Wanted to share my Flexport interview experience for SDE-1 role. Applied through linkedin easy apply.

Round 0 – Online Assessment

Recived hackerrank OA link.

Format: 4 questions — 3 DSA + 1 API question.

Round 1 – Coding Round

After 1 week of OA, received mail from HR for round 1. 2 Questions were asked.
Q1:

https://leetcode.com/problems/search-in-rotated-sorted-array/

Q2:
Given input array find the how many steps you can move if you start from index 0.
Rules to move:

• If next element is less than current element then you can move.
• If next element is greater than current element, either use supercharge or battery.
• battery can be used only if distance is less than equal to current battery value.

Example:

array = [50, 150, 100, 250, 200, 400, 500, 300, 600]
battery = 200
superchargers = 2
Output: 7

move 0 to 1 --> use battery of 100 (150-50)
move 1 to 2 --> no need to use anything
move 2 to 3 --> use 1 supercharge
move 3 to 4 --> no need to use anything
move 4 to 5 --> use 1 supercharge
move 5 to 6 --> use battery of 100 (500-400)
move 6 to 7 --> no need to use anything

can not move from 7 to 8 as we have used all battery and superchargers.

Round 2 – Machine Coding Round

After 1 week of round 1, round 2 was scheduled.
Part 1:
Discussion about my work at current company — design patterns I use, why I use them, and their benefits. (~40 mins)
Part 2:

Design a restaurant reservation system that can primarily serve 2 functions:

- list_availabilities
Lists near by restaurants that have a reservation available at a specified time and date.

- reserve
Make a reservation at a restaurant.

Received rejection mail after few days of round 2.

I feel I spent a bit too much time discussing my work at my current company. Since I knew there was limited time left for part two of round two, I kept my design basic and didn’t go into much detail, as the interviewer wanted to wrap up on time.

I have known the few things and still i didn't go into that part intensionally, as it would have taken much more time. Like, below are the few things

• location of restaurant, i have kept as string. I could have store it as latitude and longitude which can then help me in finding near by restaurant.
• Didn't go into design patterns like SOLID, KISS, DRY, etc.

How you guys usually handle such situations in interview?