Hi folks, hope you're doing well!
I’ve been putting together some notes from my recent interview experiences, and I figured they might help anyone preparing for their next big round.
I’d post this on LinkedIn too… but let’s be honest — if my current company sees me dropping interview prep notes, they might start polishing my exit pass. 😄
(They think I’m in the top 0.1%, so let’s keep their illusions intact.)
Anyway, here are a few things I’ve learned the hard way:
🔥 Even easy DSA becomes WWE SmackDown when the interviewer is staring at you.
🔥 Review your basics — JS Promises, Python decorators, SQL joins, event loops — the classics never die.
🔥 Practice talking through your thought process; silence is not golden in interviews.
🔥 Don’t underestimate HR rounds — they can ask technical questions when you least expect them.
| Company | Role | Application Method | Interview Date (Approx.) | Status | Key Takeaways & Notes | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle | Java Backend Developer | Recruiter Outreach (LinkedIn) | November 6 | Rejected | Strong round covering System Design, DSA, Core Java, and a pair-coding challenge. Performance felt solid; awaiting feedback after clearing the first round. | Create a Caching System where we will have 2 method one to add the log into the cache and other we have to get the data of last 5 mins. |
| Rippling | Frontend Engineer | Company Careers Portal | November 6 | Rejected | Fell short in the initial routing/technical round. Need to sharpen core JavaScript fundamentals — especially Promises, async flow, event loop, and improve hands-on React.js problem-solving. Solved ~90% of the problem. | Was given with a Promises implemented have to read the promise response and then set the data on the screen and list the color and display it dynamically. React.js and Javascript |
| NxtWave | Full Stack Developer | Naukri | Upcoming | Active / Lined Up | Cleared the OA (medium/hard DSA) + AI-based Interview. Next round will focus on DSA, React.js, and Node.js, based on the job description. Got the email for next round filled the form but no update they are reaching me for the other roles. LOL | AI based interview question about resume and React.js and Node.js |
| Decentro | SDE (Backend Focus) | Wellfound | Recently Concluded | Rejected | Cleared OA (DSA + SQL) and a Bar Raiser round focused on Backend Concepts, Python Coding, Python Internals, OOP. Missed a technical question in the final quick chat: **Python Decorators (specifically using *args and kwargs inside a wrapper function), leading to rejection. Exact Code which I was unable to code full - **# Function doing sum of 2 numbers# Create a decorator (Caching layer)def caching(func):cache = {}def wrapper(*args,**kargs):key = (args)if key in cache:print("From Cache Sum : ", cache[key])return cache[key]response = func(*args,kargs)cache[key] = responsereturn responsereturn wrapper@cachingdef add(*nums):sum_value = sum(nums)print("Sum : ", sum_value)return sum_valueprint(add(2,3))print(add(1,5,5,6))print(add(2,3)) |
Grilled on Python Concepts, OOPS, ACID, Generators, Wrappers, DSA need to implementation all the permutation of a list. |
| SmallCase | Backend Engineer | LinkedIn Easy Apply | Recently Concluded | Rejected | Cleared OA (DSA ) and a Interview round focused on Backend Concepts, Microservices, Kafka, AWS, DSA. The interview was good hoping for the best. I think got rejected as I was unable to answer the Generator in python and Wrapper properly. Need to cover the python basics properly. | Discussed about resume, how i have implemented custom message queue using the DB, talked about microservices and question regrading python(Generators) |
| NAB | Platform Engineer (SDE 1) | Direct Reached | Interviewed | Rejected | Scored 67% on online Codility test got 3 question 1. Fix the smallest number < s having the maximum sum of digit. 2. Fix the code its is something based on ceil(a+b // 4) 3. In based on Prefix and Suffix type question “I have passed the Round and they called me for the interview on 13th Dec but I am travelling home on 10th So asked them to go Virtually but I am sure they will skip me SAD 😢” New update that I have interviewed them Online ace the Round 1 explain the DSA problem properly. Round 2 I have 2 sum kind of problem and I wrote the code but the interviewer wan’t why the code work and why his code which he pasted doesn’t work He was not satisfied with my answer it seems. Asked the recruiter for the status She told they are not moving further. Tired of getting rejected. | Waiting for rejection mail. Just learn to prepare for different scenario. The Recruiter it watching and we are 2 on zoom call solving the problem they will choose the best score person between 2. |
| Swiggy | SDE - 1 | Applied on Company Portal | Interviewed | Interview the first round and just messed off (Will surely get Rejected) | The interview start with a bald yawning and rude. He directly jumped into pasting the question.The Question was related to declicious food list of food where you have to find the sum of two food where the sum is the power of 2. I read the question and got panicked. In that case I need to be calm and read the question properly. I told that I will use 2 loop to just create the pair and find the it is power or not and number of pair. He asked me how you will do power and I just answer we can use Math.pow or bit shift operation for this but he just rudely said how can you do that. I got overwhelmend and just messed the approach. And then I was asked to optimized it till that I was blank and my mind went outside. I just explained him nonsense. I wrote code which was giving wrong output. Wrote something. Later asked about Java what is JVM, Memory Leak, IOC Container, Forgot the full form of IOC, Dependency Injection. | Waiting for rejection mail. How dumb I am I could have store all the 2 powers value till 20 which was the max and then use two sum approach and solved it. I am doubting my knowledge now. |
