Paytm (One97 Communications Limited) interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

SDE - 1

Paytm (One97 Communications Limited)
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3 rounds | 5 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 4 Months
Topics: Data Strutures, DBMS, OOPS, Computer Networks, System Design, Binary Search, Dynamic Programming, Algorithms,Operating Systems, Projects Summary
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Practice atleast 400 DSA questions and the questions should be a good balance of easy medium and hard questions.
Tip 2 : If you have time of Competitive Programming please do it , Competitive Programming always helps people to clear OA and if you have a good hand on experience in competitive programming then doing DSA will be lot more easier for you.
Tip 3 : Have a basic understanding of system design concepts , it always helps people to explain projects or explain database tradeoff questions in terms of system design concepts.
Tip 4 : Spend a good amount of time creating good connections on Linkedin because at the end you are going to get Job Links and referrals from Linkedin.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 7.5 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : Keep your resume short and single column
Tip 2 : Keep your best achievements and best projects in the resume , don't bloat your resume with unnecessary data.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration70 minutes
Interview date15 Sep 2021
Coding problem3

The round was having three coding questions.
All questions were extremely easy and were solved in around 20 minutes.

1. Cousins of Given Node in Binary Tree

Moderate
10m average time
90% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Paytm (One97 Communications Limited)SamsungGenpact

Given a binary tree of N nodes and a node of this tree, you need to return a list containing the values of the cousins of the given node in the given binary tree sorted by non-decreasing order of their values.

Note:
Two nodes of a binary tree are cousins if they have the same depth or level, but have different parents.

No two nodes in the given binary tree will have the same data values.
Example :

Example Of Cousins

Problem approach

This can be solved by running simple BFS on the binary tree for calculating level of all nodes and then finding all nodes which are having same level as given node.

Try solving now

2. Sorted Matrix

Moderate
25m average time
85% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Paytm (One97 Communications Limited)AmazonMicrosoft

You are given an N x N matrix 'MAT' of positive integers, where every row and column is sorted in non-decreasing order.

Your task is to return a list containing all elements of the matrix in sorted order.

For example :

If the matrix is:

10 20 30 40
15 20 35 42
27 29 37 46
32 33 38 49

The output will be the elements of matrix in sorted order:
10 15 20 20 27 29 30 32 33 35 37 38 40 42 46 49

Follow Up:

Can you solve this in O((N ^ 2) * log(N)) time and O(N) space complexity?
Try solving now

3. Modular Exponentiation

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
SamsungPaytm (One97 Communications Limited)Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

You are given a three integers 'X', 'N', and 'M'. Your task is to find ('X' ^ 'N') % 'M'. A ^ B is defined as A raised to power B and A % C is the remainder when A is divided by C.

Try solving now
02
Round
Easy
Video Call
Duration60 minutes
Interview date5 Oct 2021
Coding problem2

The Interview started with introduction of interviewer and followed by intro of me.
Then Interviwer said that i will be asked two questions and i should solve one completely and for second problem i should atleast explain logic to clear the round.

1. Maximize Sum

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
VisaPaytm (One97 Communications Limited)Samsung

You are given two arrays of the same size. Your task is to maximize the possible sum that can be calculated using elements of the two given arrays. You are allowed to swap elements between the arrays at the same position any number of times to achieve this.

Note:
The maximum sum is calculated by using the following rules:-

For every ‘i’ in range 0...N:

Max_sum += abs(arr1[i] - arr2[i])

And If i < N-1:
    Max_sum += abs(arr1[i+1] - arr2[i])
For Example
Input:
n = 4
arr1[] = {2,3,4,1}
arr2[] = {2,4,1,1}

Ouput: 11


Explanation:

Here we will swap arr1[2] and arr2[2]. (Swap)

arr1[] = {2,3,1,1}
arr2[] = {2,4,4,1}

for this type of arrangement, we have our maximum Define Sum.

Sum = abs(arr1[0]-arr2[0]) + abs(arr1[1]-arr2[0]) + abs(arr1[1]-arr2[1]) + abs(arr1[2]-arr2[1]) ....
Sum = abs(2-2) + abs(3-2) + abs(3-4) + abs(1-4) + abs(1-4) + abs(1-4) + abs(1-1) = 11
Try solving now

2. Maximum Number of Ones

Moderate
20m average time
80% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Paytm (One97 Communications Limited)AmazonMicrosoft

You are given a matrix ‘M’ having dimensions ‘WIDTH x ‘HEIGHT’ and provided with an integer ‘N’. The matrix ‘M’ can take only binary values, i.e., 0 and 1. Your task is to find the “maximum number of ones” that the matrix ‘M’ can have such that every square sub-matrix of M of dimensions ‘N’ x ‘N’ has no more than ‘MAXONES’ ones.

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
Video Call
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date5 Oct 2021
Coding problem0

This round was scheduled as a follow up round after elimination DSA round and this was also final round.
The interviewer started the inteview by resume discussion he discussed almost everything i had on my resume (Projects , Open Source contributions and Subject basics).
And the last and the best question he asked was a estimation question this was by far the best part of my paytm interview experience.
He asked my to estimate the number of Auto and Bus will be running in my Home city.
We had a very long discussion over this i gave hime multiple solutions and multiple appraoches to solidify the estimates.
Since there is not any fix number for this estimations so he was just testing my approach and thinking ability.
I just approached the problem by categorizing peoples who tarvel in these vehicals (Student , Office workers , Tourists etc)
Then based of estimated capacity of per vehical (Auto 4 person , Bus 40 Person) i suggested him some numbers.
Finally i got offer from Paytm for SDE.
I will say except from this last estimation problem rest everything was quite easy for me.

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Skill covered: Programming

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