Company questionsGroundworkPhonePe

India · interview process

PhonePe

PhonePe SDE-2 candidates describe a machine coding round with a code review, usually a DSA round, a system design round and a hiring manager discussion; one 2022 loop had no DSA round. One 2025 candidate cleared all four rounds but received no offer letter because PhonePe could not match the pay they quoted.

  • 6 rounds
  • 2-4 weeks (one guide); one SDE-2 report says the process took about 3 months
  • 2 design answers
  • 4 coding answers
  • 4 well-reported rounds
Start with round 1 Browse every question
  1. OA
  2. Machine coding
  3. DSA
  4. System design
  5. Manager
  6. HR
  7. People rounds

The process, round by round

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. Online / offline coding assessment

    Online assessmentabout 90 min

    One report

    A timed coding test. A 2023 campus drive used an in-person 90-minute test with four problems (binary search, trees with expected value, dynamic programming, one unknown). A guide describes about 90 minutes on a platform such as HackerRank or CodeSignal with two or three problems. One 2025 SDE-2 candidate instead did a CodeSignal take-home machine coding task.

    • binary search
    • trees and DP
    • reading unclear output formats

    Varies: The 2023 campus drive used an in-person test after an AMCAT filter. The three SDE-2 reports read begin with machine coding and mention no separate test.

    What can be asked in a online assessment round

    A timed test on a coding platform, taken alone. Usually two or three coding problems, sometimes with multiple-choice questions on CS basics, aptitude or SQL.

    • Array and string problems that need a hash map, two pointers or a sliding window

      Read the constraints first, because they point to the technique. If n is 100,000, an O(n^2) scan will time out, so look for a hash map, two pointers on a sorted array, or a window that moves forward only. Sketch the brute force, find the repeated work, then remove it. For two-sum style pairs you might say: I store each value's index as I scan, so the complement lookup is O(1) and the whole pass is O(n).

      DSA course →
    • Greedy and sorting problems with a catch in the constraints

      Greedy problems hide behind a sort. Ask what ordering makes the locally best choice safe, then try to argue why swapping two adjacent choices never helps. Interval scheduling is the classic case: sort by end time and take every interval that starts after the last chosen one. Check the catch in the constraints, such as overflow, ties or equal values, and test a tiny case by hand before submitting.

      DSA course →
    • A medium dynamic programming or graph-on-a-grid problem

      Decide whether the problem is a graph walk or a recurrence. On a grid, a shortest path with equal step cost is breadth-first search from the start, with a visited set so each cell is processed once, giving O(rows x cols). For dynamic programming, define the state in one sentence, write the transition, set the base cases, then see if only the previous row is needed to save space.

      DSA course →
    • SQL queries with joins and group by

      Start from the table that holds the thing being counted, join the others on their keys, filter rows with WHERE, group, then filter groups with HAVING. Remember that WHERE runs before grouping and HAVING after. Use LEFT JOIN when rows with no match must still appear, and COUNT of a column rather than star when nulls matter. Example: customers with more than three orders is GROUP BY customer_id HAVING COUNT(*) > 3.

      Databases →
    • Multiple-choice questions on OOP, operating systems, databases and networks

      These reward quick, accurate recall rather than long reasoning, so revise the short list of definitions that recur. Know the difference between a process and a thread, the four ACID properties, what an index trades for faster reads, TCP against UDP, and the four pillars of OOP. Eliminate two wrong options first, then choose. Do not spend more than a minute on any single question, and flag it to return to if time remains.

      Mock interviews →

    Prepare with: Book · Online assessmentDSA course

    2 sources for this round

  2. Machine coding and code review

    Machine coding90-120 min coding, plus a 15-30 min review where reported

    Several reports

    Build an in-memory, object-oriented system, such as a to-do tracker with analytics, a vehicle rental system or an e-commerce product search backend. A follow-up review probes structure, extensibility, tests and scaling. Can be live or a take-home.

    • clean object-oriented design
    • modularity
    • writing tests
    • time management
    • design patterns and thread safety

    Varies: One candidate ran out of time before adding tests and was given a redo with a booking system. Another report is for May 2022 interviews, posted 2025.

    Practise for this round

    What can be asked in a machine coding round

    You build a small working system in your own editor in 60 to 120 minutes, then walk through it. Clean entities, extensibility, a runnable demo and tests matter more than clever algorithms.

