The only fully readable Dream11 report is one 2024 SDE-2 loop: a coding screen, a database and project round, an on-site high-level design in Mumbai and a hiring-manager round. Other reports exist on sites I could not open.
4 rounds
About four weeks from the first coding round (29 March) to the on-site design round (27 April) in the one readable report; the hiring-manager round date is not stated.
Reported by candidates and, where we found one, the company itself. Each round shows how well it is reported. Processes change by team, level and year.
1
Virtual coding round
Data structures and algorithms
One report
Virtual round on 29 March 2024: two problems (minimum path sum in a grid, first missing positive in O(n) time and O(1) space) written in a text editor, dry-run on test cases, with time and space complexity explained.
What can be asked in a data structures and algorithms round
A live coding round of 45 to 60 minutes with one or two problems. You are judged on how you clarify, reason, code, test and state the complexity, not on the answer alone.
Arrays, strings and hashing: pairs, windows, frequency counts, prefix sums
Name the pattern from the shape of the question. Pairs with a target use a hash map of seen values. A contiguous range with a condition uses a sliding window that grows on the right and shrinks on the left, so each element enters and leaves once, giving O(n). Range sums over many queries use a prefix sum array so each query is O(1) after O(n) setup. Count characters with a fixed-size array or map.
Linked lists, stacks and queues, including design-a-structure problems such as an LRU cache
For an LRU cache, combine a hash map from key to node with a doubly linked list ordered by recency. Get moves the node to the front, put inserts at the front, and when over capacity you remove the tail node and its map entry. Both operations are O(1), and you say why: the map finds the node, the list reorders it without a scan. For stacks, mention a monotonic stack for next greater element.
Trees and BSTs, graphs (BFS, DFS, topological sort, shortest paths) and grids
Decide the traversal from what is asked. Level by level or shortest path in an unweighted graph is BFS with a queue. Exploring all paths, components or cycles is DFS. A dependency order is topological sort: Kahn's algorithm repeatedly removes nodes with in-degree zero, and leftover nodes mean a cycle. Weighted shortest path with non-negative edges is Dijkstra with a heap, O((V + E) log V). On a BST, an in-order walk is sorted.
Heaps and top-K, intervals, binary search on the answer
For the K largest items keep a min-heap of size K: push each element and pop the smallest when the heap exceeds K, so the cost is O(n log K) and memory is O(K). For intervals, sort by start, then merge by comparing the next start with the current end. For binary search on the answer, define a yes or no check that is monotonic, such as can ship within D days, and search the capacity range.
Dynamic programming from one dimension up to knapsack and string DP
Define the state in a sentence, write the recurrence, fix the base cases, and decide the order of filling. Start with the recursive version with memoisation, then convert to a table. For 0/1 knapsack, dp[w] is the best value at capacity w, and in the one dimensional form you loop capacity downward so each item is used once. For string problems such as edit distance, the state is a pair of prefix lengths.
Follow-ups: optimise space, handle streaming input, make it thread-safe
Treat follow-ups as a chance to show depth, and answer in the same calm order each time. To save space, ask which previous rows or values the recurrence actually reads and keep only those. For streaming input, say what summary you can keep, such as a heap of size K or a running count. For thread safety, name the shared state, guard it with a lock, and keep the critical section short.
ReportedDatabase isolation levels, locking strategies and indexing Asked against the candidate's MySQL-based project.Candidate write-up ↗
Reported prompts have no written answer yet. Read the linked page for context.
What can be asked in a cs fundamentals round
Questions on the subjects every engineer is expected to know: operating systems, databases, networks and object-oriented programming. Common for campus and early-career hiring.
Process vs thread, scheduling, deadlocks, virtual memory
A process has its own address space, while threads in one process share memory, so threads are cheaper to create and switch but need synchronisation. A deadlock needs four conditions at once: mutual exclusion, hold and wait, no pre-emption and circular wait. Break any one, for example by taking locks in a fixed order. Virtual memory maps pages to frames, and a page fault loads a missing page from disk.
ACID means atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability. Isolation levels trade anomalies for speed: read committed prevents dirty reads, repeatable read also stops a row changing under you, and serializable behaves as if transactions ran one at a time. An index, usually a B-tree, speeds lookups at the cost of slower writes and more space. Normalisation removes duplicated facts, and joins put the pieces back.
TCP vs UDP, the TCP handshake, HTTP and HTTPS, DNS, load balancing
TCP is connection-oriented, ordered and reliable, using a three-way handshake of SYN, SYN-ACK and ACK. UDP sends datagrams without those guarantees, so it suits low latency uses such as voice or DNS queries. HTTPS is HTTP over TLS, which adds encryption and server identity. DNS resolves a name to an address through a chain of resolvers. A load balancer spreads requests across servers using a policy such as round robin or least connections.
