Synthesized from 57 candidate submissions for ALL.
Paytm maintains a straightforward and accessible interview process that prioritizes foundational technical proficiency for engineering roles and professional background assessment for general roles. Candidates can expect a balanced mix of standard algorithmic problem-solving and behavioral discussions focused on company motivation.
The candidate successfully cleared the OA, two technical rounds, and a managerial round involving system design discussions. The feedback was positive ('Hire'), and an offer was extended for the SSE role at Paytm.
OA conducted on Hackerrank. Two medium-level questions: one on Arrays and one on Trees. All test cases passed.
Two LeetCode-style problems were asked: 'First Missing Positive' and 'Validate Binary Search Tree'. Additionally, there was a discussion about current company projects.
First Missing Positive (LeetCode)
Validate Binary Search Tree (LeetCode)
Current Company Projects Discussion
Discussion with AVP about past and current projects, system design basics, sharding, NoSQL vs SQL, ACID vs CAP, and designing a rate limiter based on given requirements. Scenario-based questions regarding cache and database were also asked.
System Design Basics
Sharding
NoSQL vs SQL
ACID vs CAP
Design Rate Limiter
Scenario-Based Questions on Cache & DB
The candidate underwent a three-round interview process for an SDE-1 role at Paytm, including an online assessment, two technical rounds, and an HR round. The candidate was hired.
70-minute online assessment with 3 questions: 1) Anagram of a number, 2) Rearranging an array based on given indices, 3) Finding the nth permutation of a string. Some candidates also reported tree-related questions.
70-minute online assessment with three coding questions focusing on array manipulation, permutations, and anagrams.
Anagram of a number
Rearrange an array based on given indices
Find the nth permutation of a string
Virtual technical round focusing on coding and problem-solving. Discussed projects, backend architecture, and solved problems involving searching in a rotated sorted array, and finding the longest substring without repetition.
Find an element in a rotated sorted array (optimal solution)
Find the longest substring without repetition in a given string
Virtual technical round involving system design and data structures. Solved a recommendation function problem using a trie approach and discussed scalability for storing billions of words. Also solved a problem to segregate positive and negative integers in an array while preserving their original order.
Implement a recommendation function using a trie for word suggestions
Segregate positive and negative integers in an array without distorting their original order in O(1) space
HR round where candidates were asked basic logical reasoning and core subject questions, varying by individual.
Interview Digest