Interview Experience – UPTIQ | SDE
Batch: 2027 | Branch: IT | Total Rounds: 3
Process Snapshot 📸
Eligibility / Shortlisting:
CGPA: 6.74 and above
10th & 12th: 60% and above
Eligible Branches: All
Drive: On-campus recruitment drive
Drive Dates: 24–25 September 2026
Total Candidates Appeared: ~500
Round-by-Round Breakdown 📝
Round 1: Online Assessment (OA) 💻
Duration: 2 hours
Date: 24 September 2026
Timing: 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Participants: Around 500 students
The OA consisted of 2 DSA questions and 84 MCQs.
DSA Questions ( Easy - Medium ) :
MCQs covered:
HTML & CSS
React
OOP
C Programming
SQL
Database Concepts
Database Optimization
System Design
Operating Systems
Computer Networks
The shortlist was announced around 11:00 AM, and 77 students were shortlisted for the L1 interview.
Round 2: L1 Technical Interview 💡
Date: 24 September 2026
Interviews Started: Around 12:00 PM
Interviews Ended: Around 10:00 PM
My Slot: Around 9:00 PM
Duration: 40-45 minutes
The waiting time was definitely one of the challenging parts of the process. Interviews started around 12 PM, while my interview was scheduled around 9 PM, so we had to wait for several hours.
The interview itself was mainly focused on projects, internship experience and practical problem-solving.
Project Deep-Dive
The interview started with my projects. The interviewer was interested in understanding not just what I had built, but why I had made particular technical decisions.
Some of the questions were:
Why did you build this project?
Why did you choose this particular technology?
How will you scale it?
What happens if a particular component fails?
What happens when the number of users increases?
Explain the architecture and flow of your project.
The interviewer was particularly interested in one of my projects because it was relevant to one of UPTIQ's product areas.
Practical System Design Problem
I was given a real-world scenario:
Suppose a client uploads around 10 documents in bulk. We need to process those documents using OCR/document-processing techniques, extract the required fields, structure the information properly and return the final response in JSON. Design the pipeline.
Instead of directly giving a solution, I started with requirement gathering.
I clarified things such as:
Maximum document size
Number of documents
Expected output format
Processing requirements
After understanding the requirements, I proposed an efficient pipeline covering document ingestion → processing → OCR/extraction → validation → structuring → JSON response.
The interviewer was satisfied with the approach.
Deep-Dive into PasteRoom
The interviewer then focused more on my PasteRoom project because it involved file uploading and storage and was relevant to the document-processing discussion.
Questions included:
How do you manage storage?
Where is the application hosted?
Why did you choose that storage solution?
What happens if your storage quota is exceeded?
How would you scale the application?
What happens when the number of users increases?
Explain the file-upload flow.
I was confident answering these questions because I had personally implemented and deployed the project and knew the architecture and deployment details.
Internship Discussion
The interviewer then moved to my internship and asked questions based on whatever I had mentioned on my resume.
The discussion focused on:
My contribution
Implementation details
Technologies used
Technical decisions
Challenges faced
How the system worked
DSA
Towards the end, I was given a simple DSA problem, which I solved correctly.
The interviewer then asked whether I had any questions.
I asked questions related to UPTIQ's products and engineering work.
That concluded my L1 interview.
Round 3: L2 Technical Interview — CTO Round 🧠
Around 32 students were shortlisted for the L2 round, and I was one of them.
Due to the late timing of the interviews, around 25 students were interviewed on the same day, while 7 students, including me, were called to the UPTIQ office on the following day.
Interviewer: CTO
Location: UPTIQ Office
Date: 25 September 2026
Timing: Around 9:00 AM
Duration: Approximately 35–40 minutes
This round was again heavily focused on the resume and practical implementation knowledge.
Internship Deep-Dive — Reports & SQL
The CTO started by asking about one of my previous internship projects where I had worked on developing reports.
He asked about my contribution, and I explained that I had worked on optimizing stored procedures and developing reports.
He then asked me to write the SQL query required to fetch the data and generate the report.
