PayTm Interview Experience (Senior Software Engineer)- Bangalore location (Team: Travel)

The paytm recruiter reached me out on naukri.

Interview Rounds (4 Rounds Total)
Round 1 – Technical + DSA
Format: Intro + Project Discussion + DSA(2 questions)

DSA Question: A basic Linked List problem – discussed multiple approaches and optimizations. The interviewer also asked me some api latency questions.
Outcome: Selected for round-2

Round 2 – Online Assessment (Hackerrank)
Two medium level leetcode questions.

Outcome: Selected for round-3

Round 3 – System Design Round
The interviewer first asked me about some of my latest projects that I worked on and then went to system design.
Topic: Ticket master(along with deep dive on non-functional requirements)

Outcome: Selected for round-4

Round 4 – Hiring manager round

He asked me about my recent projects and some of the production related issues that I dealt with and how i handled them under limited time pressure.
Then he asked me to do vibe coding(topic: make airport recommendation system) using claude.
I wrote proper prompt but i was using the free claude version and because of that my token limit got exhausted so I couldn't get the final running code. I explained the core logic that will happen at the backend but he wasn't satisfied by that. He wanted the proper working code.

Final verdict: Got rejected in Hiring manager round.

One suggestion for the candidates: Either purchase claude pro version or have antigravity/cursor in your system during the interview. Free claude version literally sucks...