Zomato Interview Experience for SDE 2 Android Role

1. Resume-Based & Practical Questions

These questions test how well you understand your own work:

• Line-by-line discussion of your CV

• Deep dive into the toughest feature you built

• Challenges faced and how you solved them

2. Networking & Communication [Based on my Resume]

NFC (Near Field Communication)

• How NFC works

• Communication mechanism

• Android implementation flow

MQTT Protocol

• What is MQTT

• Broker-based architecture

• Publisher–Subscriber model

• Message flow

3. Architecture & Design

• MVVM vs Clean Architecture

• Why you chose a particular architecture

• Real-world tradeoffs

4. Kotlin Fundamentals

• What is lazy in Kotlin and how it works internally

• Lazy initialization vs normal initialization

• When to use lazy (especially in RecyclerView)

• Difference between class and data class

• object keyword and Singleton pattern

5. RecyclerView Deep Dive

• How RecyclerView works internally

• Adapter lifecycle methods

• How RecyclerView communicates with Adapter

• When to optimize and avoid overuse of features like lazy

6. Activity & Lifecycle

• Complete Activity lifecycle

• Navigation scenarios:

  • Activity A → Activity B

  • Activity B → Activity A

7. UI & Custom Components

• What are Custom Views

• When to create them

• Real-world use cases

8. Networking (Retrofit)

• How Retrofit works internally

• What are Interceptors

• Adding headers dynamically

• What is Converter Factory

9. Storage & Caching

Memory vs Disk Cache

• Key differences

• Use cases

Room vs SharedPreferences

• When to use which

• Tradeoffs

SharedPreferences Internals

• How data is stored

• Performance considerations

10. Image Loading (Glide)

• How Glide works internally

• Memory caching

• Disk caching

• Request lifecycle and pipeline

Final Tip

Most of these questions are not theoretical — interviewers expect:

• Real examples

• Tradeoffs

• Internal working (not just definitions)

Focus on “why” and “how”, not just “what”