Software Development Engineer 1 at UrbanCompany

How it went

What they would tell you

How to prepare

Round by round

1. 1

   Online Assessment90 min

   The OA round had a well-balanced mix of CS fundamentals and coding skills. It was structured with 20 MCQs covering topics like Operating Systems, DBMS, OOPs, Pseudocode/output prediction, Basic Computer Networks After that, there were 3 coding questions that increased in difficulty. The problems were based on concepts like strings, sliding windows, and prefix sum logic. While the MCQs were pretty standard, time management played a big role, especially since the coding questions required focused debugging and clean thinking under pressure. I got a call from HR within a week to schedule the next round.

2. 2

   Technical Interview 160 min

   This round was all about Data Structures and Algorithms(DSA). The interviewer gave me a live coding link and asked me to explain my approach, write the code. Questions I got: Minimum Deletions to Make String Balanced

   • The task was to make sure all 'a's come before any 'b's in the string.

   • I first explained the basic (brute-force) way, and then shared a better approach using prefix sums and greedy logic. Maximum Length Subarray with K Odd Numbers

   • I solved this using the sliding window and two pointers method.

   • We discussed a few tricky cases, and then I shared the optimized solution. The interviewer was friendly and asked a lot of good follow-up questions.

   • Minimum Deletions to Make String Balanced
   • Maximum Length Subarray with K Odd Numbers
3. 3

   Technical Interview 2( Low-Level Design)60 min

   I was asked to design an ATM system that supports cash withdrawal, balance inquiry, handles note denominations, and includes proper error handling for situations like insufficient balance or limited cash in the machine. My Approach: I broke the system down into clear classes ATM, User, Transaction, and CashInventory. I made sure to use encapsulation and interfaces where it made sense. I also talked about how this design could be extended like adding multi-user support or linking multiple bank accounts. The interviewer liked the structure and clarity, but asked me to go deeper into edge cases. Overall, it was more about discussion and thought process than writing code, and I found it quite insightful.

4. 4

   Behavioral + Tech Fundamentals60 min

   The final round was with a Senior Engineering Manager and felt like a good blend of behavioral and technical discussion. We started by talking about my internship experiences, what projects I worked on, the tech stack I used, and the contributions I made. I was asked about challenges I faced and how I dealt with blockers during those internships, which led to some meaningful reflections. Then we moved into CS fundamentals topics like database indexing (clustered vs non-clustered), normalization and its types, and process scheduling algorithms including preemptive, non-preemptive, and round robin. The behavioral part focused on questions like how I handle feedback, why I wanted to join Urban Company, and where I see myself in the next couple of years.

What came up