    • Parking lot, library or inventory system with several entity types

      Spend the first ten minutes on requirements and entities, not code. For a parking lot you might list Vehicle, Slot, Ticket and Lot, with slot types as an enum and the allocation rule hidden behind an interface so a nearest-slot strategy can be swapped. Keep the code runnable early, write a small demo in main, and add a few tests. Say what you would add with more time, such as pricing rules.

      Whiteboard →
    • Splitwise-style expense sharing, a wallet or a ledger

      The core of expense sharing is a balance ledger: for each pair or each user, store the net amount owed. An expense has a payer, an amount and a split type such as equal, exact or percent, handled by a split strategy per type. Validate that exact splits sum to the total and handle rounding explicitly. To simplify debts, compute each person's net balance and match the largest creditor with the largest debtor.

    • Snake and ladder, tic-tac-toe, chess or another game engine

      Model the board, players, dice or moves, and a game controller that owns the turn loop, with rules kept out of the board class. For tic-tac-toe, keep counters per row, column and both diagonals, so a win check is O(1) per move instead of scanning the grid. For snake and ladder, store jumps in a map from square to destination. Make board size and number of players configurable rather than hard coded.

    • An in-memory cache, key-value store, rate limiter or job scheduler

      Start with the public interface and the invariants. For a rate limiter, a token bucket stores tokens and a last refill time per key, refills lazily on each call and allows the request if a token remains. For an LRU or key-value store, say the data structure and the complexity. For a scheduler, a priority queue ordered by run time with a worker that waits for the earliest job.

    • Elevator, vending machine or ATM as a state machine

      Draw the states and transitions before coding. An elevator is idle, moving up, moving down or doors open, and each event such as a button press or arrival is handled by the current state. A vending machine moves through idle, has money, dispensing and out of stock. Implement it with a state interface or an enum and a transition table, so invalid actions are rejected in one place instead of with scattered if statements.

    • Follow-ups: add a new rule without rewriting, make it concurrent, add persistence

      Show that your design bends without a rewrite. For a new rule, say you add a new class that implements the existing interface and register it, leaving old code unchanged. For concurrency, name the shared state and protect it with a lock per resource, or atomic operations, keeping check-and-update in one critical section. For persistence, put a repository interface in front of storage so an in-memory version can be replaced by a database.

      Mock interviews →
    4 sources for this round

  3. Problem solving / DSA

    Data structures and algorithmsabout 60 min (35-40 min each in a campus drive)

    Several reports

    Two or three problems, rated medium to difficult by the candidates: coin distribution in a binary tree and prefix-sum counting in one report; a minimum spanning tree discussion plus stack and graph problems in another. A 2023 campus candidate had two interviews of two problems each, with interviewer hints and a knapsack-style question.

    • trees and graphs
    • prefix sums and DP
    • explaining approach
    • working with hints

    Varies: The May 2022 SDE-2 loop had no separate DSA round. The 2023 campus report had two DSA interviews followed by a techno-HR round.

    Practise for this round

    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.

      DSA course →
    • 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.

      DSA course →
    • 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.

      DSA course →
    • 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.

      DSA course →
    • 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.

      DSA course →
    • 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.

    Prepare with: Book · DSA roundDSA course

    4 sources for this round

  4. System design

    System designabout 60 min

    Several reports

    Design a large product: a Quora-style Q&A platform (two reports) or a search engine with crawler and query services (one report). Discussion covered SQL versus NoSQL, search and feed, capacity estimation, API gateway authentication and fault-tolerant design.

    • service decomposition
    • SQL versus NoSQL choice
    • search and indexing
    • capacity estimation
    • fault tolerance

    Varies: One guide says SDE-1 design leans to LLD (classes, schema) while SDE-2 leans to distributed systems with payment concerns.

    Practise for this round

    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.

      System design course →
    • 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.

      System design course →
    • 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.

      System design course →
    • 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.

      System design course →
    • Fundamentals: caching, sharding, replication, queues, consistency, failure handling

      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.

      System design course →
    • Back-of-envelope estimates and what they decide

      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.

      Capacity estimation →

    Prepare with: Book · System designSystem design course

    4 sources for this round

  5. Hiring manager

    Hiring manager45-60 min

    Several reports

    In one report the manager briefly introduced the team, then went through the candidate's current project: proposed improvements, the choice of MongoDB, replication and sharding, team size. Another report adds an open-ended design of a distributed compute cluster. A third is behavioural, covering why the candidate is leaving, salary expectations and why PhonePe.

