Aggregated from 2 candidate experiences for ALL.
The Kotak SDE-2 interview process consists of three core rounds: a Bar Raiser round (combining DSA and LLD), a dedicated DSA round, and a System Design round. Candidates who clear these rounds receive an offer, though prior rejections at other companies are common due to the high technical bar.
This round serves as a critical filter, combining:
Exact Questions Asked:
Key Insight: Candidates must demonstrate clarity in trade-offs between performance, scalability, and correctness.
This round dives deeper into algorithmic thinking and edge-case handling.
Exact Questions Asked:
Key Insight: Focus on clean code, time/space complexity, and handling edge cases (e.g., duplicate elements, large input sizes).
This round evaluates the candidate’s ability to design scalable, maintainable systems.
Exact Questions Asked:
Key Insight: Candidates must address scalability (e.g., handling millions of surveys), analytics pipeline design, and extensibility for future features.
The candidate faced multiple rejections across various companies before successfully clearing Kotak's interview process for an SDE-2 role. The final interview involved three rounds: a bar raiser round (DSA + LLD), a DSA round, and a system design round. The candidate was ultimately accepted.
Bar raiser round involving a DSA question and a low-level design question with database schema.
Container With Most Water (LeetCode)
Tic Tac Toe low-level design with DB schema
Distributed systems questions
DSA round with two questions focused on implementation and combinatorial logic.
Implementing shuffle functionality in a music player (StackOverflow)
Print all combinations of given length (GeeksforGeeks)
System design round involving designing a SaaS application with APIs, database design, and both low-level and high-level design considerations.
Design Survey Monkey and analytics as a SaaS
Cleared all rounds for the SDE-2 role at Kotak and received an offer. Other interviews at various companies resulted in rejections due to lack of preparation in DSA, system design, and specific domain knowledge.
Bar raiser round involving data structures and algorithms, low-level design, and distributed systems questions.
Container With Most Water (LeetCode)
Tic Tac Toe low-level design with database schema
Distributed systems questions
Data structures and algorithms round with two coding questions.
Stack overflow implementing shuffle functioning in a music player
Print all combinations of given length (GFG)
System design round focusing on designing a SaaS application with APIs, database design, and low-level/high-level design flow.
Design Survey Monkey and analytics as a SaaS
InterviewDigest