Cleartrip SDE-1 Interview Experience

Hi everyone, I’d like to share my interview experience for the SDE-1 role at Cleartrip in January 2025. This was part of a hiring drive, and there were a total of four rounds. I’ll go through each round in detail, hoping it helps others preparing for similar opportunities.

How did i get the opportunity?

I received a call from a recruiter after filling out a Google form posted on LinkedIn around mid-January 2025.

Round 1: Machine coding Round (30 Minutes Briefing + 90 minutes Coding + 30 Mins Discussion — Given the submitted code gets shortlisted)

This was a machine coding round conducted over Google Meet, where all candidates in the drive participated. The expectation was to write functional code adhering to OOP principles, SOLID design, design patterns, and exception handling. The preferred language was Java, but other languages were also allowed.

The round was structured as follows:

• 30 minutes: Candidates could clarify doubts about the problem statement.
• 90 minutes: Candidates had to implement a working solution.
• 30 minutes (if shortlisted): Discussion with interviewers about the submitted code, focusing on scalability and modularity.

Problem Statement:

I was asked to Design and Implement a Food Ordering System for a restaurant that manages customer orders.

Below are the users for this platform: Customer & Restaurant

The system should handle the following:

• User should be able to register itself to the platform
• Restaurant should be able to register itself to the platform
• Catalog addition: Restaurants should be able to add the items, quantity and price on the platform.
• Search item: Customers should be able to search the items in a catalog for a restaurant.
• Search responses should be sorted on price.
• Customers can place food orders with details such as items and quantities.
• Customers should be able to get all the orders for the given userId.

Bonus Question: The system should handle cancellation requests from the customer.

After implementing the solution, we had to submit the code via a Google Form. Candidates whose solutions worked were invited for a follow-up discussion.

After 2 hours i got a call that my followup discussion will happen that day itself. During this round, the interviewer asked several follow-up questions focused on handling different exceptions and implementing various edge cases. The discussion lasted for over an hour and felt quite overwhelming at times, as I was asked to dive deep into the code and justify my decisions. It’s important to be well-prepared for such in-depth questioning.

Result: After two days, I received a call from the recruiter informing me that I had cleared the round and would proceed to the next stage.

Round 2: Problem Solving & Data Structures — 60 Minutes (Offline)

This round happend at the Cleartrip Office. It consisted of two DSA questions (LeetCode medium-level), which were pretty standard. One was rotten oranges, BFS-based question and other was binary search problem in which i have to find if duplicates are present in a sorted and rotated array, is it is present , print them. The expectation was to write code for both problems within 60 minutes.

Result: After some 15 minutes recruiter told me that I had cleared this round.

Round 3: Hiring Manager Round (Ownership, Past Experience, Team fit) — 60 Minutes

This round started with introductions from both sides. The hiring manager then:

• Asked about my latest project (from my resume) and grilled me on its technical aspects — asking detailed questions around the “why” and “how” of various decisions I made. I wasn’t fully prepared for that level of scrutiny, which made the discussion quite challenging.
• He also asked a few behavioural questions, such as why I left my previous job, why I’m interested in Cleartrip, and questions about my strengths, weaknesses, and difficult situations I’ve faced.

Overall, the conversation didn’t go as well as I had hoped.

Result: I received a call the next day informing me that I had cleared the third round. Since I was already holding three offers at the time, I requested them to speed up the process

Round 4: HR Round — 30 Minutes

This round was conducted by a HRBP at Cleartrip. It mainly focused on behavioral questions, my expected joining date, and an overview of the benefits offered by Cleartrip. This round also went well and had a positive experience overall.

Final Outcome: Selected! 😊

The next day, I received a call confirming that I had cleared the interview process at Cleartrip. However, I decided not to join Cleartrip as I had other competing offers at the time.

Resources I followed:

• DSA: I practiced from **Striver’s DSA Sheet and [NeetCode Sheet](https://neetcode.io/practice?tab=neetcode150), which I found to be sufficient**.
• HLD & LLD: I followed **Shrayansh Jain’s YouTube playlist. I didn’t watch all the videos but focused on important and commonly asked questions**.
• System Design: If time permits, I highly recommend reading Shivam Bandani’s article on system design — it’s a pure gem for beginners!
• Design Patterns: I followed the website **Refactoring Guru, which provides clear explanations and real-world examples**.

I hope my experience helps others preparing for Cleartrip SDE-1 roles! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.