💼 Walmart SDE Intern + FTE Interview Experience (College Hiring – March 2024)

📍 Location: Virtual
🎓 College Hiring – Final Year
🗓️ Timeline: March 2024
💰 Intern Stipend: ₹1,00,000/month
🧾 FTE CTC (if offered): ₹32 LPA
✅ Verdict: Selected for Internship

📌 This is my friend’s college hiring experience for the Walmart SDE Intern role held in March 2024. They were also in the running for an FTE offer based on performance during the internship.

🧭 Interview Process Flow

1. Online Coding Test
2. Technical Interview 1
3. Technical Interview 2
4. HR Interview
5. Final Selection

🖥️ Stage 1: Online Coding Test

• 📆 Date: 11th March 2024
• ⏱️ Duration: 90 minutes
• 👨‍💻 Platform: HackerEarth
• 👥 Candidates Appeared: 114

🧠 Format:

• 10 MCQs (OS, DBMS, CN, DSA)
• 2 Coding Questions

💻 Coding Questions:

Q1. Make Two Strings Equal with Swaps

• You can swap within a string or between the two strings.
• ✅ Logic: If all character frequencies across both strings are even, strings can be made equal.
• Points: 30

Q2. Unreachable Pairs After Edge Removal (Graph)

• Undirected connected graph, remove edges one by one and count (u, v) pairs that become unreachable.
• ✅ Key Idea: Think in reverse using DSU (Disjoint Set Union) to manage connectivity.
• Points: 50 (partial score)

📎 DSA Problem Link (asked in online round)

🟢 My friend solved Q1 fully and Q2 partially → Shortlisted among 36 candidates.

💬 Stage 2: Technical Interview 1

• 🕐 Time: Same day, 11:00 AM
• 🧑‍💼 Platform: Zoom (Breakout Room)

🔍 Questions:

• Intro + Past internship + Projects
• OS in one word: User-Interface
• Types of interrupts (needed a hint)
• Coding:
  • Binary Tree with mirror pointers
  • Find min distance between any 2 nodes → Solved using BFS
• What happens when you type www.google.com?
• ❌ Network Qs: Hub vs Switch, Noise Impairment (struggled)
• SQL vs NoSQL – explained with examples
• Coding (Index Shifting): Right shift subarray in multiple [l, r] queries → Optimized using index transformation

😅 Despite 2 missed answers, selected among 24 candidates for next round.

💬 Stage 3: Technical Interview 2

• 🕓 Time: 4:00 PM (Same day)
• 👨‍💼 New interviewer, same Zoom format

🔍 Questions:

• Summary of CV + Project demo (GitHub video impressed interviewer)
• Coding:
  • Implement Stack using Queues
  • Find time slots where 3 students are free (interval merging + 2 pointers)
• What is Normalization? Explained till BCNF
• OOP Concepts → Live coded example with Shape, Rectangle, Square
• What are Virtual Functions? Explained static/dynamic binding and pure virtuals

✅ Smoother round than before. Unfortunately, my friend left the Zoom meeting, missing the same-day HR round.

💬 Stage 4: HR Round (Next Day)

• 🕚 Time: 11:00 AM (Following day)
• 👩‍💼 Experienced HR (15+ years)

🔍 Topics:

• Intern project motivations, audience, challenges
• Walkthrough of other projects (with GitHub demo)
• HR appreciated the quality of work and impact

💬 Short and impactful (~30 mins). My friend felt confident after this round.

📢 Final Results

• 🗓️ Announced: 13th March 2024, 1:00 PM
• ✅ All 24 candidates were selected!
  • 10 received FTE + 6-Month Internship
  • 14 received Internship only

🥲 My friend was among the 14 — possibly because FTE slots filled early on the day of HR interviews. Leaving the meeting might’ve cost the full-time opportunity.

🎯 Final Verdict

✅ Selected for 6-Month Internship at Walmart India
🏁 FTE offer not received, but a fantastic internship opportunity nonetheless.

🙌 Reflections & Tips

Even after rejections from multiple companies, this selection was a huge confidence boost.

📌 Preparation Tips:

• Practice DSA daily: Graphs, DSU, Range Queries
• Revise OS, DBMS, CN theory (for MCQs & interviews)
• Be confident in your project work – prepare to explain & demo
• Use GitHub for sharing code/videos – it creates impact!
• Think out loud, communicate clearly, and stay calm.

Thanks for reading!
If you're preparing for Walmart or similar SDE Intern roles, I hope this helps you.

Best of luck! 💪🚀