I wrote the query and explained the logic.
He then asked:
How can you optimize this query?
I mentioned indexes and explained how they could improve data retrieval.
He then asked me to create the indexes that I would use to improve the retrieval performance.
I wrote the appropriate index queries and explained the reasoning behind them.
ER Diagram
He then asked me to draw the ER diagram for the tables involved in the report.
While drawing the ER diagram, I realized that there was an issue with part of the SQL query I had initially written.
I pointed it out myself and explained that after looking at the relationships in the ER diagram, I would modify that part of the query.
I corrected the query and explained why.
The interviewer appreciated that I was able to analyze my own solution and identify the issue instead of blindly sticking to my original answer.
Elevator System Design
The CTO then gave me a system-design/problem-solving scenario:
There are 3 elevators. Design an energy-efficient algorithm such that at a time only one elevator gets assigned to a request.
Before jumping into the solution, I clarified the requirements.
For example, I asked:
Can every elevator go to every floor?
After clarifying the assumptions, I proposed an approach using a priority queue, considering factors such as:
Current elevator position
Distance from the requested floor
Existing requests
Request priority
I related the scheduling logic to LOOK/SCAN disk scheduling.
I also suggested storing the request arrival time, so that if there is a tie based on distance/priority, arrival time can be used as a tie-breaker.
The interviewer was satisfied with the approach.
He then asked whether I had any questions.
I asked about the day-to-day work and engineering responsibilities at UPTIQ.
That concluded my L2 interview.
Difficulty, Topics, and Interview Focus 🎯
Overall Difficulty: Medium
Main Focus: Projects, internship experience, SQL/database knowledge and system-design thinking
Most Important: Understanding the technical decisions behind your projects
Problem-Solving: Interviewers focused on how I approached open-ended problems rather than simply looking for a final answer.
Resume: Extremely important. Almost everything discussed was based on what I had mentioned on my resume.
Final Outcome 🎉
The final selection was divided into:
9 students: Internship + PPO (Fixed)
7 students: Internship + PPO based on performance
My Result: Selected for 6-month Internship + PPO (Fixed)
Mistakes to Avoid 🚫
1. Know Your Resume Inside Out
Whatever you mention on your resume can be picked up by the interviewer.
If you mention a technology, project or internship experience, be prepared to answer:
Why did you use it?
How did you implement it?
Why not another technology?
What are its limitations?
How would you scale it?
What happens if it fails?
Don't bluff. If you haven't actually implemented something, it is better to be honest than to get stuck when the interviewer goes deeper.
2. Explain Projects Using STAR
For projects, try to structure your explanation using:
S — Situation
What problem were you solving?
T — Task
What was your responsibility?
A — Action
What did you build and how did you implement it?
R — Result
What was the outcome?
3. Be Careful About What You Bold on Your Resume
Whatever you bold/highlight on your resume signals that you are particularly strong in that area.
So make sure the technologies and skills you highlight are things that you can explain clearly and code confidently.
4. Don't Jump Directly Into System Design
When given an open-ended problem:
First clarify → Then design → Then discuss trade-offs → Then consider failure/scaling.
Requirement gathering is extremely important in system-design questions.
5. Be Ready for "What If?"
For every project, prepare for questions like:
What if the number of users increases 10x?
What if the database goes down?
What if storage is full?
What if the request fails?
What if this component becomes a bottleneck?
These questions can take a simple project discussion into a much deeper system-design discussion.
6. Always Ask a Question
At the end of the interview, always ask at least one genuine question about the company, product or role.
I personally asked about UPTIQ's products and day-to-day engineering work, which also helped me understand the role better.
Final Takeaway 🚀
The UPTIQ interview process was primarily about practical understanding.
My biggest takeaway would be:
Don't just know what you built. Know why you built it, how you built it, what can go wrong, and how you would scale it.
A strong combination of DSA + Core CS + SQL/DBMS + Projects + System Design + Problem Solving should help a lot for this kind of interview.
Also, maintain a balance between DSA and development. In my experience, being able to discuss real projects in depth was just as important as solving coding questions.
