Flipkart Interview Experience for Data Engineering-I

March-April, 2021

I appeared for Flipkart Data Engineering-I hiring process by applying from the job portal in April 2021. 

Round 1(Machine Coding): From the machine coding round, about 15 candidates were shortlisted for the interview process which was held in the next week.

• We were given a use case document which was explained point by point by the interviewer. There were few JSON files and using those we have to provide a complete solution for the following queries or insights to be extracted from the source data.
• The language, framework everything was up to us to decide. (I used spark)
• We were given two hours to solve this problem and provide our submission as a zip file.
• The submission should pass all the coding standards and strive to generalise it as much as possible.
• After this there were individual sessions where we had to explain our code and decision we took while solving the use case. I explained the reasons for choosing the spark framework and supported it will my fundamentals.

Round 2(Problem Solving): 

• Firstly I was asked to brief myself a little and how I developed my interest for this role.
• Then I was provided with a live coding link where I had access to a shared text file.
• The first question was a simple one to find the Nth highest element from an array. I provided a solution using heap in O(N). Link
• Then was a question on linked list for finding the next greatest element followed by a question on tree to find the Lowest Common Ancestor in a Binary Tree. For this I was not confident with the solution I provided and my approach was not 100% correct so he helped me with the correct approach.
• I was quite confident after this round that I will be getting shortlisted. By end of day, I received the call and got notified that my 3rd round has been scheduled for the next day.

Round 3(Tech Round): This round is about the projects you have done in past and the technologies you are associated with.

• After some questions about my previous role, the interviewer thoroughly asked about my projects and went in-depth. I was actually very much interested in this conversation because for the first time one was truly interested in the concepts I excel in.
• After some generic questions about the why and how of the components and infra about the projects I mentioned in my resume we moved on the next questions.
• I was asked to design a financial database system where we discussed how to create the database models and schema, partition keys, fields, and the method to optimise the queries to be run against the database.
• For this step by step I built the models, tables providing appropriate justifications. My interviewer was happy with the solution and got the feedback (Quite close).

Round 4(Managerial Round): 

• This is more of a discussion round, where hiring manager will explain to you the role you will be into and run you through their expectations if they are in sync. One can expect questions regarding the reasons for your job change, etc.
• Few behavioral questions based on their leadership principles were also asked.
• The very same day I got the confirmation from HR, I was ecstatic to find got that I was offered the DE role in Flipkart. The feeling was immense and irreplaceable.

Few Important Tips:

• Understand your concepts and fundamentals well and lay emphasis on the logic rather than result.
• Understand your code well and explore different DS for providing an efficient solution.
• Flipkart interviews are interactive, not interrogative. So take a pause before answering, and always justify your approach.
• Take a smarter approach and keep yourself determined and focused. If I can, anyone can. Whenever required take a break and make sure you do not get stressed out. You should at least deliver what you know at its best. I am sure you all will do great. All the best.