The hiring process
| Round | Format | What's tested |
|---|---|---|
| Online Coding Test | ~90 min | Algorithmic screening |
| Technical – DSA | ~60 min | Live algorithmic reasoning |
| Machine Coding / LLD | ~2–3 hrs | Production-quality object design |
| System Design (HLD) | ~45–60 min | Marketplace design at scale |
| Projects & Culture Fit | ~30–45 min | Depth, ownership, and values |
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 Coding Test
~90 minAround three problems of medium-to-hard difficulty within roughly 90 minutes. Focus areas repeat on graphs and DP. Correct, complete submissions matter more than attempting everything.
- Connected components on a service-area graph
- DP for optimal slot/booking selection
- Greedy assignment of pros to jobs
- String or matrix simulation
- Two-pointer / sliding-window on schedules
- Grind graph and DP mediums (leetcode.com)
- Work Striver's A2Z sheet with timing (takeuforward.org)
- Practice union-find and BFS/DFS templates
- Do 2–3 timed 3-problem sets
- Spreading time too thin across problems
- Weak union-find or component-counting reflexes
- Skipping edge cases on grid problems
- Fully correct submissions on the graph/DP items
- Optimal complexity
- Clean, tested code
Technical – DSA
~60 minOne or two medium-hard problems, commonly graphs and DP, with follow-ups. You should talk through the approach and complexity before coding. Clean, correct code under time pressure is the goal.
- Graph connectivity and reachability
- DP on partitioning or scheduling
- Heap-based top-K or nearest matching
- Interval merging for availability windows
- Matrix traversal / flood fill
- Solve 15–20 graph and DP mediums (neetcode.io)
- Narrate brute-force-to-optimal in every practice
- Drill complexity analysis
- Run peer mock interviews
- Coding before aligning on the approach
- Going quiet mid-problem
- Forgetting to analyze complexity
- Structured approach and clear trade-offs
- Correct edge-case handling
- Accurate complexity analysis
Machine Coding / LLD
~2–3 hrsA long-form build where you design and implement a working system with clean classes, extensibility, and tests. Urban Company weights this heavily and expects code that could plausibly ship. Requirements often expand mid-round to test extensibility.
- Design a task manager using OOP and set structures (LRU-cache-like)
- Booking/slot allocation engine
- Splitwise-style expense splitter
- In-memory marketplace matching service
- Rating and review aggregation module
- Practice full machine-coding builds under 2–3 hours
- Master SOLID and common patterns (refactoring.guru)
- Design interfaces first, keep classes small
- Study the low-level-design-primer (github.com/prasadgujar)
- Non-compiling or untested code at the end
- God classes and tight coupling
- No room to absorb the extension follow-up
- Working, extensible, readable code
- Clear separation of concerns
- Graceful handling of the added requirement
System Design (HLD)
~45–60 minAn open design centered on Urban Company's domain — matching, scheduling, or payments — where you drive requirements, APIs, and data model. Expect discussion of consistency, availability, and how the two-sided marketplace scales. Stronger emphasis from SDE-2 up.
- Design a driverless-cab or pro-booking system
- Real-time pro-to-job matching
- Scheduling with double-booking prevention
- Payments and payouts with idempotency
- Search for available pros by location and skill
- Study the System Design Primer (github.com/donnemartin)
- Watch marketplace-design breakdowns (Gaurav Sen, ByteByteGo)
- Practice QPS and storage estimation
- Design 4 systems end to end with a timer
- Skipping requirement clarification
- Ignoring booking-consistency / race conditions
- No data model or scale reasoning
- Clear scoping and back-of-envelope math
- Sound consistency choices for bookings
- Awareness of bottlenecks and trade-offs
Projects & Culture Fit
~30–45 minA deep dive into your projects and a culture conversation, often with senior tech leadership. They probe technical ownership, decision-making, and alignment with a fast-moving, quality-obsessed culture. Motivation for the marketplace space comes up.
- A system you built and owned end to end
- A hard technical trade-off you made
- Handling ambiguity or shifting scope
- A conflict and how you resolved it
- Why Urban Company / marketplaces
- Prepare 5–6 metric-backed STAR stories
- Be able to whiteboard your own project's design
- Research Urban Company's model and challenges
- Prepare thoughtful leadership-level questions
- Vague, unquantified project claims
- Poor conflict framing
- No specific interest in the company
- Strong technical ownership
- Clear, measured decision reasoning
- Genuine culture and mission fit
What to master
- Graphs & union-find
- Dynamic programming
- Heaps & intervals
- Low-level / machine-coding design
- OOP & SOLID
- Marketplace system design
- Concurrency & consistency
- Databases & caching
Eligibility
open — role-based
Urban Company salary & compensation (2026)
Urban Company offers solid India cash plus ESOP, with equity and variable weight rising at senior levels.
| Role / Level | Experience | India — total CTC | US — total comp | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDE-1 | 0–2 yrs | ₹18–30 LPA | — | mostly fixed; joining bonus + modest ESOP |
| SDE-2 | 2–5 yrs | ₹32–52 LPA | — | fixed + variable + growing ESOP |
| SDE-3 / Senior | 5–8 yrs | ₹50–80 LPA | — | meaningful ESOP grants, higher variable |
| Staff / Lead | 8–12 yrs | ₹80 LPA–1.2 Cr | — | ESOP a large slice of comp |
| Principal / EM | 12+ yrs | ₹1.2 Cr+ | — | heavily equity-weighted; negotiable |
How the package is structured
- Structure is fixed base + variable + joining bonus + ESOP; ESOP scales with level.
- Cash base is competitive post-IPO era; negotiate fixed with leverage from competing offers.
- Ask about ESOP vesting, strike, and liquidity now that the company is public.
- Level placement drives comp far more than round-by-round negotiation.
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: graphs, union-find, and DP to solid medium level
- Days 5–6: intervals, heaps, and a timed OA run
- Days 7–9: two full machine-coding builds under time pressure
- Days 10–11: two marketplace HLD designs with numbers
- Day 12: six STAR stories plus a project design walkthrough
- Days 13–14: mixed mocks and weak-area review
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Get my personalized planFrequently asked questions
How long is the machine-coding round really?
It can run 2–3 hours and expects working, extensible, tested code — practice full builds, not just class sketches.
Which matters more, DSA or design?
Both gate you, but Urban Company weights machine coding and design more than many peers, so don't under-invest there.
Do freshers face the full 3-hour build?
SDE-1 machine coding is usually shorter and simpler; the long-form build is more common at SDE-2.