    • depth on own project
    • design trade-offs
    • motivation for switching
    • scoping open-ended problems

    Varies: Campus loop ends with a 40-45 minute techno-HR round mixing project, React/backend and behavioural questions (2023).

    Practise for this round

    What can be asked in a hiring manager round

    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.

      Resume grilling chapter →
    • 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.

      Behavioural chapter →
    • How you prioritise when everything is urgent

      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.

      Behavioural chapter →
    • What you want from the next role and the team

      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.

    Prepare with: Book · Resume grillingBook · Behavioural

    4 sources for this round

  6. HR and compensation

    HR and offerabout 30 min (guide)

    One report

    A guide describes a final 30-minute conversation on culture fit and pay expectations. One 2025 candidate cleared all four rounds, was then asked about expected compensation, and received no offer letter because PhonePe could not match the figure quoted.

    • compensation expectations
    • culture fit

    Varies: Only the guide describes a separate HR round; none of the three SDE-2 reports lists one, and one of them covered salary expectations in the hiring-manager round.

    Practise for this round

    What can be asked in a hr and offer round

    The closing conversation: motivation, expectations, notice period, compensation and how the offer is structured. Prepared answers and a clear number help here.

    • Current and expected compensation, and how to answer without boxing yourself in

      Be honest and avoid giving a single number too early. Share your current pay only if you are comfortable, and make clear what is fixed and what is variable. For expectations, say you are flexible for the right role, and offer a researched range based on level and market. If pushed, state a figure you can justify. Never state a number you cannot support, because offers are often checked.

      HR and the number chapter →
    • Notice period, joining date and relocation

      Give the facts exactly as they are in your contract. State the notice period, whether early release or a buy-out is truly possible, and the earliest honest joining date. Do not promise a date your employer has not agreed to. For relocation, say whether you can move, how soon, and whether you would need support. Clear, early information helps the recruiter plan and shows you are reliable.

      HR and the number chapter →
    • Why you are leaving and what you are looking for

      Keep it positive and forward looking. Talk about what you want more of, such as larger scale, ownership or a stronger team, rather than criticising your current employer. The listener checks that you will not leave this job for the same reason. Opening line: I have learned a lot in the current role, and I now want to work on problems at a bigger scale.

    • Levels, equity and how the offer is built

      Ask for the structure rather than only the total. Find out the level and title, base salary, bonus and whether it is guaranteed, equity amount, vesting schedule and cliff, joining bonus and any clawback. Compare offers on a yearly total with the same assumptions. If equity is in a private company, ask how it is valued and what happens on leaving. Asking calmly is normal and expected.

      Levels and equity chapter →

    Prepare with: Book · HR & the numberBook · Levels & equity

    2 sources for this round

Preparing for the people rounds at PhonePe

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.

What PhonePe says it valuesOfficial ↗

  • Integrity and honestyTreat honesty as the price of admission and keep politics, dishonesty and discrimination out of how you work.
  • Audacious goalsSet goals beyond incremental thinking and take calculated risks, celebrating both success and failure.
  • Quality of outputFocus on the quality and impact of your output rather than on being busy.
  • TransparencyShare data and learnings openly so decisions across the company get better.
  • Open-minded and candidVoice opinions even when they are uncomfortable, admit mistakes and stay open to being influenced by data and logic.
  • Customer firstTreat the customer as the first stakeholder and build the best solution from first principles.
  • Curiosity and learningStay curious about new possibilities and act on them.
  • Full ownershipTake complete ownership of resolving problems across team boundaries and never say it is not your job.

Themes candidates report being probed

  • Depth on your current project architecture
  • Why you are leaving and what you expect
  • Why PhonePe
  • Design trade-offs and monitoring
  • A recent argument and how it was handled
  • Non-programming problems solved
  • Conflict with a product manager
  • Compensation expectations after the loop

Questions to rehearse

  1. Why are you leaving your current company, what do you expect from the next one and why PhonePe?One report

    What is being checked. An SDE-2 candidate reports these three together and says the manager was not fully convinced by the motivation. The listener is testing whether your reasons are positive, specific and consistent with the role.

