Cvent Interview Process - Senior Fullstack Engineer

I was part of an interview drive for the Senior Software Engineer position at Cvent India. The first two rounds happened on the same day, followed by a system design round.

Round 1 Coding and Data Structures

• Implement a data structure based on a given problem statement.

• One question involved identifying duplicates and optimizing the solution using a HashSet instead of nested loops.

• Discussed how to optimize the time complexity from O(n²) to O(n) using an appropriate data structure.

• Questions involving HashMap, Stack, Queue and custom data structures.

• Write executable code, handle edge cases and discuss time and space complexity.

Round 2 Core Java and Low-Level Design

This round covered Core Java concepts, Java-based low-level design and tricky output-based questions.

• How does HashMap work internally? What happens when two keys have the same hash code?

• HashMap vs ConcurrentHashMap.

• Explain the equals() and hashCode() contract.

• String vs StringBuilder vs StringBuffer.

• synchronized vs volatile.

• Java 8 Streams, lambda expressions and functional interfaces.

• Multiple Java output-based puzzles involving object references, inheritance, method overloading and overriding, static blocks, constructors and exception handling.

• Multithreading-related questions involving thread execution order, synchronization and shared resources.

• Java low-level design questions, where I had to design classes, define responsibilities and explain the choice of design patterns.

• A few basic system design questions, focusing on why I would choose a particular approach and the trade-offs involved.

Round 3 System Design and Database Concepts

The main design question was Design a URL Shortener, covering the overall architecture and how to make the system scalable.

Other topics included:

• URL generation, handling collisions and choosing a suitable database.

• Database schema design, indexing and query optimization.

• SQL joins and database normalization.

• ACID properties and transaction isolation levels.

• Optimistic vs pessimistic locking.

• Database replication and partitioning.

• Microservices architecture and communication between services.

• Handling failures, scalability and consistency in distributed systems.

Overall Experience

The interview process focused on practical coding, strong Core Java fundamentals, low-level
design, database concepts and backend system design.

The interviewers also focused on understanding the reasoning behind the solutions rather than just the final answers. Overall, it was a good experience.

I ended up opting for the offer after a bit of negotiation on the salary, i already have another offer in-hand , so had word with hiring manager on negotiation and how i can be best fit for the cvent, I accepted the offer for the Senior software engineer Cvent