PhonePe's HLD rounds lean toward fintech-flavored systems — settlement, reconciliation, and consumer-scale services — over generic "design Twitter" templates. Interviewers reward requirements gathering first, since several candidates report the round going sideways specifically because scope wasn't pinned down early.
Problem 1Design a Merchant Settlement System
Design a settlement system that pays merchants out on a T+1 cycle: it must apply commission deductions, batch transactions into a settlement run, and keep a reconciliation-ready ledger of every payout.
- Cover how the ledger stays consistent if a settlement job fails partway through a batch.
- Cover reconciliation — how would you prove every transaction was accounted for exactly once?
- Cover how a one-time settlement request coexists with the regular recurring T+1 cycle.
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