Flipkart Interview Questions

About Flipkart

Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce company founded 15 years ago. Headquartered in Bengaluru, the company has several subsidiaries today, including Myntra, Ekart, and PhonePe. It began its journey with online book sales, expanding into other product categories like consumer electronics, home essentials, fashion, apparel, groceries, and lifestyle products.

The company offers a work culture that fosters belonging and helps employees advance their skillset. They believe in collaborating to innovate as a team.

Flipkart Interview Process

Cracking the Flipkart interview for Software Development Engineer (SDE) positions demands a thorough knowledge of code, design principles and patterns. Candidates should be able to write maintainable and extensible code. The following interview rounds are set to gauge a Software Developer's true potential. 

Interview Process for SDE Intern Positions

Round 1: Online Coding Round

It comprises two coding interview questions to be completed within 60 minutes. Flipkart interview experience holders state that both questions are based on basic data structures and algorithms.

Round 2 and 3: Online Coding Round

These interview rounds assess a candidate's proficiency in problem-solving, data structures, and algorithms, including coding problems on arrays, lists, graphs, trees, dynamic programming, recursion, linked list, queues, trees, maps, etc. 

Candidates can put up questions to clear doubts. Talking to the interviewer while coding and conveying your approach is recommended to earn extra points. 

Round 4: Hiring Manager Round

An engineering manager of the team you are interviewing for will use several behavioral, resume-based and scenario-based questions to evaluate your soft and technical skills. The HR round focuses on understanding how well a candidate can fit into the Flipkart culture. 

Interview Process for Full-time SDE Positions

Round 1: Phone Screening

It lasts for about 60 minutes and centers around past work insight and some critical thinking questions related to the job position you are being interviewed for. It is conducted over the telephone or hangouts. 

Round 2: Machine Coding

The candidates will be given a problem, and they will have to come up with a complete working code (including error handling mechanisms) within 90 mins duration. There will also be a detailed discussion on the candidate's approach to solving the question. So, the total time devoted to this session will be two hours approx.

Round 3: Problem Solving and Data Structures

Candidates should be prepared for Flipkart coding questions on various data structures. The most commonly asked concepts include String Manipulation, Bit Manipulation, Two Pointers, Searching, Sorting, Backtracking, and Dynamic Programming.

Round 4: System Design Round

This round is only for senior SDE positions. It lasts for about 60 minutes and includes two types of design interviews: Systems Design and Object-Oriented Design (OOD).

Round 5: Managerial Round (Team and Culture Fitment)

This round aims at assessing candidates' group fitment based on their experience, interests and skills exhibited in different rounds. It lasts for about 60 minutes. It is a summary round as the interviewer concludes a candidate's core competencies displayed in previous rounds. Candidates must get well acquainted with Flipkart's values and stay candid while answering questions.

Topics to Brush Up on Before the Interview

A software developer should be well-versed in the following crucial concepts:  

• Programming/Coding: Practicing writing the code in an object-oriented language that has good libraries for parallelism/ concurrency.
• Low-Level Design: Practice coming up with a Logical View and a Process View.
• Data Structures and Algorithms: Lists, Linked Lists, Arrays, Graphs, Trees, Queues, Dynamic Programming, HashMap, Heap, and others.
• Design Patterns and Principles
• System Architecture and Its Components

Flipkart Coding Questions

1. Gas Station

Given integer arrays A and B, each of size N. There are N gas stations present along a circular route. The amount of gas at station i is A[i].

Suppose your car has an unlimited gas tank. Given the cost of gas to travel from station i to the next station (i+1) is B[i]. If you begin the journey from one of the gas stations with an empty tank, return the minimum starting index of the gas station when you can travel around the circuit once; else, return -1. Starting at i and ending up at the same completes the circuit.

Assume that you can only travel in one direction, i.e., i to i+1, i+2, ... n-1, 0, 1, 2. 

Input Format

• The first argument given is the integer array A. 
• The second argument given is the integer array B.

Output Format

• Return the minimum starting index of the gas station when you can travel around the circuit once; else, return -1.

2. Distribute Candy

Given N children are standing in a line, and each is assigned a rating value. You are supposed to distribute candies to these children as follows:

• Each child must get at least one candy.
• Children who are assigned a higher rating get more candies than their neighbors.

Determine the minimum candies to be given. 

Input Format: 

• The first and the only argument contains N integers in an array A.

Output Format: 

• Return an integer that represents the minimum candies to be given.

3. Min Sum Path in Matrix

For a given 2D integer array A of size M x N, find a path from the top left to the bottom right that minimizes the sum of all numbers. (Note: You are only allowed to move either down or right at any time.)

Input Format

• The first and only argument is a 2D integer array A of size M x N.

Output Format

• Return a single integer that denotes the minimum sum of a path from the cell (1, 1) to cell (M, N).

4. Merge K Sorted Lists

Merge the given k sorted linked lists. Return the sorted lists as one sorted list.

For Example :

The lists are: 

• 1 -> 10 -> 20
• 4 -> 11 -> 13
• 3 -> 8 -> 9 

They will result in the following list:

1 -> 3 -> 4 -> 8 -> 9 -> 10 -> 11 -> 13 -> 20

5. Design a Twitter-like System

System design interview questions often include Twitter design. The system design round is open-ended, and the candidate can explore various options. There is no fixed or standard answer. However, candidates must ask the interviewers questions to discover the sub-parts of the question and their expectations.

6. First Non-Repeating Character in a Stream of Characters

For a given string A that denotes a stream of lowercase alphabets, make a new string B to find the first non-repeating character every time a character is inserted into the stream and append it at the end to B. If no non-repeating character is discovered, append '#' at the end of B.

Problem Constraints

1 <= length of the string <= 100000

Input Format

• The only argument given is string A.

Output Format

• Return a string B on processing the string of lowercase alphabets A.

7. Meeting Rooms

For a given 2D integer array A of size N x 2 that denotes time intervals of different meetings, find the minimum number of conference rooms needed for all meetings, where:

A[i][0] = start time of the ith meeting

A[i][1] = end time of the ith meeting

Problem Constraints

1 <= N <= 10

0 <= A[i][0] < A[i][1] <= 2 * 109

Input Format

• The only argument given is the matrix A.

Output Format

• Return the minimum number of conference rooms needed for all the meetings.

8. Pair With Given Difference

A is the given one-dimensional unsorted array containing N integers. Also, given an integer B, find whether the given array has a pair of elements whose difference is B. If there is any such pair present, return 1; else, return 0.

Input Format

• The first argument is an integer array A of size N.
• The second argument is an integer B.

Output Format

Return 1 if any such pair is present in the array; else, return 0.

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Conclusion 

These Flipkart interview questions will definitely help you out in your interview process. Let us know in the comment section below about your interview experience with Flipkart and what kind of questions were asked. 

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FAQs

1.What are the most commonly asked interview questions at Flipkart?

The most commonly asked Flipkart interview questions are:

• What addition can you make to promote e-commerce?
• What factors would you consider while setting up an online grocery store?
• How would you reduce shipping costs to remote pin codes?
• Who are the main competitors of Flipkart? What makes Flipkart different from them?

2. What are the most commonly asked Flipkart interview questions for HR rounds?

Some of the most frequently asked Flipkart interview questions are as follows:

• Why do you want to join Flipkart?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• How will you contribute to Flipkart?
• What challenges did you come across in your previous job?

3. What are Flipkart values?

Flipkart expects its employees to abide by the following five core values:

• Audacity
• Bias for action
• Customer-first
• Integrity
• Inclusion