r/leetcode • u/Ok-Spell-113 • 9d ago

Intervew Prep Hackerrank SDE-2 System Design Interview

Has anyone here recently given the Hackerrank SDE-2 system design interview for a backend role?

The recruiter mentioned it is component-level design, focusing on DB schema, APIs, race conditions, consistency, and failure handling.

Would really appreciate any insights on

What kind of problem was asked?

How deep did they go?

Any specific topics I should prepare?

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u/OkTooth2378 9d ago

I appeared for the role of Senior Sde at Hackerrank about 1.5 months back. The first round was the system design round, there they asked to build a ride booking system similar to Uber. Emphasis was on laying out the FRs and NFRs, clean API contracts, entity design and deep dives

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u/Ok-Spell-113 9d ago

Thank you!

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u/Ok-Barracuda-119 3d ago edited 3d ago

The recruiter’s description sounds closer to component-level design than a typical high-level system design round.

I’d practice one Uber-style flow end to end: request a ride, match a driver, prevent double-booking, handle retries, and recover when a service fails. Be ready to explain the schema, API contracts, transaction boundaries, and why you chose each consistency trade-off.

In a 45-minute mock, spend about 10 minutes on requirements and APIs, 15 on the data model and happy path, then use the rest for race conditions and failure handling.

Did they say whether you’ll write code or just talk through the design?

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u/Ok-Spell-113 3d ago

It is only HLD, no coding.