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I applied for the SDE1 backend position. The overall interview experience was quite smooth and the interviewers were very kind.
Round 1 I was asked 2 coding questions.Maxi...
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I applied for the SDE1 backend position. The overall interview experience was quite smooth and the interviewers were very kind.
Round 1 I was asked 2 coding questions. Maximum rectangular histogram area (Stack) Given a binary matrix, you can move up, left, down, and right. You have to convert every adjacent 0 of 1 to 1 in a minimum number of steps. Provide the number of steps to take. Round 2 by Technical Lead Development: 3 coding questions were asked and 1 on system design. Given two arrays, where if a value is present in both the array, you can switch b/w arrays, find the maximum sum.
Input: ar1[] = {2, 3, 7, 10, 12, 15, 30, 34} ar2[] = {1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 15, 16, 17}
Output: 122. In the above input, since both arrays contain 7, at 7, you can switch from ar1- > ar2 and vice versa. Expectation: O(n) time and O(1) space Given a sorted array of size n, depict whether an element having a frequency greater than n/2. If it doesn't exist, give an indication. Expectation: O(log n) time There are conversions with values given. You will be given input as 2 conversion metrics and you need to find the conversion value between the two.
Example: "m" to "dm" is 10, "cm" to "m" is 100 and so on.
Input: from, to ("cm", "dm")
Output: value (1000)
My solution: Use a directed graph where 1 side edge weight is x and another side is 1/x. Do a BFS or DFS and multiply the edge weights of that path. Design bitly: Bitly is a tinyurl service. Some cross-questioning was done. I referred to the channel named "coding simplified" on YouTube. It was quite helpful.
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About This Question
This is a reported interview question from a zomato interview for a backend role during the phone screen round reported in 2021.
It covers the following topics: Matrix, Graph, Stack Queue, Graphs, System Design, Arrays, Stack .
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This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Zomato. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Zomato are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Zomato interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Zomato reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Zomato Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in Zomato reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.