Food Ordering App: Swiggy Interview Experience

Food Ordering App: Swiggy Interview Experience

Here is a real Swiggy interview experience building a food ordering app in the machine coding round.

The Question

Build a food ordering app with:

• A menu of food items (name, price, image, rating, category).
• Search by name.
• Filters (veg/non-veg, category, price range).
• Cart with add, remove, quantity change.
• Cart total and checkout.

Time

90 minutes.

What They Evaluated

1. Functionality: does the cart work? Do filters work? Does search work?
2. Code quality: is the code modular and clean?
3. Edge cases: empty cart, no results, quantity 0.
4. UI: does it look like a real food app?
5. Approach: how did you structure the state and rendering?

What Worked

• Starting with the data (menu array) and state (cart object).
• Building the menu rendering first, then filters, then cart.
• Using a single state object for all data.
• Handling edge cases (empty cart, no results).
• Adding basic CSS at the end (grid layout, colors, padding).

What Did Not Work

• Spending too much time on CSS early (functionality first).
• Not handling the empty cart state.
• Not debouncing the search.

Follow-Up Questions

1. "How would you scale this for 10,000 items?"
   • Virtualization, pagination, server-side search.
2. "How would you persist the cart?"
   • localStorage or a backend API.
3. "How would you handle concurrent cart updates?"
   • Optimistic UI, conflict resolution.
4. "How would you add a coupon/discount system?"
   • Apply a discount code to the total before checkout.

Tips

1. Build the cart logic first (it is the hardest part).
2. Use an object for cart state (itemId -> quantity).
3. Handle edge cases (empty cart, no results, quantity 0).
4. Add basic CSS at the end (grid, flexbox, colors).
5. Be ready for follow-ups on scaling and persistence.

The Takeaway

Swiggy's food ordering app question tests cart logic, filters, search, and state management. Build cart first, then menu, then filters. Handle edge cases. Add basic CSS. Be ready for follow-ups on scaling, persistence, and concurrent updates.