🚀 My ShareChat SDE-1 Interview Experience 🚀

I recently went through the SDE-1 hiring process at ShareChat, and I wanted to share my experience to help others preparing for similar roles.

📌 Initial Outreach & Online Assessment (OA)

A Talent Acquisition (TA) representative reached out to me regarding the SDE-1 opportunity.

📌 Online Assessment (OA):
The test consisted of three coding questions:
1️⃣ Sliding Window problem (Easy-Medium)
2️⃣ Binary Search problem (Easy-Medium)
3️⃣ N-ary Tree DP problem (Slightly harder)

I was able to solve all three successfully.

📌 Round 1: Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA) – Coding Round
• This round focused on problem-solving & coding ability.
• The interviewer asked two questions:

✅ 1. Meeting Rooms – Solved using Line Sweep Algorithm (Sweep Line Method).
✅ 2. Generate Valid Parentheses – Used an unconventional approach with bitmasking, where I generated all subsets of a bitmask and validated each one.

📌 Outcome: Positive feedback, moved to the next round.

📌 Round 2: System Design (LLD) – Taken by a Technical Lead
• The round started with a discussion about my current experience.
• The design problem given was: Design Splitwise (Expense-sharing app).
• I was allowed to use an IDE and given ~40 minutes to code.

💡 What went well?
✅ Designed an extensible architecture for the problem.
✅ Explained my design choices and trade-offs effectively.
✅ Identified and suggested a better design during the interview itself, showcasing my critical thinking.

⚠ Challenges:
• I exceeded the time limit and wasn’t able to complete a fully working implementation.
• However, I walked the interviewer through my thought process and improvements.

📌 Outcome: Was unsure about the result, but HR informed me the same evening that the feedback was positive, and I moved on to the Hiring Manager (HM) round.

📌 Round 3: Hiring Manager (HM) – High-Level Design (HLD) + Discussion
• Started with a general discussion on my experience and past projects.
• The HLD problem given was: Design a Coupon Service for an E-commerce Platform.

💡 What went well?
✅ Clarified requirements effectively before jumping into design.
✅ Designed REST APIs and the database schema for the system.
✅ Was able to discuss scalability, optimizations, and trade-offs.

📌 Outcome: Good experience, and the feedback was positive.

📌 Offer & Final Thoughts

📌 Received the offer within a day after the HM round! 🎉

🔹 What I liked about the process:
✅ Well-structured and efficient – The entire process was completed within 3 days.
✅ Great interviewers – They provided constructive feedback during the interviews and were open to discussing different approaches.
✅ Fair evaluation – Even though I couldn’t complete the full code in the LLD round, my approach and design thinking mattered more.

🚀 Final Tips for Future Candidates:

1️⃣ Brush up on DSA topics like sliding window, binary search, and DP on trees.
2️⃣ Practice LLD problems (Splitwise, Parking Lot, etc.) and focus on writing clean, modular code.
3️⃣ Be prepared for HLD discussions – focus on APIs, DB schema, scalability considerations.
4️⃣ Communication matters! Even if you can’t finish the code, explaining your thought process and trade-offs can still get you through.

💡 Hope this helps future candidates preparing for ShareChat interviews! 🚀 Feel free to ask if you have any questions. 😃

UPDATE: resigned after 10 days as I got an offer from Linkedin!