Status: 2022 grad from Tier-3 college in CSE, 10 months Internship experience at MNC + 3 months fte experience in another MNC
Position: SDE1 - Backend at Cred
Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka
Date: Sept 2022
Applied by directly DM to a cred recruiter.
Next day I got a call and a link of the OA and was asked to complete the OA by the next day, however I submitted that the same day.
Online Assessment: (90 minutes)
1 LC medium and 2 LC Hard Level questions.
Topics included were from Strings, Trees, dp, combinatorics
I was supposed to do all in 75 minutes. Got stuck a bit on a tree-diameter algo, took some time to debug.
Next day I got a call from the HR, and confirmed me that they will be scheduling all my interviews the next Saturday.
Round 1: (150 minutes)
It was an LLD round. I was given a hackerrank link, I have pull and push to the hackerrank repo. There was helper functions and code-structure provided, I need to implement the logic in a clean, modular and optimal way. Topic included concepts of OOPs, Tries, etc. I need to design a full fledged application. No UI / API was required. Only needed to write the logical functions. Interviewer jumped between the the entire time. Asked me about the logic, functions, trade-offs, etc.
I implemented and finished writing the code in the most optimal way. The interivewer was pretty much impressed by my implementation skill, including my optimazation techniques, code modularity, clean code, etc.
Was expected to write unit-tests and push the code within 150 minutes. Post which the link was supposed to get closed. Although I pushed it, I forgot to submit the test, and as a result the interviewer didn't got it. However, I called him, and submitted my project in zipped via mail.
By 30 mins, I got call from the HR, and she told that the next interview is going to be within 1 hour.
Round 2: (90 minutes)
Interviewer took the entire interivew in google-docs, sharing my screen. Asked puzzle questions, questions on problem solving, low-level design, data-structures and algorithms. Topic mainly focused on trees, hashmaps, tries, dsu, probabilistic algorithms. A very indepth discussion happened especially the probabilistic algorithm was very interesting.
Questions included real-world application of cred-products, and I was expected to find the perfect data-structure, algorithm, or designing-trade-offs and come out with a solution. Make sure its a discussion rather than a interview. So, keep on discussing your ideas. Interivewer was not at-all interested in me writing codes. Instead of wasting time in that, we discussed a lot of algorithms and design.
I hammered and easily answered all the questions. Interviewer was very much impressed, and moved to the next round.
Managerial Round: (90 minutes)
Discussed on my passed projects and my organisation and how I can scale or design certain parts of the product. Topics mainly included me to know concepts of load-balancing, concurrency, inserver-caches, etc. In-total various concepts of system-design in full-fledged mode.
Rest we discussed on my future goals, and basic questions of HR type. However, since was already giving the three marathon interviews in that particular day, so was totally dried up and messed the HR questions. But had a strong CV to make that up. Manager was really was very impressed my resume, and especially my small success in CP and encouraged me more in that. I have always worked in frontend and had no experience in Backend and even fumbled in some of the backend terminology names. Like I told, we can use some kind of in-server caches but when he asked what is memcached I told I don't know anything about it.
After the Managerial Round finished, within 1 working day, I got a call from the HR and she told me that I have been selected, and they want to more forward with my offer. Asked me to share my passed compensation details. Post 1 working day, they offered me the offer which I then accepted.
NOTE: You might be an in-experienced guy, like I had no experience in backed and also fumbled in those questions but for SDE-1 roles, they might see your problem solving skills and your conceptual level. In all I feel the interviews were quiet tough. Atleast more than many FAANG companies as they take all the interviews in 1 day and each interview were very long.
If interested for CRED oppurtunity as a backend engineer, comment your CV I will forward it to the HR as CRED is hiring a lot of backend engineers. I will be considering your conceptual and problem solving skills as a priority. Projects will be basis of experience.
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