PhonePe - SDE (Android)

This round was a one hour DSA session where I had to solve two questions within the time limit. The first question was from graphs, and honestly, I wasn’t expecting a graph problem at all. Graphs were never my strongest area, so it took me a good amount of time just to understand the problem. It was similar to the “Loud and Rich” question on LeetCode. My initial approach wasn’t very optimal and the interviewer didn’t look too satisfied. After around thirty minutes, he gave me the second problem — “Jump Game II.” This one went much better. I solved it optimally and the interviewer seemed happy with my solution. By the end of the round, I had almost lost hope of moving forward, but to my surprise, I got a call from the recruiter the next day saying I had cleared it.

This round revolved around core Android fundamentals. We discussed ViewModel, how it works internally, Activities, Fragments, and Jetpack Compose. The interviewer especially focused on Services — their use cases, lifecycle, and behaviour in different scenarios. I was comfortable with all the questions and didn’t get stuck anywhere. The conversation flowed well and I answered everything correctly. Later that day, I received a call confirming that I had cleared this round too, and my next round was scheduled immediately.

This round was one of the most intense yet exciting ones. I was given a problem to design a small e-commerce app. The challenge was to show how the data would be managed across different screens while also ensuring proper sync with the backend server. There were four to five features that I had to finish in ninety minutes, and the expectation was scalable, clean code. Before starting, I explained my entire approach to the interviewer. Once we aligned on the plan, I began coding and moved quickly because the time was limited. I followed MVVM along with clean architecture. I ended up completing all the required features on time, and the interviewer even praised my speed and structure. A few hours later, I got the update that I was selected for the HM round.

This round was more about understanding my experience and thought process. The HM asked me in detail about my work at my previous company and I walked him through everything I had done during my 1.5 years there. Then he gave me an open-ended problem — to design a maps application. I had to explain my entire approach in a way that could actually be used to build a production-ready app. We discussed different aspects for quite some time, and after that he asked several tough behavioural questions. I answered them confidently, but this round definitely felt the toughest because it tested both technical clarity and mindset.

This round was completely unexpected. On the day of my farewell at my office, I received a call from the HR saying there was good and bad news. The good news: overall feedback was positive and they wanted to move ahead. The bad news: they needed to conduct one more round because my DSA performance in Round 1 was average. I was honestly very disappointed — even scared — because it felt like they might reject me after all this. I didn’t even have my work laptop since I had returned it. I borrowed a friend’s laptop, logged into my LeetCode account, and started preparing again. The Bar Raiser turned out to be surprisingly easy. The first question was based on a min-heap, and the second was a string pattern type problem. Both were solved optimally without any struggle. That same evening, I got a call confirming that I had cleared this round as well. A couple of days later, I had the compensation discussion with the HM, and the offer was finalized.