| Nike | SDE - 2 | Applied on Company Portal | Interviewed | Rejected | There were 2 Round in Office. Asked questions related to system design, resume, the asked about sql query and about design pattern → I don’t know where the Circuit Breaker pattern comes in. Talked about a SQL query and have and point that there is a concept of OFFSET but he wanted me to use nested query. Round 2 - It was also based on resume asked me a dsa question to give all the palindrome subarrays. I solved it with the recursion and brute force but he wanted me to optimize it where I lost, asked about kafka e 2 e working and I just told consumer and subscriber which he was not happy about and while going on I told that I have used kafka’s this part and he was not happy about and in last review mentioned that I have to know everything from the basic. Which I do agree. Had a learning. | Need to Learn everything from the scratch and question can be from anywhere and any type/form. We really need to prepare for everything. |
| Microsoft | SDE - 1 | Applied on Company Portal | Interviewed | No Sure May be 50-60% chances depend on the other candidates. Manifesting of getting another chance 🤞. Rejected got a call with Recruiter and he told that my second round didn’t went well | I had Round 1 (DSA) where I solved the first problem using recursion with memoization, but I forgot to add visited tracking failed one test case. Due to internet fluctuations and limited time, the interviewer said he understood my intuition and moved on to the next question.The second question was Stock Buy and Sell. I explained that I would use a greedy approach: buy at a lower price, sell at a higher price, keep track of the minimum price so far, and update the maximum profit accordingly. When the current value is greater than the minimum price, I sell, add the profit to the answer, and update the minimum price. This approach runs in O(n) time. The interviewer seemed satisfied and, during feedback, advised me not to overcomplicate the solution but to think simply and break the problem into smaller parts.In Round 2 (System Design), I was asked to design a cache similar to an LFU cache. Initially, I got confused with LRU, but after asking clarifying questions, I understood the problem. The interviewer then asked me to design it with O(1) time complexity for all operations. I could not immediately derive the full O(1) solution and proposed a single doubly linked list with a hash map, which would require O(n) time for some operations. Due to internet issues and very limited time, I implemented only the get operation. The interviewer seemed satisfied with my approach, and afterward explained that the optimal solution would use two linked lists along with a hash map to achieve O(1) operations. | Need to learn System Design based DSA need to focus more on Hard > Medium > Easy. |
| ZZAZZ | SDE-1 | Recruiter Reached through LinkedIn | Interviewed | Will be Rejected/Ghost. | The Interview was bad. I couldn’t ans the basic of JS,React.js and can’t solve the flattened array problem. I am literally pissed off with all the things what is going with me. I have to restart everything properly. | |
| GLACIS | Founding Engineer | Wellfound | Interviewed | Rejected | The Interviewer was from Vietnam. Its very difficult to understand his accent. Was asked question related to Networking like the OSI layer, OSI vs TCP/IP | |
| Autodesk | Full Stack Engineer | Naukri | Interviewed | The interview as good just missed the Optional and Stream.Hoping for the next Round. Got Rejected as unable to ans 2 simple Java question of Optional and Stream it really hurts | The interview went very well, and I genuinely enjoyed the questions. I implemented a singly linked list in Java, worked on database schema design, designed a high-level AWS architecture for image compression, and answered questions on core Java, design patterns, and Spring Boot. We also discussed REST API design and best practices. Overall, it was a great experience and I gave my best; the only minor gaps were around Java 8 Optional and Streams. | Need to brush up my Java concept more properly |
| Akamai | SDE 2 | Naukri | Interviewed | Offer Received | OA → Received OA on 13 Jan completed till 14 Jan Don’t remember the exact questions. But there are 2 DSA and also SQL based questions. R1 → (Nitu Rathore [Sr. SDE], Anand Subramanian [Sr. SDE]) (3rd Feb 2026) Asked about Java Filters, Basics and all this things. There were questions from Spring Boot. The DB question are super difficult like they asked me how Postgre work how it different from MySQL which to use when ans more. There are questions from basics but twisted. R2 (Reached after 2 months approx.) → Mark Warren [Senior Engineering Manager], Phil Heller [Principal Network Systems Engineering Lead] (30 March 2026). It started with the team the tech stack the things they were doing. It was Platform team. Crazy tech stack like python linux and more. They I asked why python not c++/rust as python have bottleneck and speed issues. They ans as the team competency on the tech not choice .The interview went well covered my Linux, Networking and DB knowledge. The first question was what happen when we press click start on the Linux machine. Explained full booting process and all. Then asked about how the request flow in dept when we do www.google.com to a linux server. Explained all the steps covered DNS,Routing,Discovery,Server,IP,MAC Address and all. Next asked about MySQL vs Postgres and then asked about the Migration and how it work there is a difference in both DB. I missed the Postgre feature but he was very cool he told he got the ans what he wanted. Then we move over to SQL it was easy join but I added something extra to the query as my advance understanding he told it was not need as we