Paytm Interview Experience for Backend Developer

Role: Backend Developer (Experience: 2.5 years)

I applied through LinkedIn and received the invitation for the first round (Hackerrank online test) within 1 week.

Online Hackerrank (3 coding questions)

• Check if subsequence of a string is substring of another string
• Maximum even sum subsequence
• Lexicographically smallest string after removing duplicates
• 6 MCQs based on DSA

Technical Round-1
Started with a basic introduction and the interviewer also asked about my recent project and responsibilities in my current organization.
Coding: Minimum number of days for rotten fruits. Able to solve as recently practiced similar problems, did not need to write complete code, briefed idea, and pseudo-code then explained with dry run
A tricky question on a linked list, basically delete one element from linked list, where no other pointer is given. Example: 1->2->3->4->5 for this list, I am given a pointer to element 3, remove this node.
System design: BookMyShow. Made a rookie mistake, and went straight into explaining and drawing before clarifying the whole requirements. The total round was for 45 mins and after DSA around 15 mins left, so after 10 minutes the interviewer stopped me and pointed out that these kinds of questions should be more interactive and then did some cross-questions based on the design I presented till then. He acknowledged that based on my experience the system design round would not be perfect but he suggested I assume less and interact more.

Technical Round-2
The interviewer was friendly and after basic introductions, he asked me about my latest projects and what kind of work I am primarily involved in.
Then he asked me to create a design for Uber.
Unlike the last round, I engaged more in discussing and asked for validations frequently. Starting from a simple outline I added more services and components to the design, it went for around 30 mins.

Unfortunately, I could not make it further, but it was a valuable experience nonetheless. I hope aspiring geeks find my experience useful.

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