How India hires, by company type

Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others hire engineers in India. Their prep pages are global, not India-specific, so confirm the local details with your recruiter.

• official

  What they say

  from their prep pages

  • Google: same rubrics for everyone considered for a role; no brainteasers; a coding exercise may come before interviews.
  • Amazon: assessments, a phone screen, then an interview loop (it differs by role). The SDE II prep page says to expect at least one system design question.
  • Microsoft: 45-minute technical rounds. Clarify, plan, code, test, explain the Big-O.

  train

  • DSA depth across all stages.
  • Communication: the four-area rubric.

  train ithow you are scoredcompanies

Indian product companies often mix DSA rounds with a machine-coding round and design (commonly reported). Official process pages are rare; here is what we could verify.

• official + community

  What we know

  verified

  • Razorpay's careers page groups its rounds as Role Fit (skills for the role), Synergy (communication, ownership) and AI Edge (using AI in your work).
  • Zerodha's tech team wrote, on its blog, that it neither asks about nor tracks which college you went to.
  • Candidates report machine-coding rounds at Flipkart, Swiggy, Cred, PhonePe and others (community-reported).

  train

  • DSA plus machine coding in Java.
  • Clean OOP that is easy to extend.

  train itmachine codingformat playbooks

Trading and quant firms with Indian offices tend to test problem solving hard, and many engineering roles lean on C++. Check the language before you apply.

• official

  What they say

  from their pages

  • D. E. Shaw India: they want to see how you process new information and approach hard problems, not only whether you reach the "correct" answer.
  • Tower Research: "no gotcha questions"; C++ and Python are among its most common languages (C++ for speed-sensitive systems, Python for research).
  • Quadeye hires software engineers for C++, low-latency systems and networking.
  • Optiver opened a Mumbai office in 2024.
  • Goldman Sachs' Engineering Campus Hiring Program (India, pre-final-year students): multiple rounds of assessments that test analytical and technical aptitude.

  one candidate's process

  • An IIT Kanpur placement-office post on one student's 2024 selection for a Tower Research quant R&D internship lists a 1.5–2 hour test: 2–3 medium-to-hard coding questions plus probability, puzzles and computer systems. One account, one role (community-reported).

  train itmath & number theorybit manipulation

Large service companies run special, higher tracks for strong coders. A good coding score can move you up a tier.

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  TCS

  In the 2025 NQT pattern, one test decides Ninja, Digital or Prime interviews. The advanced section (with 90 minutes of coding) is needed for Digital or Prime. CodeVita is TCS's programming contest: this season's page says 3 hours, and Java is allowed.

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  Infosys

  HackWithInfy can lead to pre-placement interviews for Specialist Programmer and other specialised roles. Infosys's own award write-up (about the 2022 edition) describes round 1 as a three-hour coding assessment, with no academic criteria for hiring through this programme.

• campus listings

  Wipro and Cognizant

  From their listings on Superset, a third-party campus-hiring platform (content posted by the companies). Wipro's Elite NTH (2023 listing): an 80-minute online assessment ending with coding, then a business discussion. Cognizant hires through GenC Next, GenC Pro and GenC, all with a communication test, aptitude and technical tests, and a technical interview.

  train itOA playbook

Three doors into the same rooms. The DSA round inside is much the same.

• official

  Campus

  A pre-placement talk, then a screening test, then interviews. IIT Madras gives a company up to 2 hours 30 minutes for the talk and test together.

  train itOA playbook

• challenges

  Off-campus

  Hiring challenges open to students anywhere. The winning teams of the 2021 Amazon ML Challenge got pre-placement interviews. Unstop, the platform that hosts them, says Flipkart GRiD winners got pre-placement interviews and that Walmart's CodeHers (for women) added internships and pre-placement interviews for top coders in 2024 (community-reported: the host's own case studies, not the companies' pages).

• experienced

  Lateral

  For working engineers: expect DSA plus design. Amazon's SDE II and SDE III loops add system design; Indian product companies often add machine coding (community-reported).

  train itwhat each level must show