Answer with a definition and a small example each time. Polymorphism means one interface with many behaviours, such as a Shape with an area method that each subclass implements. Abstraction hides detail behind a contract. An interface states what, a class states how. Mention that you prefer composition over inheritance when behaviour varies, and tie SOLID to one real choice from your own code.
How would you debug a slow query or a hung process
Work from symptom to cause, measuring before changing. For a slow query, run the execution plan, look for a full scan, a missing or unused index, or a bad join order, and check row counts. For a hung process, check whether it uses CPU, is waiting on I/O or a lock, and read a thread dump or stack trace. State the order: reproduce, observe, form one hypothesis, change one thing.
On-site on 27 April 2024. Opened with questions on technologies from the resume, including Redis list internals and change data capture, then one design problem: send lineup notifications to users 30 minutes before a match, fed by two Kafka streams, scaling from 1,000 to millions of users. Flights were arranged by the company.
ReportedLive leaderboard that re-ranks contests during a match Listed as a typical Dream11 prompt by a course vendor.Prep guide ↗
ReportedWallet or payments service with idempotent operations Listed as a typical prompt; stresses correctness over speed.Prep guide ↗
Reported prompts have no written answer yet. Read the linked page for context.
What can be asked in a system design round
A 45 to 60 minute discussion of how to build a system at scale: requirements, numbers, APIs, data model, components, bottlenecks and trade-offs.
Short links, chat, news feed, notifications, search, rate limiting
Use one repeatable path: clarify scope and scale, estimate load, define the API, sketch the data model, draw the main components, then probe bottlenecks. For short links, store a mapping from a generated short id to the long url, generate ids with a counter encoded in base 62, cache hot links, and note reads far outnumber writes. For chat, mention persistent connections and a store ordered per conversation.
Payments, wallets and ledgers where money must never be lost or doubled
Money systems put correctness before speed. Use a double-entry ledger where entries are append-only and every transfer writes a debit and an equal credit in one transaction. Protect against doubled charges with an idempotency key stored with the result, so a retry returns the original outcome. For lost updates use a database transaction, and reconcile with the payment provider's records on a schedule.
Ride matching, maps and anything with live location
Split the problem into location ingestion, a geospatial index and matching. Drivers send updates every few seconds to a write-optimised store, often in memory, keyed by a grid cell such as a geohash or S2 cell. To find nearby drivers, query the rider's cell and its neighbours, then rank by distance and estimated time. Say how you handle a stale location and a driver who accepts two rides.
File storage and sync, video streaming and content delivery
For file sync, split files into chunks, hash each chunk and upload only chunks the server lacks, so a small edit transfers a small amount. Keep metadata in a database and chunks in object storage. For video, upload the original, transcode into several resolutions, store segments and serve them through a content delivery network with adaptive bitrate streaming, so the player switches quality as bandwidth changes.
Treat each as a tool with a cost. A cache cuts read latency but adds staleness and invalidation. Sharding spreads write load but makes cross-shard queries hard. Replication gives availability and read scale but introduces lag. Queues smooth spikes and decouple services but require idempotent consumers. For failures, name timeouts, retries with backoff and a fallback. State what you give up whenever you choose.
Estimates are there to choose a design, so finish each one with a decision. Use round numbers: a day has about 100,000 seconds, so 10 million requests a day is roughly 100 per second on average, with a peak of a few times that. Multiply object size by count for storage, and compare against one machine's capacity. If one database handles the load, say so and avoid sharding.
A conversation about your past work and how you would fit the team: depth on projects, ownership, decisions and trade-offs, sometimes a design problem.
Pick a project and go deep: why this design, what broke, what you would change
Choose a project you can discuss at every layer. Explain the problem and who it served, the options you considered, why you chose one, what broke and what you would change now. Be clear which parts you did and which the team did. Admitting a flaw earns trust. Opening line: the main constraint was latency, so I chose a cache in front of the database, and I would now add an invalidation strategy.
A time you disagreed with a teammate or pushed back on a decision
Use situation, task, action, result, and keep the disagreement about the work, never the person. The listener is checking that you can hold a view with evidence, listen, and commit once the decision is made. Describe what you proposed, the data or reasoning you used, how you reached agreement or accepted the other path, and what happened. Do not invent a story: use a real one, even a small one.
Show a method rather than a claim of being busy. Describe how you judge impact and deadline, ask who needs the result and when, and say no or renegotiate scope early when two things clash. Mention communicating the trade-off to stakeholders so nobody is surprised. A sentence you could adapt: I list what is blocking others first, then what has a fixed date, then what moves a metric.
Answer honestly and tie it to what the role offers. Say what you want to learn or own next, such as larger systems, more ownership of design, or mentoring, and what kind of team helps you do it. Then ask what the team is trying to achieve this year and how the work is reviewed. The listener checks that your wishes match the job and that you have thought about it.
