PhonePe's coding rounds tie classic data-structures and algorithms to payments reality: sliding-window top-K over a UPI transaction stream, rate limiting per merchant at thousands of requests per second, and dynamic-programming counting problems framed as cashback denominations.
In 2026 expect medium-to-hard problems where the interviewer wants your optimal-substructure reasoning stated aloud, an honest complexity analysis, and a note on idempotency or concurrency because the code would sit in a real payments backend. Puzzles for their own sake are rare; in-domain framing is the norm.
About PhonePe
India's largest UPI app by volume; also offers insurance, mutual funds, gold, and merchant payments.
Online coding assessment on a DSA platform
Technical coding round one on data structures and algorithms
Technical coding round two on harder problems and complexity
Hiring-manager or bar-raiser round, then offer
Round 1 (60-90 min)
online assessment with two to three DSA problems.
Round 2 (60 min)
live coding on arrays, strings, and sliding-window or heap problems.
Round 3 (60 min)
harder coding round with dynamic programming and complexity discussion.
Sourced from 2+ candidate post-mortems. Hit Practice to answer any one with AI voice feedback.