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Zepto | SDE 3 | Reject

Round 1: LLD Round (Interviewvector)

Questions: Ques: Design Online book reader (Kindle)
Covered all FR, NFR, Classes, DB schema, API Design and Design Patterns.

Candidate's Approach

The candidate covered all functional requirements (FR), non-functional requirements (NFR), class structures, database schema, API design, and design patterns relevant to the online book reader.

Interviewer's Feedback

The panel was easy-going and asked good questions. The candidate was able to answer all questions satisfactorily.


Round 2: HLD Round (Interviewvector)

Questions: Ques: Design Streaming service similar to Twitch
Discussed about FR, NFR, Estimation, High level Microservice, Database architecture.

Candidate's Approach

The candidate discussed functional and non-functional requirements, estimation, high-level microservices, and database architecture for the streaming service.

Interviewer's Feedback

The panel had poor communication skills, but the candidate managed to answer all follow-up questions and deep dives effectively.


Round 3: HLD Round (Zepto EM)

Questions: Ques: Design Inventory Management System (for say KFC/McD)
Discussed about FR, NFR, Estimation, Core API's, High level Microservice, Database architecture.

Candidate's Approach

The candidate discussed functional and non-functional requirements, estimation, core APIs, high-level microservices, and database architecture for the inventory management system.

Interviewer's Feedback

The panel was good, asking questions on concurrency, transactions, and locks. The candidate did a deep dive on MongoDB internal workings, and the interviewer was looking for specific jargon.


Round 4: Hiring Manager Round (Zepto head of eng)

Questions:

  1. LLD for WeWork (Only database schema)
  2. HLD of a project you worked on last 6 months
  3. Questions on Apache Kafka (current cluster is handling 10m requests per second, how do you scale to 1B)
  4. Questions on Postgres (internal workings)
  5. Languages worked with?
  6. Tell me about a time when a project you worked on went wrong
  7. Tell me about a time you had to give someone critical feedback
  8. How do you make sure you write quality code?
  9. Tell me about a time you learnt something outside of job
  10. Two things you love and hate about your current job
Candidate's Approach

The candidate answered all questions, including LLD and HLD discussions, as well as questions on Apache Kafka and Postgres.

Interviewer's Feedback

The panel was perceived as arrogant and unresponsive, making two-way communication difficult. Despite answering everything well, the candidate received a rejection.