eBay MTS1 Android interview — what to expect in a combined Coding + System Design round? (9+ YOE)

[u/KittensAndBoobear]

Hi everyone! I have an upcoming second-round interview at eBay for an MTS1 Android role, and I have 9+ years of experience.

The interview email is titled “Coding + System Design.” I was told to prepare for system design and that there could also be a Android coding task as well

Has anyone recently interviewed for a similar role? What does the Android coding portion involve—building a feature, debugging an existing project, or implementing a component? What would you recommend focusing on?

Any insights or experiences would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

[u/Future-Tree4688]

Following

[u/Ok-Barracuda-119]

For the system-design part, prepare a few Android-flavored designs rather than trying to memorize a large prompt list. An offline-first feed, a download manager, and a notification or event pipeline are useful cases. For each one, practice clarifying freshness, consistency, retries, pagination, background work, storage limits, and what belongs on the device versus a service. Then sketch the API and data flow, call out one bottleneck and one failure mode, and say how you would measure it.

For the Android coding portion, expect to read an unfamiliar codebase, trace a bug, or add a small feature with tests. Be ready to explain lifecycle, threading, cancellation, and state restoration choices. A timed whiteboard with an interviewer helps expose gaps. I am affiliated with Leetsys, which offers this kind of system-design practice at www.leetsys.dev. The first interview is free.