can remove the ISNULL so we don’t need that but with that also it will work it run all the testcases. They seems to be happy. As time was getting over they lastly asked about validation on ipv4 with regex I smiled and told about I am not that good in regex they smiled and told we don’t expect that we need all the things to be known by everyone. Still I try and told let me try. I try to explain the approach. Then he asked me about /d* /d? /d^ I answered that and he was happy. We tacked about bit about GENAI and more. Then he was curios about how I learned all this I told the truth about the Rahul Maheswari who was a google engineer teaching us. They were so happy about it. Then Phil asked me to explain about what AI research and open source project I am doing I explained about Omem then he asked did you use LLM for code I told the python script were written by me but I am shifting from python to rust so using llm for that. He told he will take a good look on the project. He was on my github and checking things. I was amazed and loved it. The between talk about for R2 I have waited almost 2 months and he assured me that this result will be faster as there were some issue related to hiring. | Need to clear all my basics |
| Myntra | SDE 2 | Naukri | Interviewed | No chance | The interview was about LLD on the Car Rental System. I did all this things but he wanted class digram I explain the class digram properly but he told the class diagram should be proper from controller and all this stuffs. At last I didn’t get time to code full system. | |
| ConverzAI | SDE | Interviewed | Rejected | R1 DSA round went well and got a takeaway assignment. R2 DSA round Got a graph problem similar exactly https://leetcode.com/problems/cheapest-flights-within-k-stops/description/?envType=problem-list-v2&envId=shortest-path Some behavioural. Interviewer told get ready for R3. R3 done was asked questions related to resume/behavioural/LP one DSA question which I didn’t find in leetcode it’s based on LRU. R4 - was great speaking to the Bhavik first interview on Friday we just speak basically like the Mentor and mentee we have to move the interview to Saturday. On Saturday given question I confused my understanding and was solving in different way but later solved it. It is basically Dutch National Flag problem the we modify it to sort the 4 char was fun. He advice me to think the problem first in simple way not to jump into the most difficult one. R5 → The CEO asked about the most difficult or tech you have solved or build that you are proud of. Given a question about I think Estimation planning. Suppose you have a building and you have to put elevator on it and peak hour there are 100 people at one time they can’t wait more then 2 minutes. You have elevator of capacity 40 person/elevator and can go from 0 - 50 in 1sec and then move from 50 - 100 in 2sec/floor. How many min no. of elevator we need I told with some cal first 4 but later recalculated and told around 9. But what if all the passanger take 9 elevator at 8:00 and 8:01 → 100 passanger , 8:02 → 100 passanger , 8:03 → 100 passanger. We agreed upon if there is no constraint we can put 103 elevator to smooth run one for each for first case then 3 can take 100 each time next. Then he asked about why change job told about interest in ai take ownership and build something that effect people. He asked any other interview going on I told no. The he told bestluck and he will update to HR and they will contact me. | ||
| Motive | SDE-2 | Website | Interviewed | Rejected | I have solved the DSA question and when asked to optimised I have done that too but I think my explanation and trying to solve with only the collection var defaultdict and not able to use .get() is the point to reject | |
| Flipkart | SDE-2 | Naukri | Interviewed | Rejected. Messed the System Design Round. | Appeared the Machine Coding round have to design a BNPL system. Done all this with proper working code and submitted waiting for the result.Selected On the MC Interview asked question about the MC design ,db choice, design patterns, code structure, dry run. Then gone through 1. String partition based question (Greedy,Hashmap,Sliding Window) https://leetcode.com/problems/partition-labels/description/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 2. Graph based https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-provinces/?utm_source=chatgpt.com solved with DFS asked to optimize this explained union path find but it took long but explained didn’t code. Selected for Design Round. | |
| Amazon | SDE-2 | Direct Reach/ Company Portal | Interviewed | Rejected.Messed the Design Round | Strong DSA rounds.Strong Leadership Principles discussions.Near-hire performance overall. R1 - 1. Recursion problem (adapted to DP) |
Requirements
Functional Requirements
Non-Functional Requurements
Services
Account Service -> Manage accounts -> Balance queries
Payment Service -> Initiates transfer -> Validates funds
Ledger Service -> Source of Truth -> Stores all transactions -> Accounting
User
UserAccount user_id account_id
Accounts
account_id -> PK user_id -> now single account currency status created_at
Balance
balance_id -> PK account_id -> FK balance updated_at
Ledger
ledger_id -> PK transaction_id -> FK account_id -> FK amount entry_type created_at
A DEBIT -100 B CREDIT +100
CREATE TABLE accounts ( account_id UUID PRIMARY KEY, currency VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL, status VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL, created_at TIMESTAMP NOT NULL, user_id UUID )
Rest
users /transfer /accounts/{accountId}
Best coding practice ->
a -> b RestTemplate Autowired -> B -> PostCall
Timeout Retry ->
A -> B
Networkissue 5xx Rate Limiting Downstream Service
Bussiness Failures 4xx Exception
Error handling Logging Circuit Breaker
Moved to R3 →
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