I recently interviewed at Meesho for the SDE-1 role, and one of the most interesting parts of the process was the machine coding round. The challenge was to build a small but realistic inventory management system for an e-commerce platform within 60 minutes.

The requirements included:

• Creating products with an initial inventory
• Fetching available inventory
• Blocking inventory when a user initiates payment
• Permanently reducing inventory once the payment is confirmed

All data had to be managed using in-memory structures like Maps or Lists, and a driver class was required to demonstrate all functionalities.

There was also a bonus requirement: if an order wasn’t confirmed within five minutes, the blocked inventory should automatically be restored. Implementing this timeout logic added an interesting layer of thought around state management and time-based rollbacks.

Overall, it was a good blend of system design, clean coding, and real-world scenario handling under time constraints. Happy to discuss my approach or share how I structured the solution if it helps anyone preparing for similar interviews.

YOE - 1.2,
Currently working in product based startup

#interviewexperience #machinecoding #meesho #sde #softwareengineering