I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Disney+ Hotstar (Bengaluru)
Interview
Initial screening from HR
and will schedule 2 rounds
round 1 - Pure technincal round
The interviewer doesn't care much about anything except for Harcore SQL and little Python if you are lucky, he started asking directly extreme level SQL questions and expected the reply instantly :P
Round 2 - Product Thinking round
It was with a product manager and round generally revolves around product sense, different KPIs and then small level cases studies within that, the interviewer was great and I had a pleasant experience.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Disney+ Hotstar (Bengaluru) in Jan 2024
Interview
It was moderate level, with bunch of SQL questions related to windows functions, and real analysis followed by case study on product problems and then a fit/bar raiser round with the VP of product.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Bunch of SQL questions related to Window functions.
The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Disney+ Hotstar (Bengaluru) in Mar 2021
Interview
The recruiter called, and set up a few rounds.
1) The interviewers were not available for most of the time, leading to reschedule all the rounds. They made me take off and schedule all the rounds on a single day, and not a single rounds happened on the day
2) The interviewers are never on time. They are at least 5-6 mins late from the scheduled time. Some of them drags the interview beyond the scheduled time (just because they were late). Some seemed very rushed from the beginning of the conversation to close the interview. None (apart from the bar raiser) bothers to introduce themselves or even tells their name. They show no respect to the candidate or the candidate's time
3) The bar raiser round hit a different level. The interviewer started the interview with an utmost chaotic room. Lot of disturbances. He starts eating in the middle of the interview, starts taking calls in between the conversation.
4) In one of the interviews the logic that interviewer asks to optimize the SQL. I optimized. He comes back saying the SQL has a lot complicated logic, and counters with a logic which is definitely slower than what my initial SQL was. I made the computations in columns, his proposed solution increased the rows (which definitely results in much slower processing). He denies till the end citing it's a much shorter query, what he doesn't understand is optimizing a query performance does not mean optimizing the length of the query. Pretty farcical.
5) The rounds are not designed very structured. You expect an advanced SQL rounds and the interviewer dabbles into the generic problem solving skills wired to the OTT domain. They use a lot of latent knowledge and jargons in the interview specific to the industry
6) No one could brief me on the exact work that I will be working, answers were very vague
By the end of it I was clear I am not joining the firm