🚀 Tekion SSE Drive (August) – My Experience (Ghosted at the End)
Jericho_102478
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Interview

🚀 Tekion SSE Drive (August) – My Experience (Ghosted at the End)

Hey everyone,
Wanted to share my recent experience with Tekion SSE hiring drive (August 2025). Might help folks preparing or at least set expectations about their process.

📌 Background

  • Education: B.Tech from a Tier-1
  • Current Role: SDE-2 at FAANG (told them SDE-1 😉)
  • Expected CTC: 35LPA+ (they were okay to go higher)

📝 Round 1 – DSA (Onsite, pen + paper → then Staff SWE)

We were put in a room with 2 DSA problems:

  1. DFS-based problem.
  2. Sliding window problem with a small trick.

I solved both, then discussed my approach with a Staff SWE (since all SSEs were busy). Recruiter confirmed later: Positive feedback ✅.

🏗️ Round 2 – HLD (Staff SWE)

This round threw me off. The question:

“Design a system that accepts a continuous stream of data.”

I was like… wait, that’s it? 😅

I went with:

  • Event-driven pipeline using Kafka/SQS.
  • Processing layer (ECS).
  • Storage → Redis for quick access, can also persist into DB.

Interviewer pushed: “Why not a simple DB?”
I explained trade-offs. Not my best round tbh, but managed to navigate.

📐 Round 3 – LLD (SSE)

This was Food Delivery System Design. Expectation:

  • Start with a quick HLD overview.
  • Move into DB schema design, geospatial DBs for nearby restaurant queries.
  • API design + service-level architecture.
  • Wrap up with patterns (Factory/Observer etc).

All done live on Excalidraw. Felt really good about this round. Positive signal ✅.

👨‍💼 Round 4 – Hiring Manager (Sr. SDM)

This was mostly:

  • Deep dive into my current services.
  • Ownership/behavioral questions.
  • Alignment check for team.

HM seemed happy with my answers.

🕒 What Happened Next?

The day ended after R3 → was told R4 will be virtual on Monday.
I asked recruiter for a 1-week extension (as I was preparing for Meta OA).
Took R4 later → felt good… and then… silence. Ghosted.

🤔 My Takeaways

  • Don’t get relaxed if a question feels “too easy” → structure matters.
  • Asking for extensions is risky if they’re closing positions fast.
  • Compensation expectations can silently affect decisions, even if they say it’s fine.
  • Tekion is known to ghost candidates even after final rounds (heard from others too).

📣 Advice for Others

  • Prep mix = DSA (medium(find tricky problems)) + HLD/LLD (system + schema design).
  • Use diagrams → interviewers love clarity.
  • Always articulate trade-offs, even for “simple” DB vs cache vs queue questions.
  • Expect abrupt outcomes → don’t take ghosting personally.

Hope this helps someone aiming for Tekion or similar startup drives!
Happy to answer Qs about the rounds.

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