Zomato SDE-1 on-campus — an Air Force internship that stood out

## Background
An on-campus hiring drive. Eligibility required a CGPA of 7+ and was open to all branches.

## Round-by-round

### Online assessment
90 minutes, three problems, all at hard/competitive-programming level — two **dynamic programming** based, and a third combining **binary search** with **DFS**.

### Technical round 1
Centred on high-level design around the projects I'd built. I'd also done an internship with the **Indian Air Force**, which turned out to be a genuine conversation-starter and stood out as something different from the usual resume. There was also a DSA problem — a variation on the classic coin-change type.

### Technical round 2
Core CS fundamentals — Operating Systems, DBMS and SQL.

### HR round
Cultural fit and communication skills in a more conversational format.

## Verdict
**Selected.**