Zepto interview process (2026)

Round-by-round breakdown of the Zepto software engineering interview across 4 levels and 19 rounds: interview mode, sample questions, and worked solutions.

Zepto salary & ratings · All interview processes

Software Development Engineer (SDE) Intern / Software Engineer Intern (summer / 2-6 month)

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: 1-2 days · Recommended prep: 4-8 weeks · Cooldown: Not documented in available candidate reports.

  1. Round 0: Online Assessment (HackerEarth-style)

    Assessment · ~90 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Online assessment

    Sample question: Minimum Platforms Required for a Railway/Bus Station — Given arrival and departure times of N trains at a station, find the minimum number of platforms required so that no train has to wait. A platform is occupied from a train's arrival time through its departure time (inclusive); a platform can be reused only after the previous train departs.

  2. Round 1: Technical Round 1 - DSA / Problem Solving

    Onsite · ~60 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Flatten a Linked List (sorted bottom lists) — You are given a linked list where each node has a next pointer (to the right) and a bottom pointer (downward). Each vertical (bottom) sub-list is already sorted. Flatten the whole structure into a single sorted linked list connected only via the bottom pointers, and return its head.

  3. Round 2: Technical / Hiring-Manager Round - CS Fundamentals + Projects

    Onsite · 45-60 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

  4. Round 3: HR / Culture-Fit Round

    Behavioral · 10-15 minutes · difficulty 1/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

SDE-1 (Software Engineer, backend)

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~1-2 weeks · Recommended prep: 4-6 weeks · Cooldown: No officially published cooldown; unverified (no source foun

  1. Round 0: Online Coding Assessment (OA)

    Assessment · ~90 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Online assessment · HackerRank

    Sample question: Capacity to Ship Packages Within D Days — Given package weights in loading order and D days, find the least ship capacity so all packages ship within D days without reordering.

  2. Round 1: DSA / Problem-Solving (live coding)

    Phone · ~60 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

    Sample question: Minimum Cost For Tickets — Given the sorted days you must travel and costs for 1-day, 7-day, and 30-day passes, return the minimum total money to cover every travel day.

  3. Round 2: Low-Level Design (LLD)

    System_design · 60-70 minutes · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: LLD: Quick-commerce / e-commerce order app — Design the low-level entities, class relationships, and DB schema for a quick-commerce ordering app (catalog, cart, order, delivery). Focus on entity design, design-pattern choices, and pseudo-code.

  4. Round 3: Hiring Manager Round

    Behavioral · ~45-60 minutes · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

  5. Round 4: HR / Culture-Fit Round

    Offer · ~10-20 minutes

    Mode of interview: Offer discussion

SDE-2 (Software Engineer II)

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~1-2 weeks · Recommended prep: 5-8 weeks · Cooldown: No published cooldown; unverified.

  1. Round 0: DSA / Problem-Solving

    Phone · ~60 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

    Sample question: Maximum Product Subarray — Given an integer array (may contain negatives and zeros), return the maximum product of any contiguous non-empty subarray.

  2. Round 1: Low-Level Design / Machine Coding

    System_design · 60-70 minutes · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: LLD: Coupon system (creation + selection/rules engine) — Design a coupon service for quick commerce: define coupon types and rules, create/store coupons with a schema, and given an order return the applicable coupons by evaluating the rules. Discuss extensibility and design patterns.

  3. Round 2: High-Level Design (HLD) / System Design

    System_design · ~60 minutes · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: LLD/Schema: Design DB schema for an Uber-like ride/dispatch system — Design the database schema and core entities for an Uber-like system (riders, drivers, trips, locations, pricing). Discuss indexing choices for hot query paths.

  4. Round 3: Hiring Manager Round

    Behavioral · ~45-60 minutes · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

  5. Round 4: HR / Culture-Fit Round

    Offer · ~10-20 minutes

    Mode of interview: Offer discussion

SDE-3 (Software Engineer III / Senior)

Difficulty: Hard · Timeline: ~1-2 weeks · Recommended prep: 6-10 weeks · Cooldown: No published cooldown; unverified.

  1. Round 0: DSA / Problem-Solving

    Phone · ~60 minutes · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

    Sample question: Largest Rectangle in Histogram — Given bar heights of a histogram (each width 1), return the area of the largest rectangle that fits entirely under the outline.

  2. Round 1: Low-Level Design

    System_design · 60-70 minutes · difficulty 4/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: HLD: Design a Web Crawler — Design a large-scale web crawler: URL frontier and prioritization, politeness/rate limiting per host, dedup, distributed fetch workers, storage/indexing, and fault tolerance/restart.

  3. Round 2: High-Level / System Design

    System_design · ~60 minutes · difficulty 4/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: HLD: High-throughput User Service (CRUD at ~500 RPS, 1-2ms) — Design a user-profile CRUD service that sustains ~500 RPS at 1-2ms latency: data model, caching layer, read/write path, replication and consistency, capacity estimation, and failure handling.

  4. Round 3: Hiring Manager / Bar-Raiser

    Behavioral · ~45-60 minutes · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

  5. Round 4: HR / Culture & Offer

    Offer · ~10-20 minutes

    Mode of interview: Offer discussion

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Worked sample solutions (code, design diagrams, and STAR answers) for every round are available in the FAANGPlus app: open interview processes.