Profile:

• College: Tier-2
• Experience: 1.5 years
• Current Role: SWE-1 at a Startup
• Applied via: Referral (got lucky this time — had applied twice before with no response)
• Timeline: 4 weeks

📝 HR Screening Call

HR called to discuss my current role, tech stack, and salary. He also explained the interview process and confirmed the job location (Pune).
Pretty casual chat mainly to check fit and interest.

⚙️ Tech Round 1 (Screening)

• Explain OOPs to a 5-year-old.
• System Design: Design a car system (models, engine, etc.) using design principles/patterns.
• Coding: Print prime numbers in a range.

Simple and conceptual round.

💻 Superday (3 Non-Eliminatory Rounds)

Round 2 (Tech SME)

• 4 pillars of OOPs with examples.
• Coding: Valid Parenthesis (handle all edge cases).
• Discussed my current projects.
• Implemented a basic LinkedList.

Round 3 (Bar Raiser)

• Debug 2 buggy Java code: one on file handling, one on Singleton.
• LeetCode: Decode String.
  Couldn’t complete it under pressure.

Round 4 (Hiring Manager)

• He asked me what design patterns I know, I told I know Singleton, Factory and Builder and also aware about observer. He then told to explain Builder pattern which I expained using Burger-Shop example which I learned from Striver's TUF platform. He was satisfied with it.
• Coding: Easier version of Longest Increasing Subsequence.
• Discussion on my projects, achievements, and why Mastercard.

📩 Result

Got a polite rejection after a week. HR said they chose someone who showed more balance across competencies.
Most likely because my backend work was in Nest.js (Node), not Java.

Thanks for reading! Hope this helps someone preparing for Mastercard or similar backend roles.