Schrodinger

Schrodinger Interview Experience

Rejection

Schrodinger Interview Experience for Experienced Backend Developer, Mar 2026

Role

Backend Developer

Experience

Experienced

Platform

Prep Duration

1 month

Eligibility / Offer Details

No, only prior work experience is required (preferably in Java and Spring Boot). (Salary Package: 30-40 LPA)

Branch

Computer Science Engineering

Total Rounds

2 Rounds

Application Experience

I was approached by a recruiter who came across my profile on LinkedIn. (I have carefully curated my LinkedIn profile to highlight my technical skills, relevant work experience, and key achievements so that it remains visible in recruiter searches.) The recruiter reached out to check my interest in the opportunity and requested my resume. Upon confirming my interest, I shared my updated resume via email. After 2–3 days, she contacted me again to inform me that my profile had been shortlisted. During the call, she explained the overall interview process, mentioning that there would be approximately 4–5 rounds in total, with the final round scheduled as an on-site interview at the Hyderabad office.

Preparation

Topics Prepared: Dynamic Programming, System Design, OOPs, Database Transactions, Multithreading

Preparation Tips

Tip 1: Prepare dynamic programming well. Tip 2: Prepare database isolation levels and locking concepts well (optimistic locking, pessimistic locking, etc.), and understand which to use in real-world use cases. Tip 3: If you are interviewing for SDE-2 or above, prepare system design concepts well, such as trade-offs between NoSQL and SQL, Kafka vs. RabbitMQ, etc.

Resume Tips

Tip 1: Mention your projects on your resume in bullet points and quantify their impact with numbers (e.g., optimized system performance by 40%). Tip 2: Mention only those skills you are confident in.

Interview Rounds (2)

Detailed breakdown of each evaluation round, questions asked, and candidate approaches.

Round 1

Round 1 — Video Call

60 minutesMediumCleared

It was divided into two parts: Introduction and project discussion. In Part 2, the interviewer asked some questions from their side.

Problems & Questions Asked (2)

Project Discussion

Problem Statement

Discussion of projects: The interviewer wanted to understand the tech stack I had used and the scale of the projects I had worked on. He then cross-questioned me on the tech stack and the design choices in the projects. Cross Questions: Why did I choose MongoDB in one project and PostgreSQL in another? Why did I choose RabbitMQ in one project instead of Kafka or Amazon SQS?

Candidate Approach

Tip 1: Be structured and prepared with system design concepts and trade-offs. Tip 2: You should thoroughly understand every project mentioned in your resume.

Database Concepts

Problem Statement

In the second half of the interview, the interviewer asked the following questions: What are the various isolation levels in databases? For banking transactions, would you use optimistic locking or pessimistic locking, and why? What is a deadlock? Can you give a real-life example of a deadlock? What does the @Transactional annotation do?

Candidate Approach

Tip 1: You must be well versed with concepts like Multithreading, Concurrency, thready safety and database locking. Tip 2: You should have good hands on with real time backend systems.

Round 2

Round 2 — Video Call

60 minutesMediumCleared

Problems & Questions Asked (2)

Minimum Number Of Taps To Water Garden

Problem Statement

The gardener wants to water the garden by opening the minimum number of taps. The garden is one-dimensional along the x-axis of length N i.e. the garden starts from point 0 and ends at point N. There are N + 1 tap located at points [0, 1, 2, …, N] in the garden. You are given an integer N, and an array named “ranges” of size N + 1(0-indexed). The ith tap, if opened, can water the gardener from point (i - ranges[i]) to (i + ranges[i]) including both. The task is to find the minimum number of taps that should be open to water the whole garden, return -1 if the garden can not be watered. Example : Follow Up: Can you solve the problem in O(N) time? Input Format: The first line contains a single integer T representing the number of test cases. The first line of each test case will contain the integer N. The second and the last line of each test case will contain N single space-separated integers representing the elements of the array “ranges”. Output format : For each test case, print a single integer representing the value of the minimum number of taps needed to open by the gardener to fill the whole garden. Note: You do not need to print anything, it has already been taken care of. Just implement the given function. Constraints: 1 <= T <= 10 1 <= N <= 10^4 0 <= ranges[i] <= 100 Time Limit: 1 sec

Candidate Approach

Step 1: I converted all taps/sprinklers into intervals. Step 2: I sorted the intervals by increasing end time. I applied the Activity Selection logic (minimizing overlap). However, this problem is an interval covering problem, not a scheduling problem. That’s why some test cases were failing. The interviewer also gave me some time to think, but unfortunately, we ran out of time.

Selection Perspective

Problem Statement

I was well prepared for the system design rounds, as my day-to-day responsibilities in my current organization involve extensively designing and developing scalable systems. However, my preparation for data structures and algorithms was not as thorough at that time. As a result, I was unable to fully solve the dynamic programming problem given by the interviewer, and a few test cases did not pass.

Key Preparation Tips

Prepare DSA thoroughly.

Practice aptitude and puzzle-based questions.

Have at least two good projects on your resume.

Be prepared to explain your projects clearly.

Practice coding problems involving Arrays, Binary Search, DP and Recursion.

Prepare common HR questions such as Tell me about yourself and Who is your role model?

Candidate Approach