PhonePe SDE-2 (~54 LPA) — stopped at the DSA round

Background

An SDE-2 opening with a package of roughly 54 LPA, structured across four rounds. I applied via referral.

Round-by-round

Round 1 — Machine coding

90 minutes centred on low-level design: design an e-commerce application similar in spirit to a large online shopping platform, writing actual executable code while applying relevant design patterns. Followed by a 30-minute evaluation and discussion of what I'd built.

Round 2 — DSA

60 minutes, two problems. The first was a genuinely tough graph problem at competitive-programming difficulty, which I struggled with. The second was a dynamic programming problem.

Round 3 — High-level design (not reached)

I'd prepared for it but didn't progress far enough.

Round 4 — Managerial (not reached)

Part of the overall process, but I didn't reach this stage either.

Verdict

Not selected — did not progress past the DSA round.