Interview Difficulty Level: Hard
Round 1(Resume Shortlisting): Applied on 9 Oct 2021, got test link around 10 Nov 2021.
Round 2(Online Assessment): There were four sections namely, code debugging, coding, workstyles assessment, and aptitude. The code debugging section consisted of 7 code snippets that were faulty and we had to debug them and find the correct output (20 minutes).
- The coding section consisted of two coding problems and the difficulty was of Leetcode Easy-Medium level (70 minutes).
- https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/problems/smallest-distant-window3132/1
- And other ques I don’t remember.
- The work styles assessment was based on the leadership principles of Amazon. There was no time limit for this section.
- The last section was based on aptitude and reasoning questions. There were 24 questions and we had 35 minutes to solve them.
Round 3(Technical Interview): The interview started with a brief introduction about myself and what projects and internships I had done. There were three panelists interviewing me. The interviewers directly jumped into coding and I was given three coding questions in phases that I had to solve. The questions were of Leetcode medium-hard difficulty. This round lasted for about 75 min.
- https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/count-number-of-occurrences-or-frequency-in-a-sorted-array/amp/ (Had to solve for the best complexity)
- https://leetcode.com/problems/course-schedule/ ( dry run stepwise )
- Third Ques was based on binary search which i didn’t find anywhere.
Round 4(Tech + HR): This round went for about an hour and 20 minutes. The interviewer was friendly and we had a brief discussion about one project that I made using Machine learning. Then he gave 3 coding questions to solve. The questions were based on DP and trees. I had a good time discussing my approach. He seemed satisfied. He also asked follow-up questions based on the primary questions.
- https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/burn-the-binary-tree-starting-from-the-target-node/amp/ (Hard Que took me almost 30 min to solve with best possible complexity)
- https://leetcode.com/problems/interleaving-string/ ( 1-Dp approach was required for better complexity)
- Since I have spent soo much time on the first two questions interviewers didn’t go further with the third ques. (They asked thought process for on what factors someone should approach a typical DSA problem by either recursion or iteratively.)
HR Ques:
- Why should we hire you? (STAR approach is required )
- Give me your two biggest weaknesses (STAR approach)
- How are you planning on improving your weakness and what have you done till now?
- Any Questions for us (I asked a lot of them )
The Final Results were announced after a long wait of 24 days. I was one among the selects.
Now I would like to highlight some of my preparation tips that helped me crack this interview:
- The very important parameter according to me for selection is your communication skills. It all boils down to the fact of how you express your thought process and ideas. Even if you know a lot of stuff, but aren’t able to communicate dynamically, it may lead to rejection.
- Be very clear about your Projects and Work Experience(If any).
- In case you have Work-Ex, then 3 Projects would be sufficient & in case you don’t have any Work-Ex, 5 Projects would be sufficient.
- Thorough understanding of the fundamentals related to the project Domain(In my case it was ML & Data Science), Tech stack. Focus more on relating the theoretical concepts with real-life examples.
- Don’t miss out on anything you have mentioned on your resume!
- Don’t neglect the Core Subjects(DBMS, OOPS, CN, OS) on the cost of Coding. (Core Subjects plays a very vital role in the clearance of the Technical Rounds).
- For Core Subjects, you can completely rely on GfG and Youtube Videos. Focus more on Important Topics first.
- Focus more on Important DSA rather than Complex & Tough DSA. Once you are confident about Important ones, you can switch to Tough Ones.
- Practice more Easy & Medium Level Questions, rather than focusing only on hard ones.
- Strike a balance between Core Subjects, Projects, Coding. (VERY IMP).
- Make your own notes and revise them multiple times. The only mantra to crack any Interview is doing revision multiple times. (I revised the core subjects minimum of 8-10 times so that I can answer them fluently during interviews.) Having conceptual clarity is more important than the number of topics.
- Don’t panic if you are not able to answer any questions, just stay calm and try your level best to answer.