I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Halodoc (Bengaluru)
Interview
There was total of 5 rounds of interview 2 DS Algo rounds, 1 Design round with senior folks, 1 Design round with Projects discussion with directors, 1 HM manager interview.
I was told I cleared DS algo rounds and then they move you to design rounds and then to Design round with the director. After clearing all the interviews there will be debriefing interviews at Halodoc where all the panel members sit and discuss the pros and cons of hiring a candidate. After the discussion, I was told I would be offered SDE3 for the reason that I could have done better at DS round. Honestly, from here I stopped following the interview process because the reason that I was given an offer of SDE 3 because that I could have covered more test cases in the DS round but on the other side the director has personally told me he was impressed with the design interviews. If the role of Principal Software engineer is purely to architect the product and involve in development, not at the scale of architecting, then how does the feedback of working on coding would help me get there. I personally feel I wasted a big amount of time giving an interview here, so I declined the offer of SDE3.
1. Could be more transparent about the interview results at each stage of the interview process
2. Have a collective goal for a candidate starting with DS algo interviewer till Design and architecture round interviewers.
3. Do not waste the candidate's time if there is something wrong with the first 2 rounds of interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Implement secured file queue with multi threading functionality(working code)
2. Classes scheduling
3. Design architecture for a hyper local market space for many constraints
I applied through other source. I interviewed at Halodoc (Bengaluru) in Sep 2019
Interview
Total waste of time, interviewers are so indifferent going on meets after talking 5 mins, ask absolutely irrelevant questions.
One briefing call from HR, followed by one On-Site coding round, which was very very specific to JAVA, I told I am not comfortable with Java can write in Python, C++, pr Ruby to which they agreed. After which I wrote the code for 2 hours covering all the uses cases and functional and complexity requirements. After which HR said his exact words, "At such SENIOR role we want specific knowledge of Java".
Just 10 mins of human interaction, they didn't not even bother to test my technical skills or backend knowledge. They didn't look serious about hiring, its like HR and tech team is forced to schedule rounds.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write a file Queue, which supports pop(), offer(), and take() functionality. The Queue should be threadsafe.