The hiring manager, behavioural and offer conversations. Candidate reports shape the themes; the answers and frames are written for this site, so use them as a structure and bring your own stories.
Data DrivenPresented in a testimonial as an expectation for everyone, so be ready to show how data shaped your own decisions.
OwnershipDescribed in the testimonial as owning problems end to end.
PerseveranceNamed in the testimonial without a description, so bring your own example of persisting through a setback.
User FirstDescribed in the testimonial as viewing everything with a user-first lens.
TransparencyNamed in the testimonial without a description, so bring your own example of working openly.
Themes candidates report being probed
How you would hire as the interviewer
Reflection on your earlier rounds
Payment-system implementation and monitoring
Defining availability and service health metrics
A failure or a disappointing manager decision
What a manager would say for and against hiring you
Questions to rehearse
If you were interviewing for this role, how would you hire, and what qualities would you look for?One report
What is being checked. One candidate reports this in a hiring manager round; it shows what you consider good engineering and whether you can see your own interview from the other side.
How to frame it. Name three or four qualities, say how you would test each fairly, and note what you would not overweight. Tie at least one quality to the ownership or data-driven values. An opening you can adapt: 'I would look first for [quality], and I would test it by [method], because [reason].'
What is your own feedback on how your earlier interview rounds went?One report
What is being checked. The same candidate reports being asked to reflect on earlier rounds, which checks self-awareness and honesty about what you did not know.
How to frame it. Name one thing that went well, one thing you struggled with and what you would do differently. Do not criticise the interviewers. An opening you can adapt: 'I was comfortable with [area], but on [topic] I was slower than I wanted, and I have started [fix].'
How did you implement a key function in a payment system you worked on, and what did you watch to know it was healthy?One report
What is being checked. A candidate reports questions on payment-system implementation and monitoring, which checks that your claimed work is real and that you think about correctness with money.
How to frame it. Describe the flow, what makes duplicates or partial failures safe, and the signals you track. Be specific about numbers you actually know. An opening you can adapt: 'The function I owned was [function]; to keep it safe on retries I [mechanism], and I watched [signals].'
How do you define availability for a service, and which metrics tell you it is healthy?One report
What is being checked. This is reported in the same round and ties to the data-driven value; it checks whether you can turn vague reliability into measurable terms.
How to frame it. Define availability from the user's side, such as successful requests over total, then name latency, error rate and saturation signals, and a threshold you would alert on. An opening you can adapt: 'I measure it as [definition], and I alert when [signal] crosses [threshold] for [duration].'
Tell me about a project that failed or fell short, and what you took from it.One report
What is being checked. A failed-project question is reported in a hiring manager round; the listener checks accountability and perseverance more than the failure itself.
How to frame it. State the goal, what went wrong, your share of the cause, what you did next and what you do differently now. Avoid a failure that is secretly a success. An opening you can adapt: 'The project missed [goal] because I [your part], and what I changed afterwards was [practice].'
Tell me about a manager's decision you were disappointed by and how you handled it.One report
What is being checked. The same candidate reports this prompt; it tests how you disagree, whether you commit afterwards and how you speak about former managers.
How to frame it. Describe the decision neutrally, how you raised your view, what was decided and how you acted after it. Show that you can disagree and still deliver. An opening you can adapt: 'I disagreed with the decision to [decision] because [reason], so I [how you raised it], and once it was settled I [how you committed].'
What would your manager say are the reasons to hire you, and the reasons not to?One report
What is being checked. A candidate reports this two-sided question, which checks if your self-view matches what colleagues actually see and whether you can name a real gap.
How to frame it. Give two reasons your manager would back with examples, and one honest reason against with what you are doing about it. An opening you can adapt: 'My manager would say I am strong at [skill], for example [example], and they would also say I can be slow to [weakness].'
The only candidate account found describes a rejection: HR said positives were noted but technical gaps remained. No compensation or notice-period conversation is reported.
As general advice, ask for the full breakdown of fixed and variable pay and how bonuses are paid, check the notice period and buy-out, and ask about the level and band before sharing a figure.
What we could not verify. Only one candidate account was found, with coding, project and design rounds dated March and April 2024 and an undated hiring manager round. The five values appear only inside one testimonial by a FanCode executive on the careers page, two of them with no description, not as a standalone list. No compensation account was found.
What we could not verify. LeetCode, Naukri, Glassdoor, Medium, the hritik.me post and interviewexperiences.in were not readable (403, TLS error or truncated previews), so I could not cite them even though search results mention SDE-1 (Nov 2024), SDE-2 backend (Feb 2025) and frontend loops, a Postgres database round, and a monitoring-system design prompt. The two GfG posts look like the same candidate, so counted as one source. No official process page and no round durations. DesignGurus mentions object-level design inside the backend project round and a timed machine-coding round for the frontend track, without durations or details.