Grofers interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

SDE - Intern

Grofers

3 rounds | 4 Coding problems

Keshav Bathla

Fresher | Feb 2021

Selected

Interview preparation journey

Preparation

Duration: 6 Months

Topics: Data Structures, Algorithms, Dynamic Programming, OOPS, Computer Networks, Operating systems, DMBS, System Design, Python, Django

Tip

Tip 1 : Practise Data Structures and Algorithms as much as you can on daily basis. Don't Fix numbers in your head, but practise as much as you can from all topics on daily basis.
Tip 2 : Give Programming Contests on a Daily basis. As it helps you to think of any particular problem in the fixed time frame.
Tip 3 : For Mastering DP, Learn From Aditya Verma Youtube Playlist and apply around 100 questions for solving any DP problem.
Tip 4 : Also Learn Computer Science theory subject once a week so that you will have a deep understanding of the particular subject since many interviews grind on CS theory subjects like OS, DBMS and Networks
Tip 5 : Make at least 2-3 Projects in any technology you like maybe Web Development or Android Development. It shows that you have some experience in Development and the company don't need to waste time on you for teaching frameworks.
Tip 6 : If you have time learn some System Design and learn how to design any system from end to end. Especially learn about designing a database of any application. In many interviews, the interviewer asks to design an application from end to end. So if you have some practice, then you can easily clear this type of rounds.

Application process

Where: Referral

Eligibility: No criteria

Resume tip

Tip 1 : Always attached your Project links in your resume. As it seems your project is genuine and you are confident in showing your projects
Tip 2 : Don't add unnecessary things in your resume which are not related to the job, like your 10th class winning tournament certificate or managing a college society. These things didn't create any impact on your profile and takes an unnecessary space in your resume.
Tip 3 : Always make a 1-page resume. If you are making more than 1 page then it means you have added a lot of unnecessary information which are not related to the job profile.
Tip 4 : Always show your Project and Past experience on top, just after your basic info and education. Since these are the things which should be on top to showcast the skills.

Interview rounds

Round

Medium

Assignment

Duration24 hours

Interview date22 Feb 2021

Coding problem1

1. Assignment

There is an event and different types of prizes available at the event. How to send them to the end user or what will the required fields and links. There were some functionalities that were to be included.

I made REST API for the Functional Requirements.
GET request for getting tickets and POST request for participating in an event and so on.

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Think more from a scalability perspective. What if there are different types of prizes available at the event. Then How will these prizes get dispatched from the inventory? Take an eg. of Car. If there is a car in an event, then how will the CAR dispatched from the showroom and will deliver to the winner?
Tip 2 : How will you design the database so that new features get added without much modifying the existing database schema.
Tip 3 : Take care of your REST APIs. Closely see what you are exactly doing in the APIs. I do write operations in DB in the GET request, which is against the REST principles. The interviewer pointed this in the next round, and I feel ashame of this small mistake.

Round

Medium

Video Call

Duration120 Minutes

Interview date25 Feb 2021

Coding problem3

It was a Data Structures and Algorithm Round and Discussion on My assignment round to check my Problem Solving Skills.
And the Interviewer was very friendly to me. I first introduced myself to the interviewer and what did I have done in past as a Software Engineer and Why I want to work in Grofers.

1. Top View Of The Tree

Moderate

25m average time

70% success

0/80

Asked in companies

You are given a Binary Tree of 'n' nodes.

The Top view of the binary tree is the set of nodes visible when we see the tree from the top.

Find the top view of the given binary tree, from left to right.

Example :

Input: Let the binary tree be:

Output: [10, 4, 2, 1, 3, 6]

Explanation: Consider the vertical lines in the figure. The top view contains the topmost node from each vertical line.

Try solving now

2. Maximum Possible Time

Easy

10m average time

90% success

0/40

Asked in companies

Given an array/list ‘ARR’ having 4 integer digits only. The task is to return the maximum 24 hour time that can be formed using the digits from the array.

Note:

The minimum time in 24-hour format is 00:00, and the maximum is 23:59. If a valid time cannot be formed then return -1.

Example:

We have an array ARR = {1, 2, 3, 4} so the maximum time that will be formed will be 23:41.

Try solving now

3. Technical Questions

Then we have a small discussion on my projects and Past internship experience. He asks some questions related to my projects and what difficulty I faced while doing my project and How did I overcome them.

After that, we have a discussion on the assignment I have created in the last round. He pointed some mistakes like not following REST API's principles and how will I add the new functionlity. How my database schema look like and how other services interact with each other

Round

Easy

HR Round

Duration30 Minutes

Interview date26 Feb 2021

Coding problem0

It was an HR round where He told me about the company and what they are doing inside the company.
Along with that, he asks me more about my Open Source Contributions and My Google Summer Of Code journey.
Grofers mostly hire people who have been a part of Google Summer of code and contributed to open source project