Although I dont remember the questions exactly they were very easy. There were 90 minutes to solve these questions. I solved all 3 questions, passing all test cases, in 40 minutes.

Round 2: Technical Interview (PS/DS 1)

After clearing the online test, I was invited for the first technical interview on August-7-2024. I recieved an email on July-30-2024 regarding the results of OA. This round primarily focused on data structures and algorithms.

The interviewer briefly introduced himself and asked me to introduce. I had mentioned that I am an opensource contributor and interviewer was impressed with that and asked me to show one of my merged prs. When I opened he asked me to open a PR with many comments. He glanced through my PR. Since it was a flutter app and he did not have much experience with Dart he did not ask any questions on that. After that he started asking DSA questions.

1. Generate all valid parenthesis (Backtracking): https://leetcode.com/problems/generate-parentheses/

2. Maximum path sum (Binary tree): https://leetcode.com/problems/binary-tree-maximum-path-sum/

3. Find cycle in LinkedList: https://leetcode.com/problems/linked-list-cycle/

   and proof for the Floyd cycle detection method.

I coded all the solutions without any hints gave optimal approach in the first try itself. For 2nd and 3rd questions he asked me if I had solved those before. I said yes and he was so impressed with my preparation.

At the end we discussed about tech stack used in Flipkart. I asked him an advise and he told me to keep contributing to open source projects. Interviewer was so happy. Interview ended with good note.

Round 3: Technical Interview (PS/DS 2)

After 2nd round I recieved the result on August-18-2024 and the interview was scheduled on August-30-2024. This round was also based on DSA and it was slightly harder than previous round. Interviewer joined the meet and shared me the drive link. Directly started with DSA questions.

1. https://leetcode.com/problems/furthest-building-you-can-reach/
   This exact question with different story(You are a spider man with c climbs and w webs).

   • Initially I gave Dynamic programming approach with O(n³). Then interviewer asked me to optimize the approach. I told we can improve this using priority queue and we use only climbs but when run out of climbs we will remove the maximum difference and add it to climbs and use web for that jump. He was satisfied with the approach and asked me to write only pseudo code.

2. https://leetcode.com/problems/copy-list-with-random-pointer/
   Explained him the approach with hash map and coded in one try. He was happy with my approach and my code.

At the end of the interview I asked interviewer about his team, about his responsibility and tech stack. He answered all of that and interview got over.

Round 4: Technical Interview (PS/DS 3)

Usually Flipkart takes only 2 PS/DS rounds for new grads. I was very surprised and I asked HR regarding the same and HR told its PS/DS2 evaluation for other team. This round was scheduled on October-1-2024.

In this round there were 2 interviewers on the meet. One was just observing me I guess. The other interviewer asked me to introduce myself. Then she shared a google docs link.

1. https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-largest-element-in-an-array/

   • Initially I gave O(nLogn) approach (Sort and Kth element from the end). The she asked me to improvise the time complexity. I gave the approach of O(nLogK) using priority_queue. She was so happy with my approach and proceeded to next question.

2. https://leetcode.com/problems/build-a-matrix-with-conditions/

   • This question was bit hard. Initially I gave them a simulation approach. And she asked me to optimize it. I was thinking out loud I told we can have array and assign them starting position and then increase the count based on the condition. Then she asked me how will you know the order to do so. Then I realized that it had to do with ordering and I got to know that it was topological sort question.

   • Then I explained my approach using Khans algorithm to get the topo sort and based on the order we can know the position of all the element. The interviewer was so happy and she was satisfied with my approach and with my coding practice (I was using good variable names, reusing functions etc..).

At the end She asked me if i had any questions. I asked about their tech stack, About Flipkart minutes and how did they manage to ship it within short amount of period. I also asked about how Flipkart scales during festive season. Then I asked when could I expect to hear back. She told Hr will reach out very soon😅.

Round 5: Hiring Manager round

The final round was more relaxed and centered around behavioral and situational questions. This round was scheduled on October-2-2024. Round started with both of our introduction.

Interviewer was so happy with my 10th and 12th marks 🌝. He even congratulated me for my state ranks on 10th and 12th board exams. Then he started asking me some behavioral/ Culture fit questions

• Will you come to Bengaluru and work onsite?

• Why should we hire you?

• What was your experience in the previous internship

• Some questions on my Open source contributions

• If you are assigned an issue/ feature how would you start coding it

• What is agile method and how it works (I had mentioned in my resume that we had followed Agile development process in my internship).

• How is your skills helpful for us.

• Whats Data structure and what are different types of Data structures.

• Whats BST and whats the use of it.

• DO you have Flipkart account ? What did you buy recently in Flipkart? xD

• What do you like and dislike about our app/website

I might have forgotten many questions. But it was mainly based on the resume, Previous experience and culture fit. Interviewer was so friendly. At the end he asked me if I had any questions. I asked how was Flipkart minutes scaffolded and shipped(The Hiring manager was part of this and he explained me a lot about this).

He also gave me an advise (As he was very senior manager i asked him what advise would you give to junior developers like me) to keep up with new trends and have the attitude of keep learning. He was so happy and satisfied. Then i asked him when could i expect to hear back. He told he was very happy and he would hopefully see me in office very soon and then told the hr will get back to you in 3 to 4 days.

Offer and Next Steps:

A few days after the final interview, I received the much-anticipated offer letter from Flipkart for the SDE-1 role. The email confirmed my selection and outlined the compensation package. My happiness had no bound after this.

Conclusion:

The interview process at Flipkart was intense but extremely rewarding. It tested my problem-solving, design thinking, and communication skills in a structured and fair manner. I am excited to start my journey with Flipkart and contribute to one of India’s leading e-commerce platforms.

Coming from a mechanical engineering background, I initially had doubts about how I would fare in such a highly technical role. However, this experience has made me realize that your branch or degree doesn’t define your potential - your skills and your ability to learn and adapt are what truly matter.

If you're preparing for interviews at Flipkart or any other tech giant, focus on your fundamentals, practice coding regularly, and stay confident.

I hope my experience provides some insight and helps you prepare better.

Key Takeaways:

1. Preparation is Key:

   • Practicing coding problems on platforms like LeetCode and thoroughly revising core CS concepts (Even though it was not asked to me, some people were asked oops, os and dbms. So better to be prepared.) helped me immensely. I had started my preparation from 2nd year of college and have solved question on leetcode consistently. (Leetcode profile).

   • Go through previous experience blogs, this will help a lot.

2. Explain Your Thought Process: During technical rounds, always verbalize your approach to solving problems, even if you aren’t sure about the final answer. Think out loud. Flipkart interviewers are all very chill and helpful.

3. Confidence and Clarity: The behavioral round is where the company assesses whether you are a good fit for their team. Be honest and clear in your responses, and share examples from your past experiences.

4. Trust the process: Finding jobs in this market can be daunting. Dont loose hope, just keep improving, keep applying. Keep calm and do your preparation consistently.