The hiring process
| Round | Format | What's tested |
|---|---|---|
| Online Assessment | ~90 min | Algorithmic screening |
| DSA Round | ~60 min | Live algorithms under scrutiny |
| Low-Level Design | ~60 min | Clean, extensible modelling |
| System Design (HLD) | ~60 min | Feed and recommendation at scale |
| Hiring Manager / Director | ~30–45 min | Depth, ownership, and fit |
Process and cutoffs vary by drive/team and change over time — confirm on the official careers page.
Round-by-round: exactly what's asked & how to prepare
Online Assessment
~90 minThree problems on HackerEarth spanning a sliding-window/two-pointer question, a binary-search or greedy question, and a harder tree/DP problem. You need clean solutions that pass full test sets, not just samples. Time management across the three is the real test.
- Sliding window over an engagement stream
- Binary search on answer for a rate threshold
- DP on an N-ary content tree
- Two-pointer merge of ranked lists
- Greedy scheduling of feed slots
- Grind LeetCode mediums in sliding window, binary search, and DP (leetcode.com)
- Follow Striver's SDE sheet with a timer (takeuforward.org)
- Practice N-ary tree recursion patterns
- Do timed 3-problem sets to build pacing
- Sinking all your time into the hardest problem
- Passing samples but failing hidden large tests
- Sloppy recursion base cases on tree DP
- Two-plus problems fully passing
- Optimal complexity, not just brute force
- Disciplined time allocation
DSA Round
~60 minOne or two medium-hard problems with active follow-ups that scale the input or add constraints. The interviewer wants a spoken brute-force-to-optimal path and airtight complexity analysis. Code quality and edge-case handling both count.
- Top-K trending posts with a heap
- Graph/BFS over a follower network
- DP for maximum-engagement subsequence
- Interval problems on view sessions
- Design a data structure with O(1) operations
- Solve 20+ heap, graph, and DP mediums (neetcode.io)
- Practice narrating trade-offs before coding
- Rehearse the classic O(1) design problems (LRU, LFU)
- Run mock interviews on Pramp or with peers
- Silent problem-solving
- Coding before the interviewer agrees with the approach
- Missing the follow-up scale-up they were steering toward
- Clear approach articulation
- Optimal solution with correct complexity
- Graceful edge-case handling
Low-Level Design
~60 minYou model a component with proper classes, interfaces, and extensibility, sometimes coding it fully. Interviewers push on how new requirements would slot in without rewrites. SOLID and testability are explicitly valued.
- Design a notification/fanout service
- Feed-ranking pipeline object model
- Content-moderation rule engine
- In-memory cache with eviction policies
- Comment-thread data model with pagination
- Study SOLID and core patterns (refactoring.guru)
- Implement 3–4 LLD problems end to end
- Practice interface-first design
- Review the low-level-design-primer (github.com/prasadgujar)
- Monolithic classes with tangled responsibilities
- Not clarifying scope before designing
- Designs that break on the first extension follow-up
- Extensible, single-responsibility classes
- Sensible use of patterns without over-engineering
- Working code within the time box
System Design (HLD)
~60 minAn open design of a large consumer system where you own requirements, APIs, data model, and scaling. ShareChat expects concrete QPS and storage estimates plus discussion of freshness, caching, and cost. Trade-off reasoning is the differentiator.
- Design a personalized feed / timeline
- Trending / top-K posts pipeline
- Video upload, transcode, and CDN delivery
- Push-notification fanout at scale
- View-count and analytics ingestion
- Study the System Design Primer (github.com/donnemartin)
- Learn fanout-on-write vs read for feeds (ByteByteGo)
- Practice QPS/storage estimation aloud
- Design 5 consumer systems with a timer
- No capacity estimation
- Ignoring feed freshness vs cost trade-offs
- Skipping failure and hot-key handling
- Sound fanout and caching choices
- Realistic numbers backing decisions
- Awareness of bottlenecks and mitigations
Hiring Manager / Director
~30–45 minA project deep dive plus behavioral and sometimes a light design discussion, closing with a director-level conversation on impact and motivation. They probe technical depth in your own work and how you handle scale and ambiguity. Culture and long-term intent matter here.
- Hardest technical problem you solved
- A system you scaled and its bottlenecks
- Handling conflicting priorities
- A failure and what you changed
- Why ShareChat / short-video
- Prepare 6 STAR stories with metrics
- Be ready to whiteboard your own project's architecture
- Research ShareChat and Moj's scale and challenges
- Prepare sharp questions for the director
- Shallow answers about your own projects
- No quantified impact
- Generic motivation with no ShareChat specifics
- Deep ownership of your past work
- Measured reasoning through trade-offs
- Authentic interest in the domain
What to master
- Sliding window & two pointers
- Binary search on answer
- Graphs & BFS/DFS
- Dynamic programming
- Heaps & top-K
- Low-level design / SOLID
- Feed & recommendation HLD
- Caching & CDN
Eligibility
open — role-based
ShareChat salary & compensation (2026)
ShareChat pays strong India cash plus a sizeable ESOP component, with variable and equity weight climbing quickly at senior levels.
| Role / Level | Experience | India — total CTC | US — total comp | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDE-1 | 0–2 yrs | ₹22–35 LPA | — | high fixed base for a startup; some ESOP + joining bonus |
| SDE-2 | 2–5 yrs | ₹40–65 LPA | — | ~30–42L base + variable + ESOP + joining bonus |
| SDE-3 / Senior | 5–8 yrs | ₹60–90 LPA | — | fixed ~50L range with large ESOP and variable |
| Staff | 8–12 yrs | ₹90 LPA–1.4 Cr | — | ESOP is a major share of total comp |
| Principal / EM | 12+ yrs | ₹1.4 Cr+ | — | heavily equity-weighted and negotiable |
How the package is structured
- Package splits into fixed base, ~10–20% variable, joining bonus, and ESOP that grows with level.
- Cash base is competitive for a startup, so negotiate fixed hard when you have leverage.
- Given ESOP weight, ask about strike, vesting cliff, and latest valuation to price equity realistically.
- Interviewing into SDE-2 vs SDE-1 is the single biggest lever on total comp.
Indicative 2026 market ranges aggregated from public sources (levels.fyi, Glassdoor, AmbitionBox, candidate reports). Compensation varies widely by location, team, level calibration, and negotiation — use these as directional benchmarks, not guarantees.
Your prep plan
- Days 1–4: sliding window, binary search, and graph mediums
- Days 5–7: DP, heaps, and a timed 3-problem OA run
- Days 8–9: two LLD problems built end to end
- Days 10–11: feed and top-K HLD with capacity math
- Day 12: prepare six STAR stories and a project architecture walkthrough
- Days 13–14: full mock loop and weak-area cleanup
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Get my personalized planFrequently asked questions
How hard are the DSA rounds compared to other consumer startups?
Noticeably harder — expect solid medium-hard problems and active scale-up follow-ups, so brute force alone won't clear the bar.
Is the director round technical?
It's mostly about impact, depth, and fit, but be ready to defend the architecture and trade-offs of your own projects.
Do freshers get a full HLD round?
SDE-1 focuses on DSA and LLD; a dedicated HLD round is standard from SDE-2 up.