Round 1 – Machine Coding

The first round was a machine coding round for a BookMyShow-like system. I was given 1 hour to implement the solution. I was able to complete around 60% of the requirements within the allotted time.

The interviewer mentioned that the overall interview duration was 1 hour 30 minutes, with 1 hour dedicated to coding and the remaining 30 minutes for clarifying the implementation and evaluating the solution.

Due to the time constraint, I was not able to complete the concurrency-related implementation.

Feedback: Moved forward to the Design Round.

Round 2 – System Design

The second round involved designing an IRCTC-like system. I was able to address the functional and non-functional requirements and explain the major components and design decisions.

Feedback: Positive.

Hiring Manager Round

The final round covered my resume, behavioral questions, and project-specific discussions.

However, a significant portion of the discussion focused on information about my current organization's clients, including questions such as who our clients are and which client generates the highest revenue.

Since I work in the same GRC domain that ClearTax is currently building, I found these questions concerning. In my opinion, questions about confidential client information or revenue contribution are not appropriate interview questions, particularly when candidates may be bound by confidentiality obligations.

Additionally, the interviewer did not appear to have an engineering background or a typical hiring-manager role, which made the nature of these questions even more unusual.

Feedback: I did not receive any further update from the recruiter.

Overall Impression

The first two rounds were technically relevant and constructive. However, the final round raised concerns for me because of the repeated focus on confidential client and revenue-related information rather than evaluating my technical, problem-solving, leadership, or domain expertise.

Given that I was interviewing for a role in a domain similar to my current work, I believe there should be a clear distinction between evaluating a candidate's domain knowledge and asking for confidential information about their current employer's clients or business.