Back in August 2025, when the gaming industry shut down, I was among those affected. It was an uncertain time — but instead of feeling defeated, I took it as an opportunity to learn, prepare, and rebuild.

In the last couple of months, I appeared for multiple interviews across startups and top product companies. Sharing my journey below — hope it helps anyone who’s currently preparing!

🧩 1. SSE @ JobTwine — Offered

Rounds: 3

DSA: Design LRU Cache

HLD: Design a system to introduce Premium Content (DB Design, Overall Architecture, Redis usage)

🏗️ 2. Technical Architect @ IndMoney — Offered

Rounds: 1 (with CTO)

HLD: Design Referral System (different invite codes for US & Indian Stocks, nudging users to buy stocks)

📱 3. Software Engineer @ PhonePe — Offered

Rounds: 4

DSA 1: House Robber (circular neighborhood)

DSA 2: Max Area of an Island

HLD: Design Twitter

HM: HLD discussion on previous projects

💳 4. Software Engineer @ Scapia — Offered

Rounds: 4

LLD: Restaurant Delivery System (like Swiggy)

HLD 1: Centralized Review System (images/videos, reusable across modules)

HLD 2: Fraud Detection in Transactions

HM: HLD of previous projects

⚙️ 5. SSE @ Zeta — Rejected

Rounds: 3

DSA: Split array into K partitions (≤ X constraint)

OS/Networking: TCP layer, 3-way handshake, HTTP vs HTTPS, deadlock vs starvation

LLD: Scrabble Game (rejected due to argument with interviewer 😅 — lesson learned!)

🇮🇩 6. Lead Engineer @ Ajaib (Indonesia) — Offered

Hackerrank Test: REST API + Pagination

Discussion: DB optimization (indexing on datetime column)

HM: Project discussions

🛒 7. SSE @ Coupang (Bangalore) — Offered

Rounds: 5

DSA: Design Linux commands (mkdir, ls, cat)

HLD: Real-time Stock Update System

LLD: Parking Lot

Bar Raiser: Situation-based + project deep dive

HM: MySQL concurrency without Redis locks

☁️ 8. SMTS @ Salesforce (Hyderabad) — Offered

Rounds: 4

LLD: Battleship Game

HLD: EKS Cluster Design

DSA: Binary Search–based questions

HM: Fraud Detection System

💰 9. Lead Engineer @ Razorpay — Offered

Rounds: 4

LLD: Loan/EMI Repayment System

HLD: Job Scheduler & Fraud Detection System

HM: Discussion on AI-related work & past projects

⚡ 10. Staff Engineer @ Snabbit — Offered

Rounds: 4

HLD: Fraud Detection System

DSA: Running Median (p99 latencies)

HLD: Click Aggregator System

CEO Round: Vision & innovation discussion

CTO Round: Nudge Aggregator System

🌐 11. MTS @ Forward Networks — Offered

Rounds: 3

DSA: Splitwise variation

DSA: Implement toJSON(Object)

API Design: Spring-style dispatcher service choosing implementation by URL

🛒 12. SE-P3 @ Workday - Offered

R1: Hiring Manager - projects
R2: Tech1 - Java Concepts, OOP, Spring webflux
R3: Tech2 - Redis concurrency, HLD for autocomplete, Java memory model
R4: HLD for Doctor Clinic Management System

💡 Takeaway

Never be demoralized by setbacks. My time in gaming taught me how to design systems that handle tremendous load, and those experiences became my biggest strength in interviews.

With continuous learning, faith, and hard work, I was able to land multiple offers in a short span of time.

If you’re preparing — keep building, keep learning, and trust the process. 💪

#SystemDesign #Interviews #LeetCode #CareerGrowth #SoftwareEngineering #RoadToSuccess