Round 1 – Bar Raiser

This round consisted of one DSA question, one LLD discussion, and microservices-related questions.
Total 1 hr 30 mins ( DSA 40 mins, LLD 30 mins, microservices: 20 mins)

DSA:
I was given three types of travel passes:

1-day pass (cost = a)

1-week pass (cost = b)

1-month pass (cost = c)

Given an array of travel days, I had to compute the minimum cost to cover all travel days.
Since this was a Dynamic Programming problem and DP is not my strongest area, I struggled initially. The interviewer guided me through the thought process, after which I was able to implement the solution correctly.

LLD:
I do not recall the exact problem statement, but we discussed the design approach, class responsibilities, and extensibility. The interviewer seemed satisfied with the overall approach.

Microservices Discussion:
We had a detailed discussion on Kafka internals, including how producers, consumers, partitions, and offsets work. It turned into a healthy technical discussion rather than a Q&A, and overall the round went well.

Round 2 – DSA + Project Discussion (Best Round)

This round had two DSA problems.

1. JSON Internals Count
   Given a JSON string, I was asked to find the number of nested objects.
   Example:

Input: {{}{}}
Output: 2

I solved this by parsing the structure and tracking nesting logic.

2. Power and Recursive Digit Sum
   Given n, compute 2^n, then recursively sum the digits of the result until a single digit remains.
   Constraints: 0 ≤ n ≤ 10^9.

I discussed the mathematical optimization instead of brute force exponentiation and implemented the solution efficiently.

After solving both problems, we discussed my current projects in detail. The interviewer seemed impressed, and this was my strongest round.

Round 3 – LLD + Resume Project

This round focused on Low-Level Design and one of the projects from my resume.

LLD – Music Player Design:
I was asked to implement a music player supporting:

Play

Next / Previous

Repeat song

Repeat playlist

I coded the solution in an IDE. The interviewer mentioned that Java might not be my primary language( which is correct), so minor hiccups were acceptable.
He pointed out that there were too many if-else conditions. I refactored the design using a pattern. Initially, I mentioned it as the Strategy pattern, but the interviewer clarified that I implemented State pattern which was more appropriate here, which I agreed with.

Overall, the interviewer was positive about the design evolution and thought process.

HR Discussion

HR discussed my current compensation and mentioned that they would consider an offer by incrementing over my current base salary.

Current Compensation:

Base: ₹16.7 LPA

Bonus: ₹1.6 LPA

ESOPs: $2,500

I asked for 30-32 base but she mentioned team will contact me but they are willing to pay 25-30 LPA. How should I negotiate?

Edit 1:
After 1 week HR contacted me, had some discussion and informend that they will offer only SDE-1 as my experience is under 4 years. So I had to decline the offer.