GROUPON

Interview Prepup

Groupon.com

(NASDAQ: GRPN) Groupon.com is a global leader of local commerce and the place you start
when you want to buy just about anything, anytime, anywhere. By leveraging the company’s
global relationships and scale, Groupon offers consumers a vast marketplace of unbeatable deals
all over the world. Shoppers discover the best a city has to offer on the web or on mobile with
Groupon Local, enjoy vacations with Groupon Getaways, and find a curated selection of
electronics, fashion, home furnishings and more with Groupon Goods. Groupon is redefining
how traditional small businesses attract, retain and interact with customers by providing
merchants with a suite of products and services, including customizable deal campaigns, credit
card payment processing capabilities, and point-of-sale solutions that help businesses grow and
operate more effectively.

Onsite Interview Topics:

Round 1 Hiring Manager Techno Functional

Round 2 Coding, Algo, Data Structure
Tech Depth
Round 3 Design / Architecture
Online - Coding , Problem
Round 4 HackerRank Solving
Round 5 Bar Raiser Techno Functional

Please Read through this entire document to better prepare yourself for an Groupon
Interview -

One key aspect about an Interview with Groupon is - the more you prepare / do your ground
work, the higher are the chances of YOU succeeding in the Tech Interviews.

Coding:

 Expect to be asked to write syntactically correct code—no pseudo code. If you feel a bit
rusty coding without an IDE or coding in a specific language, it’s probably a good idea
to dust off the cobwebs and get comfortable coding with a pen and paper. You will be
writing codes on paper/board all the time, hence write syntactically and logically
correct executable code.

 The most important thing our developers do is write scalable, robust, and well-tested
code. These are the main criteria by which your code will be evaluated, so make sure
that you check for edge cases and validate that no bad input can slip through. Optimize
the code and check for edge cases, null cases, happy cases, etc. before you present the
code. A few missed commas or typos here and there aren’t that big of a deal, but the
 goal is to write code that’s as close to production ready as possible. This is your chance
to show off your coding ability. Evaluation Focus will be around on concepts like :
Syntax, Return statements, Function declaration, Recursive code(mandatory),, scope of
variables, initialization. You are expected to provide space and time complexities for the
proposed solutions.
 Should take into account run-time/space-time complexity, Inorder & preorder
traversals, whether a null is a BST and whether a single node is a BST.

Design: Object-Oriented Design

Good design is paramount to extensible, bug free, long-lived code. It’s possible to solve
any given software problem in an almost limitless number of ways, but when software
needs to be extensible and maintainable, good software design is critical to success. Using
object-oriented design best practices is one way to build lasting software. You should have
a working knowledge of a few common and useful design patterns as well as know how
to write software in an object-oriented way, with appropriate use of inheritance and
aggregation. You probably won’t be asked to describe the details of how specific design
patterns work, but will be expected to defend your design choices.

- Overloading vs. Overriding.

- Encapsulation and inheritance.
- inheritance and polymorphism
- HLD (Component wise segregation)
- LLD (Class & sequence diagram)
- Design patterns. Design tool if you’ve worked on any.

Design: Systems Design and Architecture

Design systems for scale and performance, capability to select software components best suited
to the problem in context. Understanding of each component of tech stack and reasons to prefer
any specific component over other. Capability to answer questions in depth with real time
examples.

1) When and where to use SQL or NoSQL database.

2) Best practices of usage of caching strategy across multiple layers.
3) How to build microservices with large scale in mind?
4) How to solve failure scenarios in large scale deployment?
5) How to do performance tuning for highly scalable applications?

Problem Solving Skills

 Listen & understand problem statement completely before attempting the solution and
avoid jumping on to the solutions abruptly (seek 100% information).
 Ask more clarifying question and be receptive to hints provided by the interviewers.
Articulate and express thoughts clearly & crisp. Make the interviewing experience more
interactive.
Algorithm

Sorting, Merging, Searching algorithms techniques.

Your interview with Groupon will not be focused on rote memorization of algorithms;
however, having a good understanding of the most common algorithms will likely make
solving some of the questions we ask a lot easier. Consider reviewing traversals, divide
and conquer, and any other common algorithms you feel might be worth brushing up on.
For example, it might be good to know how and when to use a breadth-first search versus
a depth-first search, and what the tradeoffs are. Knowing the runtimes, theoretical
limitations, and basic implementation strategies of different classes of algorithms is more
important than memorizing the specific details of any given algorithm.

Data Structures

Uses and implementation of DS like linked list, queues, arrays, trees, binary trees, stacks, hash
map etc. BFS, DFS, maximum number of nodes at a level of binary trees.

Most of the work we do involves storing and providing access to data in efficient ways. This
necessitates a very strong background in data structures. You’ll be expected to understand the
inner workings of common data structures and be able to compare and contrast their usage in
various applications. You will be expected to know the runtimes for common operations as well
as how they use memory. Wikipedia is a great resource for brushing up on data structures.

Here are few other external links that might help you prepare with a typical set of questions
that might be probed at an Interview. Would highly recommend that you spend some
qualitative time exploring these sites and brushing up on your basics.

https://www.glassdoor.co.in/groupon

https://www.careercup.com/page?pid=sde-3-interview-questions

https://www.youtube.com/user/saurabhschool

www.geeksforgeeks.org/

(Note: These links are purely sent for your practice / reference and are only indicative of the
Tech Questions that might be probed. Groupon is in no way aligned with the propagation of
these sites.)

Groupon Values:

We expect our engineers to demonstrate a few Values / leadership principles relevant to their
roles like Ownership, Inspiration, Performance and Customer Obsession.
(https://www.groupon.com/press/about-groupon )

Groupon’s interview would focus on what you have already delivered / demonstrated in your
entire experience. Hence choose the right examples that would provide us more insight into
your candidature and help us get more data points on your alignment with these Values.
Please read for more info : https://jobs.groupon.com/locations/bangalore

Fork us on Github: http://groupon.github.io/

Interview Tips

• Be prepared to discuss technologies listed on your resume. For example, if you list Java or ROR or Python
as technical competencies, you should expect technical questions about your experience with these
technologies. It’s also helpful to review the job description before your interview to align your
qualifications against the job’s specific requirements and responsibilities.

• Please ask questions if you need clarification. We want the interview process to be collaborative. We also
want to learn what it would be like to work with you on a day-to-day basis in our open environment. If
you are asked a question, but not given enough information to solve the problem, drill down to get the
information that you need. If that information isn’t available, focus on how you would attempt to solve the
problem given the limited information you have. Often times at Groupon, we have to make quick decisions
in the absence of all of the relevant data.

• When answering questions, be as concise and detailed in your response as possible. We realize it’s hard
to gauge how much information is too much versus not sufficient enough; an effective litmus test is pausing
after your succinct response to ask if you’ve provided enough detail, or if the interviewer would like you
to go into more depth.

• We want to hire smart, passionate people. Please reflect on what motivated you to pursue a career with
Groupon and be prepared to speak about it. Although “Why Groupon?” is a standard type of question, it’s
not a check-the-box type of formality for us. We genuinely want to understand what inspired you to explore
an opportunity with us, so we get a better sense of who you are. It’s also appreciated when a candidate has
put thought into a few questions for the interviewer. It goes a long way when you’ve taken the initiative to
research the company prior to your interview.

Groupon: 15 Fast Facts You Definitely Didn’t Know: Link

Here you can find Groupon Engineering Culture.

All the Best! 

Please feel free to reach me if you have further queries!

Abhinav Raj
Talent Acquisition Specialist | GROUPON
Mobile: +91 - 9591633889
Abhinav@groupon.com