My Blueshift SWE 2 Frontend Interview Experience — [26LPA]

Overview

This case study outlines the interview process for a Frontend Engineer (SDE-2) role at Blueshift. The process consisted of three rounds: an online assessment (OA) on HackerRank, a technical interview, and an HR discussion. The candidate provides insights into the questions asked, the coding challenges presented, and the overall impression of the company.

Interview Rounds

Round 1: Online Assessment (OA)

The initial round involved two coding problems on HackerRank.

• Question 1: HackerRank League: Countries That Never Scored a Century

  • Description: The task required identifying the number of countries that had never achieved a score of 100 or more, given an array of country-score pairs.

  • Approach: The candidate employed a map to store the highest score for each country and then counted the number of countries with scores below 100.

  • Example:

    scores = [
      ["India", 2],
      ["Australia", 31],
      ["India", 122],
      ["Australia", 61],
      ["India", 4],
    ];
    

    • Output: 1

• Question 2: Parking Lot Problem

  • Description: The problem involved determining if a given number k of cars could be parked in a parking lot, represented by an array where 0 signifies an empty spot and 1 signifies an occupied spot. Cars cannot be parked in adjacent spots.
  • Approach: Initially overthinking the problem, the candidate realized that a single-pass count-based approach with boundary checks effectively solves the problem.
  • Example Inputs/Outputs:
    • spots = [1,0,0,0,1], k = 1 → true
    • spots = [1,0,0,0,1], k = 2 → false

Round 2: Technical Interview (60 minutes)

This round was conducted by a Team Lead from the Orchestration Team. The interview commenced with an introduction to Blueshift and the team's responsibilities.

The interview included theoretical and practical coding questions.

• Theoretical Questions:
  • Promises: definition, types, and practical use cases
  • CSS display properties
  • React Hooks: identification and usage (the candidate mentioned 5 hooks)
  • Frontend optimization techniques
• Coding Questions (IDE):

  • Debounce Function:

    function debounce(fn, delay) {
      let timer = null;
      return function (...args) {
        if (timer) clearTimeout(timer);
        timer = setTimeout(() => fn.apply(this, args), delay);
      };
    }
    

  • Flatten a Nested Array:

    function flatten(arr) {
      const res = [];
      for (let el of arr) {
        if (Array.isArray(el)) res.push(...flatten(el));
        else res.push(el);
      }
      return res;
    }
    

  • Fetch Data from an API:

    function fetchData() {
      fetch("https://api.example.com")
        .then((res) => res.json())
        .then((data) => console.log(data))
        .catch((err) => console.log(err))
        .finally(() => console.log("Done"));
    }
    

Round 3: HR Discussion (30 mins)

The HR discussion involved conversational questions, including:

• Tell me about yourself
• Why are you looking for a change?
• What motivates you to work every day?
• How do you handle team conflicts?
• Do you enjoy working in fast paced small teams?
• What is your current and expected salary?

Salary expectations were discussed late in the process. The budget provided was below the candidate's expectations, and they declined the offer as they had a more competitive offer already.

Key Takeaways

Blueshift presents itself as a startup environment with opportunities for ownership and full-stack exposure. The interviewers were approachable. However, the timing of salary discussions could be improved. The candidate found the frontend work potentially interesting, but ultimately declined the offer based on compensation.