Media.net Interview Experience

Interviewee — Sourabh Mishra
AthenaSquare Profile — https://athenasquare.org/sourabhmishra1262
Company — Media.Net
Website — https://www.media.net
Profile — Site Reliability Engineer / DevOps [ 6 months + FTE ]
Internship Stipend — 1 lac / Month
Salary — 16 Lacs (Fixed) + Other benefits
Location — Mumbai / Bangalore

Round 1: Online Assessment

It was the first round. Multiple choice questions were asked from topics — Computer networks, Linux, Operating Systems, DBMS, and Programming. This was followed by 2 coding questions on arrays and trees [Difficulty — Medium]. Prepare the Computer networks, Linux, Operating Systems, DBMS and Programming concepts well to ace the first round.

Round 2 — Online Assessment DevOps

This was the second round of online assessments. This OA round was more about testing one’s knowledge of TCP/UDP protocols or how sockets work. Some questions about the SQL database were also asked.
The questions were like this, a link was mentioned in the question that was acting as the server to serve the client request. I was supposed to create a client socket and connect it to that server. Some further queries were mentioned, which I was supposed to solve. After requesting the server, I got the output, which I needed to enter in the answer box given. Similarly, for SQL databases, there was some remote SQL database setup for which I was supposed to write queries and get output.
The answers were checked on the fly as you kept entering them. I was able to complete all the tasks and, hence, cleared this round.

Round 3 — Machine Coding round

The machine coding round involves solving a design problem in a matter of a couple of hours. It requires designing and coding a clean, modular and extensible solution based on a specific set of requirements. In a machine coding round, the general expectation is that you’ll write object-oriented code. Writing everything in a single file without any classes is just not acceptable in the interview. I was supposed to create multiple classes each containing properties and methods only related to that particular class.
I was given a server or an instance whose IP and password were given to me. I had to SSH to that server and write code on that server only. My task was to set up a TCP socket on that server that connected to some already existing remote server. Then we have to complete some tasks given to us. In my case, 9 tasks were given to complete, and I had to complete all the tasks in order to clear the round. I was given 4 hours to complete the same while being monitored on zoom.
There will be some test cases that you have to pass. After that, I was asked questions related to the code I wrote and a few concepts associated with the same.

Round 4 — Technical Interview 1

Questions were asked related to computer networks, OS, and DBMS in depth. I was asked to implement a few solutions like creating a subnet. Study these subjects with real applications. The questions are asked by creating a real scenario and you will be asked to implement it.
Questions are asked in real depth. You must understand the concepts very well.
At last, 2 DSA questions were also asked [difficulty — medium and easy]
Also, there were some general questions asked about the SRE role and the motivation for this role will also be tested.

Round 5 — Technical Interview 2

It was more of a system design round. I was asked about concepts around system design in depth. It was about load balancers, scaling, databases, and about my project. Make sure you prepare for your project nicely as the interviewer will ask about core concepts from your project. I was asked about Docker and other DevOps technologies that I mentioned in my resume. You are expected to have a basic understanding of high-level system design.

Round 6 — Technical Interview 3

This was the final round. I was given a design question in which I was given a hypothetical situation where I had a very large file. Some servers were provided in which we could process the file. I was asked to provide a way of how I will compute that big file efficiently on the provided servers in the minimum amount of time and with the minimum amount of resources used. This round went for around 90 minutes.

Result — Selected.

Topics to be prepared well to ace the interview-