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Interview questions from top companies, mapped to the exact round they show up in. Prep for what you will actually face.

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Online AssessmentDSA / CodingMachine CodingLow-Level Design

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The Loop aggregates publicly shared interview experiences and curated commonly-asked questions, each labeled with its source. Not affiliated with any company listed.

CC BY-NC 4.0 · © 2026

← Cognizant

Staff+ Backend at Cognizant

BackendStaff+Outcome unknown◆ Commonly asked· 2023

5-round staff backend process. Coding-heavy early, design and behavioral later.

The loop · 5 rounds

01

Round 01 · 3 questions

DSA / Coding

Data structures & algorithms on a whiteboard or shared editor.

  • Group anagrams from a list of strings.
    Staff+Medium◆ Commonly asked
    #hashmap#string
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
  • Maximum depth of a binary tree.
    Staff+Easy◆ Commonly asked
    #tree#dfs
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
  • House robber II.
    Staff+Medium◆ Commonly asked
    #dp
    PracticeLeetCode↗GeeksforGeeks↗
02

Round 02 · 1 question

Low-Level Design

Object-oriented / low-level design of a focused module.

  • Design a rate limiter with multiple strategies.
    Staff+Medium◆ Commonly asked
    #oop#rate-limit
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
03

Round 03 · 2 questions

System Design

High-level architecture of a large-scale system.

  • Design an inventory reservation system for checkout.
    Staff+Hard◆ Commonly asked
    #concurrency#transactions
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
  • Design a web crawler.
    Staff+Hard◆ Commonly asked
    #queues#dedup#scale
    PracticeGeeksforGeeks↗Search↗
04

Round 04 · 1 question

Hiring Manager

Scope, ownership, and role-fit discussion with the manager.

  • How do you handle disagreement with a product partner?
    Staff+◆ Commonly asked
    #collaboration
05

Round 05 · 2 questions

Behavioral / HR

Values, collaboration, and past-experience (STAR) questions.

  • Describe a time you disagreed with a teammate. How did it resolve?
    Staff+◆ Commonly asked
    #conflict#star
  • Describe handling a tight deadline with competing priorities.
    Staff+◆ Commonly asked
    #prioritization#star

◆ This experience is composed from commonly reported questions for this role and level. Real, individually-shared interviews will be layered in over time.