What topics are tested in Walmart SDE-1 interviews?

Walmart SDE-1 interviews test: Arrays, Greedy, Interval Scheduling, SQL Basics, OOP Concepts, Sliding Window, Tree Construction, Hash Maps.

Does Walmart SDE-1 have a system design round?

No, Walmart SDE-1 does not include a system design round. The focus is on DSA and coding.

Walmart

Q: How many rounds are there in Walmart SDE-1 interviews?

Walmart SDE-1 typically has 4 rounds. Walmart Global Tech SDE-1 interviews start with a HackerRank/HirePro OA covering both MCQs and two coding problems, followed by two live technical rounds where problems are framed around retail scenarios — product transactions, store networks, category hierarchies. The bar is Medium difficulty. Behavioral closes on Walmart's four values: Respect, Service, Excellence, Integrity.

Retail / Tech · Bentonville, AR

Walmart Global Tech powers the world's largest retailer — 10,500+ stores, 2M employees, and $600B+ in annual revenue.

Related Companies

Rounds: 4 rounds
Focus: DSA + Coding
System Design: No
Timeline: 2–3 weeks to offer

Role:

Rounds 1–2 are fully visible · Round 3+ unlocked with a free account

Online Assessment

Round 1 of 4OA

75 min

ArraysGreedyInterval SchedulingSQL BasicsOOP Concepts

Two coding problems on HackerRank or HirePro, plus 22 MCQs covering OOP, OS, DBMS, Networks, and SQL — a section most LeetCode-only candidates ignore entirely. Problems are Easy–Medium. At campus level, partial solutions (1 full + 1 partial) can still advance you, but for off-campus the bar is higher.

Medium

What to expect

MCQ section (35 min): OOP concepts, OS process scheduling, DBMS joins and normalization, SQL syntax — not DSA theory
Coding problem 1 (Easy): e.g., 'Given a truck size and box types with unit counts, find the maximum units you can load' — greedy sort by units-per-box descending
Coding problem 2 (Medium): e.g., 'Given arrival/departure times for deliveries at a fulfillment center, find the minimum number of loading docks needed' — interval scheduling sweep
Skipping the MCQ section or treating it as filler kills scores — Walmart weights it heavily for initial filtering

Practice on KnowEase.AI

DSA Practice — Arrays →DSA Practice — Greedy →

Technical Round 1

Round 2 of 4DSA / Coding

60 min

Sliding WindowTree ConstructionHash MapsBFS

Live coding with a Walmart SDE-3 (typically 9+ years). Starts with a deep resume project drill — they will ask about every system you've built, its architecture, and the tradeoffs you made. DSA problems are framed around retail data. The interviewer wants to hear your thought process out loud, not just see the solution.

Medium

What to expect

Resume deep-dive: 'Walk me through your most complex project — what were the failure modes and how did you handle them?' — if you can't own every bullet, this round ends early
e.g., 'Given a store's transaction log, find the top-selling product in any rolling 7-day window' — sliding window with frequency map
e.g., 'Reconstruct a product category hierarchy from a flat table of (category_id, parent_id) rows' — tree construction from array, then DFS traversal
Follow-up probe: 'What if the hierarchy has cycles? How would you detect that?' — expects BFS + visited set or DFS coloring, not handwaving

Practice on KnowEase.AI

DSA Practice — Sliding Window →DSA Practice — Trees BFS →

Technical Round 2

Round 3 of 4DSA / Coding

60 min

DijkstraTopological SortMSTGraph Algorithms

One harder problem — graph or DP — almost always wrapped in a supply chain or store network framing. Walmart operates 150+ distribution centers; the topology of that network shows up directly in graph problems. At SDE-1, they care about correctness and clean code more than optimal complexity, but O(n²) on large inputs will get called out.

What to expect

e.g., 'Find the minimum cost route to deliver goods from a distribution center to N stores, where each road has a cost' — Dijkstra from source, identify shortest-path tree
e.g., 'Given a supplier dependency graph, determine the order to restock product categories with no conflicts' — topological sort, detect cycle = infeasible restock plan
Follow-up: 'What if the graph is too large to hold in memory — say, 10M nodes for our full product graph? How would you approach it?' — expects external memory graph processing or partition-based BFS
Sloppy variable naming or no edge-case handling (empty graph, disconnected nodes) signals junior thinking — clean code is expected, not optional

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Hiring Manager

Round 4 of 4Behavioral / HM

45 min

BehavioralCustomer FocusOperational Excellence

Behavioral and culture fit against Walmart's four values: Respect, Service, Excellence, and Integrity. Stories need to be anchored with measurable outcomes. Interviewers are trained to probe generic answers — 'I worked on a team' without specifics gets them asking 'but what did YOU do?'

What to expect

Why Walmart Global Tech over a startup or pure product company — what draws you to retail-scale infrastructure problems?
Tell me about a production incident you owned: what happened, what you did, and what you changed to prevent recurrence — they want the post-mortem, not just the fix
Describe a time you had to push back on a decision from a more senior engineer or manager — and how it ended
Vague, unquantified answers ('I improved performance') with no numbers or context are a fast path to rejection here

Full details unlocked with a free account

Questions — coming soon.

Company Guide — coming soon.

About Walmart SDE-1 Interviews

Walmart Global Tech SDE-1 interviews start with a HackerRank/HirePro OA covering both MCQs and two coding problems, followed by two live technical rounds where problems are framed around retail scenarios — product transactions, store networks, category hierarchies. The bar is Medium difficulty. Behavioral closes on Walmart's four values: Respect, Service, Excellence, Integrity.

See interview loops for other companies:

Microsoft Amazon Uber Flipkart Razorpay Coupang Rippling Rubrik Target

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