Kotak Software Engineer interview: Two Sum, food delivery design, and trade-offs

I started with a BarRaiser-style first round that mixed DSA, low-level design, and distributed systems. It lasted about 1.5 hours and leaned hard on fundamentals, with little time spent on my resume. For DSA, I got classic array problems such as Two Sum and a buy/sell-stocks style question. For low-level design, I designed a food-delivery system like Swiggy or Zomato, discussing classes, relationships, and how the pieces interacted instead of writing a complete implementation.

The distributed-systems section had conceptual questions about consistency and distributed workflow ideas. I had to reason through trade-offs while keeping the design grounded. Across the round, I was expected to move from a clear approach to an efficient one and explain edge cases as I went.

It was moderate in difficulty but bar-raiser in vibe: structured, thorough, and a little intense. When I finished, I felt I had done the right things but was not fully sure how it had landed while waiting for results.

Location: India. Overall feedback: negative. Offer status: no offer.