    How to frame it. Lead with what you want to move toward, then a short, neutral account of what you have outgrown, then something particular about the product or scale. Avoid criticising people. Example opening: 'I have learned what I can from my current scope, and I want to work on a payments system where reliability is the product.'

    Worked example in the Interview book →Candidate write-up · 2025 ↗

  2. Walk me through the architecture of your current project: what you would improve, why that database and how it handles load.One report

    What is being checked. An August 2025 candidate reports questions on improvements, database choice, replication and sharding, load, consumers of the API, team size and timeline. The listener is checking that the depth is real and the numbers are yours.

    How to frame it. Draw it in order of data flow, give request rate, data size and team size, then name one thing you would change and why. Example opening: 'It is a service with one writer and read replicas, handling about this many requests at peak, and the first thing I would change is how we shard.'

    Worked example in the Interview book →Candidate write-up · 2025 ↗

  3. Talk me through past projects: the design decisions, the real-world constraints and how you monitored the service.One report

    What is being checked. A 2022 report describes a hiring manager round that probes decisions and constraints closely. The listener is checking whether you know why choices were made and how you would notice a failure.

    How to frame it. For each decision give the constraint, the options and the signal that tells you it still holds, such as a dashboard or alert. Example opening: 'We had no budget for a second region, so the decision was to design for fast recovery, and we monitored failover time as a metric.'

    Candidate write-up · 2022 ↗

  4. Who did you have a recent argument with, what was it about and how did you handle it?One report

    What is being checked. A report of a techno-HR round (campus-style, so treat it cautiously) includes this prompt. The listener checks maturity, candour and whether you can be persuaded, which matches the open-minded and candid theme.

    How to frame it. Choose a low-drama, real disagreement where you can describe your own part honestly. Show what you asked, what you heard and what changed. Example opening: 'We argued about whether to ship with a known edge case, and I asked what the cost would be if we waited.'

    Worked example in the Interview book →Candidate write-up · 2023 ↗

  5. What real-world problem have you solved that was not a programming problem?One report

    What is being checked. The same techno-HR report includes problems beyond code and non-tech interests. The listener is checking curiosity and whether you apply structured thinking outside your function.

    How to frame it. Pick a problem with a clear before and after, such as a process, a community task or a cost. Show how you broke it down. Example opening: 'Our team spent hours on release coordination, so I mapped the steps and removed three that nobody needed.'

    Candidate write-up · 2023 ↗

  6. What is the hardest bug you have solved, and how did you find it?Prep guides

    What is being checked. A prep guide gives this as an example prompt in the hiring manager round. The listener is checking your debugging method and whether you can explain a technical story clearly to a non-specialist.

    How to frame it. Describe symptom, hypotheses, how you narrowed it down and the fix, then the safeguard you added. Example opening: 'Payments were failing for a small slice of users, and the clue was that it only happened after a particular retry.'

    Prep guide ↗

  7. Tell me about a conflict with a product manager and how you resolved it.Prep guides

    What is being checked. The same prep guide gives a conflict with a product manager as an example prompt. The listener is checking whether you can negotiate scope and risk with non-engineers while keeping the customer in view.

    How to frame it. Describe the competing goals, what each side was protecting and the compromise you reached with data. Example opening: 'The product manager wanted the feature in two weeks and I was worried about reconciliation, so we agreed on a smaller launch with a guard.'

    Worked example in the Interview book →Prep guide ↗

The offer conversation

  • An August 2025 SDE-2 candidate reports being asked for expected compensation after four rounds, and says the company could not match the figure quoted; the page is inconsistent on whether the offer was declined or never issued.
  • A June 2025 SDE-2 candidate's preparation notes suggest avoiding personal expectations early and discussing total compensation during negotiation; this is that candidate's advice, not a company rule.
  • A prep guide describes a closing conversation of about 30 minutes on culture fit and pay expectations. As general advice, find out the band before you quote a number.

What we could not verify. The Our Values section of the Life page shows its statements without individual titles, so the names above are editorial labels and the lines paraphrase the statements. No official process page was read, and the techno-HR report is a 2023 campus loop that may not match experienced hiring.

What we could not verify. No official PhonePe process page. LeetCode (SDE-1, backend 3-5 yrs, 2025-26), Glassdoor and Naukri were 403 or unfetched, so SDE-1 and non-Bengaluru variants rest on one campus report and a guide. Roundz post 130 covers 2022 interviews; its blog date is 2025. Timelines come from one guide and one candidate report.