Zomato SDE-1 Interview Experience 🍕🚀

Position: SDE-1 (Full-time)
Location: Gurugram, Haryana
Date: August 2025

Working at Zomato has been my dream since college days, and I recently got the opportunity to interview there. I had 3 rounds in total — 2 technical + 1 managerial. Here’s the full breakdown 👇

Round 1 (DSA + System Design)

Interviewer: Abhinav Bansal

Question 1: Minimum Swaps to Sort

You are given an unordered array consisting of consecutive integers [1, 2, 3, ..., n]. You are allowed to swap any two elements. Find the minimum number of swaps required to sort the array.

Example:

4 1 2 3 

1 4 2 3  
1 3 2 4  
1 2 3 4  

Answer: 3

Solution:

int minSwapsToSort(vector<int>& arr) {
    int n = arr.size();
    vector<pair<int,int>> pos(n);
    
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
        pos[i] = {arr[i], i};
    }
    sort(pos.begin(), pos.end());
    
    vector<bool> visited(n, false);
    int swaps = 0;
    
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
        if (visited[i] || pos[i].second == i) continue;
        
        int cycleSize = 0;
        int j = i;
        
        while (!visited[j]) {
            visited[j] = true;
            j = pos[j].second;
            cycleSize++;
        }
        
        if (cycleSize > 1) swaps += (cycleSize - 1);
    }
    return swaps;
}

Question 2: Banner Scheduling Schema

Problem:
Design schema + approach for showing a banner X times in Y hours for Z such durations.

Example:

• Show banner 2 times in 24 hours, for 3 durations.

Schema:

Table 1: BANNER_CONFIG
- Banner_ID
- Num_Times_Per_Duration
- Duration_Hours
- Num_Durations

Table 2: BANNER_SHOWN
- Banner_ID
- User_ID
- Num_Times_Shown
- Start_Time
- Num_Durations

I explained how we can track frequency, enforce limits, and reset counters using these tables.

✅ Cleared Round 1.

Round 2 (Projects + LLD + DSA)

Interviewer: Kartik Khariwal

Discussion on my Previous Experience (AI-based transcription & summary generation):

• How did you handle audio input from mic/system?
• How did you transfer heavy audio files to backend?
• How did you manage LLM token limits for >1 hr meetings?
• Why MySQL for database? What were table schema & data types?
• Which external APIs did you use?

👉 This round was very project-heavy, they wanted to dig deep into scalability & design trade-offs.

LLD Question: Restaurant Menu System (Zomato specific 🍕)

• Model restaurant menus with multiple configs like size, crust, toppings (focus on Domino’s case).

Schema:

Table 1: Restaurants
- ID
- Location
- Owner

Table 2: Menu
- ID
- Restaurant_ID

Table 3: Item
- ID
- Menu_ID
- Name
- Description
- Config_ID
- File_ID

Table 4: Item_Config
- ID
- Size
- Price

Table 5: Item_Files
- ID
- Link

DSA Question: Suggest Dish Price

Given a merchant’s previous dish prices, suggest a price for a new dish such that:

• Greater than 1/3rd dish’s price
• Less than 2/3rd dish’s price

Example:

10 20 30 40 50 60  
Suggested Price: Between 20 and 30  

Solution 1 (Sorting):

• Insert prices → Sort → Pick values at n/3 and n/3 + 1.
• Time Complexity: O(n log n)

Follow-up (Optimization):

• Use two heaps (min & max) to maintain 1/3rd and 2/3rd positions.
• Suggested Price = between heap tops.
• Time Complexity: O(n log log n)

I wrote pseudo-code for this.

✅ Cleared Round 2.

Round 3 (Managerial + HR)

Interviewer: Gyanendra Kumar (VP, Eternal)

This was a purely managerial round.

• Why Zomato?
• What are your short-term & long-term goals?
• How do you see yourself growing here?

It was more about mindset, cultural fit & career goals than coding.

Final Verdict 🎉

Got a call the same day from HR — Selected for SDE-1 at Zomato 🚀

This is honestly a dream come true. Since college, I wanted to work at a big tech product company, and now I’ll be working on projects impacting millions of users. Super excited to begin this journey!

🔥 Takeaway for juniors:

• Strong DSA fundamentals → cycles, heaps, sorting.
• Be prepared to explain your projects in depth (design choices, trade-offs, scaling).
• Don’t ignore LLD/HLD, especially for product-based companies.
• And yes — managerial rounds matter more than you think.