Expedia SDE-2 — quiet job hunt, then back-to-back CodePair rounds

Background

My preparation was fairly structured — DSA, Low-Level Design and basic High-Level Design, while staying grounded in my primary stack, Java Spring Boot.

The job search itself was tougher than I expected. Despite sending out a good number of applications, the calls just weren't coming. Around the time this process picked up I was also juggling a separate offer I'd already received from another company, so I had to balance that alongside actively interviewing here.

Round-by-round

1. Online assessment

Three DSA questions, all at medium difficulty — a mix of graph and DP problems.

2. Technical round 1

Over Zoom using CodePair, focused on live coding and DSA problem-solving.

3. Technical round 2

Followed immediately after in the same back-to-back format, again centred on coding and DSA.

Verdict

Selected — SDE-2.