Synthesized from 27 candidate submissions for ALL.
Zeta maintains a clear dichotomy in its hiring process based on seniority and role type. While senior engineering roles focus heavily on technical proficiency and leadership capabilities, internship hiring prioritizes long-term career alignment and behavioral fit.
The interview consisted of a single technical telephonic round covering fundamental data structures and algorithmic problem-solving.
A telephonic technical interview focusing on data structures, algorithms, and internal workings of core programming concepts.
Internal implementation of Hashmap
Check if a binary tree is a Binary Search Tree
Stock buy and sell problem for multiple transactions
Find the single non-repeating element in a sorted array of pairs using binary search
Ratio query problem given a list of ratios
The candidate successfully cleared all interview rounds for the SDE-2 role at Zeta (Directi) and received an offer. The role was initially intended for SDE-3 but was downleveled to SDE-2 due to experience considerations and mixed feedback from the LLD round. The compensation was matched to the SDE-3 band, with a potential promotion to SDE-3 in a few months.
A 1-hour round focused on Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA). Two medium-level questions were asked, one from Dynamic Programming and another from Graphs requiring BFS traversal. The interviewer assessed the candidate's thought process and accuracy. Both questions were solved within 50 minutes.
A 1-hour round involving a deep dive into the candidate's current project. Discussions covered high-level design, system architecture, tech stack, distributed cache, consistency, concurrency, and Java callbacks with real-life scenarios.
A 2-hour round focused on Low-Level Design (LLD). The candidate was asked to design a Stock Brokering system with REST API implementation for two high-level requirements. The design needed to be testable via Postman and involved threads, concurrency, and Java callbacks. The candidate provided a design using use cases, class relationships, design patterns, and SOLID principles but could not complete a running implementation.
A 1-hour round with a VP to assess fitment. The interviewer focused on REST API design and High-Level Design (HLD) for YouTube, including API design for video upload, search, comments, and retrieval. The candidate also designed the HLD and REST MVC architecture for YouTube.
Interview Digest