Software Development Engineer (SDE) at Meesho

How it went

What they would tell you

How to prepare

Round by round

1. 1

   Online Coding Assessment60 min

   This was my first hurdle, a timed test with two coding challenges. I remember the pressure but stayed focused, knowing these problems checked the basics well. Solving them efficiently was key to moving forward.

   • Kth Largest Element in an Unsorted Array- I used a min-heap of size k to keep track of the largest elements while iterating through the array, which saved time compared to sorting everything.
   • Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters- Implemented the sliding window technique with a hash map to track character indices, expanding and contracting the window to find the max substring length without duplicates.
   • Kth Largest Element in an Unsorted Array
   • Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters
2. 2

   Technical Phone Screen45 min

   This was a friendly and interactive call where the interviewer asked about my background and projects before diving into a coding problem and RESTful API basics. Their hints helped ease my nerves, making it more of a conversation. Questions & Approach: Implement a Basic Cache with Get and Set Functions

   • Approach- Designed a simple key-value store using a dictionary, discussed time complexity and possible eviction policies like LRU for real-world use. RESTful API Questions

   • Talked about best practices such as statelessness, using HTTP verbs correctly, and resource naming conventions.

3. 3

   Coding and Problem Solving60 min

   This round challenged me with a classic problem that’s often used to test understanding of hash maps and complexity trade-offs. The interviewer was interested in both the initial and optimized solutions. Find Two Numbers Adding Up to a Target- Started with brute-force, then improved to a hash map-based O(n) solution to find pairs efficiently. Follow-up: Modifying the Solution for Very Large Arrays Approach: Suggested processing data in chunks or using external memory algorithms to handle size constraints.

   • Find Two Numbers Adding Up to a Target
4. 4

   System Design (Basic)45 min

   I was asked to design a URL shortener service. The focus was on structuring the problem, designing APIs, and considering scaling without going into unnecessary complexity.

5. 5

   Frontend and Behavioral60 min

   The frontend task involved building a simple product listing page with filtering functionality. Then the interviewer asked behavioral questions around teamwork, learning, and problem-solving approaches. Behavioral Questions:

   • Sharing experiences managing disagreements in teams
   • Staying updated on latest technologies
   • Handling bugs in production environments

What came up