TL;DR – Not worth it. Save your time, effort, and money unless it’s your last resort. I rarely write company reviews on Glassdoor, but this experience compelled me to. I’ve never been more disappointed with an interview process. Here’s how it went: Round 1: LLD/Machine Coding I was given a problem statement and had to discuss the architecture before writing working code. It started well, but soon turned frustrating. I had to spend most of the interview explaining basic concurrency concepts to the interviewer. The interviewer didn’t understand how a read-write lock works or why certain parts of the code would introduce race conditions if not handled correctly. It was honestly disheartening. Somehow, I managed to convince the interviewer that my solution worked. Round 2: Database & Past Experience This round was solid. The interviewer was knowledgeable, asked relevant questions, and understood my responses. No complaints here. Round 3: On-site System Design (Mumbai Office) After clearing the initial rounds, I was called to the Mumbai office for on-site interviews. The interviewer for this round seemed quite senior, likely a principal engineer. A problem statement was provided, and I approached it using a structured system design methodology. Throughout the interview, the interviewer agreed with my ideas, asked some follow-ups, and I was able to answer them. There were a couple of questions I didn’t have immediate answers for, but I outlined different approaches to solving them. I explained my tech choices at every step and discussed how the system would scale horizontally. The interview ended with some resume-based questions in the last 10 minutes. If I were to self-assess, I’d say I performed at a 90% level. Yet, 10 minutes later, I was told the round didn’t go well because the interviewer "had to ask me questions." The Issue with Their Process For context, I’ve gone through 30–40 interviews in my career and have rarely failed a system design round. I’ve received offers from Flipkart, Grab, PhonePe, Microsoft, Swiggy, Postman, Meesho, and others, and have worked at some of them. When I conduct interviews myself, I understand that no candidate will automatically discuss everything an interviewer has in mind. That’s why interviewers need to guide the discussion sometimes. System design is open-ended—it can go in multiple directions. Some interviewers focus on extensibility, some on security, others on fault tolerance, etc. If a specific aspect needs to be assessed, the interviewer should ask about it instead of expecting the candidate to read minds. Final Thoughts When I got the rejection, I was shocked. I couldn’t wrap my head around what had just happened. After spending so much effort and money to attend the on-site interview, it all felt like a complete waste. If you’re considering interviewing at Dream11, especially if you’re traveling from outside Mumbai, think twice. It’s just not worth it.