Background
Education: BTech CSE, 2026(passout), Tier - 3 college, India
Experience: In college(no prior experience)

Opportunity details
Date: Aug , 2025
Location: Bangalore , India
Role: SDE-1
Applied: Applied via college Training and Placement Cell

Interview Process

Round 1 - CV Shortlisting

• Candidates who have a cgpa of 8+ got shortlisted for the OA round. At my time there were around 300+ people who were shortlisted.

After a week I got to know that the 1st round is scheduled.

Round 2- OA Process(90 minutes)

• There is three DSA quesstion (medium to hard) , I am able to solve 2 questions completely.
• There were 8 - 10 MCQ questions from the Database , MYSql , OS and Computer networks.

After the first round , I got the result that I am selected for next round. I have a time of one week to prepare for the interview.

Round 3 - Technical Interview(45 minutes)

• Started with the basic intro of mine, then interviewer introduced himself as well as with the round overview.
• One medium DSA question was asked from the Sliding window approach .
• I was able to find the brute force solution and then interviewer asked me to optimise it.
• I struggled a bit but then he gave me a hint so I figured out a way to optimise it and I optimised it but I missed an edge case of empty array then the interviwer corrected it with the test cases. Although he is happy that with hints I can properly solve the question and it impressed him a lot.
• 40 minutes were done , then he asked me about the ACID properties with examples which I explain and communicate with fintech examples.
• At last, I asked what problems and technologies does the interviewer works on, and asked for feedback.In total, the interview went 8.5 - 9 / 10, according to me (based on the feedback the interviewer gave).

After round 3 , on the same day after 4 hours on the same day the HM interview is scheduled.

Round 4 - HM Interview(30-35 minutes)

• Started with the basic intro of mine, then interviewer introduced himself as well.
• Project discussion - 10 minutes of project discussion , interviewer really impressed with the project idea and its functionality.
• CV discussion - 15 minutes of CV discussion , we discussed about everything that is written in my CV including the tech stack like JS , topics were JWT , Bcrypy , authn , authz . We discussed about me as I was working as member of a tech club , my awards , my responsibility as member of the club.(even he checked my linkedin :) )
• AI discussion - 7-10 minutes of discussion about the basic AI models as I have worked as a freelance prompt engineer so digging on the basics of RAG and some LLM models how do you use and how do you appraoch.
• He also asked why do you wanna join the company , so he wants to know that as a college student how much I understand the company working or know what recent changes have done . (I prepared it well)
• At last, I asked what technologies does the company works on, and asked for feedback.In total, the interview went 9 - 9.5 / 10, according to me (based on the feedback the interviewer gave).

Result
I got selected and got the mail from TPC head the very next day and after 2 weeks of interview I got the offer letter and after 10 days I got the oppurtunity to travel to Bangalore to work with Razorpay.

Tips

1. Try to convey your strengths to the interviewer (DSA, projetcs, prior experience), so that the interview goes in that direction.
2. DSA problems asked in OAs are hard as compared to that which were asked in the interview. So anyone who cracks OA can easily crack the interview if thier communication and problem solving apprach is good.
3. Prepare your resume well. Read your prior experience and projects written in your resume, as they will see the keywords written and ask questions about them.
4. Be calm and try to listen to what the interviewer is saying as they'll drop hints that you need to pick up.

Good Luck and All the Best!!