Aptean Interview Experience (On-Campus 2020)

Aptean visited my campus for two positions, one was a position of Software Developer, and the other was as a Software Developer Intern. They conducted four rounds in total, and they are as listed below.

Round 1: An online Criteria cognitive aptitude test with 40 Questions and given time of 20 minutes followed by a Personality Assessment test which was untimed. The test was conducted on HireBridge. 

Round 2: Students who cleared round 1 were allowed for Round 2. Round 2 was a Coding round conducted on the HackerEarth platform. It consisted of 20 questions out of which 18 questions were based on the concepts of DBMS, CN, and Data structure & algorithm. The remaining 2 questions were based on coding. 

Question 1: The stock’s problem. N transactions are made in a trading market. The minimum value of the profit earned in a single transaction is X and the maximum value of the profit earned in a single transaction is Y. You must find the number of different possible profits that can be made in N transactions.

Input format: A single line containing 3 space-separated integers N,X,Y respectively.

Output format: Print the answer to the problem in a single line.

Constraints:

Input: 3 13 15
Output : 3

Explanation:

• There is 3 transaction with the minimum as 13 and maximum as 15.
• All the possibilities for profits made on those 3 transactions are as follows.
• (13,13,15), (13,14,15), (13,15,15)
• So, we have three possible values for the total profit made: 41, 42, 43.

Python code if you ever encounter the above question.

Question 2: Optimum Jumps. You are given an array A of N integers. You have to find the minimum cost that is required to cross the array by jumping from one element to another. You need to start from the first element of the array and you can jump in both directions, but the length of the forwarding jump must be two andlength of the backward jump must be one.

The cost of forwarding and backward jump is the value of the element from which you are jumping, that is, the cost of jumping from i^th Index to (i+2)^th and the cost of jumping from i^th Index to (i-1)^th Index is the value of i^th Element of the array A.

If you are at the last element of the array then you can jump out of the array and cost of that jump will be the value of the last element of array A. 

Input format:

• First line: N(size of the array)
• Second line: N space seperated integers of the array.

Output format:

• Print the cost in a single line.

Constraints:

• 1<=N<=10⁵ 
• 1 <= A[i] <= 10⁹

Input: 5
       1 2 3 4 100
Output: 10

Explanation:

• The cost of the forward jump from 1^st Element to 3^rd Element is 1.
• The cost of the backward jump from 3^rd Element to 2^nd Element is 3.
• The cost of the forward jump from 2^nd Element to 4^th Element is 2.
• The cost of the forward jump from 4^th Element to out of the array is 4.
• Total cost = 1 + 3 + 2 + 4 = 10

Use https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/81142 link as a reference if you are stuck anywhere.

Round 3: This round was a Techno-Managerial round. In this, I was invited for an interview over Skype. The interviewer started with a short introduction about himself, and he made me comfortable by having a small talk with me and then and then he went ahead with some technical questions. He asked me to choose a language and I picked Python but he was expecting me to choose C++ and java. So, I told him I am comfortable with Java as well. He continued with some questions related to Java and OOP concepts. Here are some questions that I remember

1. Key differences between Java and Python?
2. Explain JDK, JRE, and JVM?
3. What are constructors in Java?
4. Why pointers are not used in Java?
5. What is the JIT compiler in Java?
6. What is Object-Oriented Programming?
7. Difference between String, StringBuilder, and StringBuffer.
8. What is Polymorphism?
9. What are runtime and compile-time polymorphism? Explain with an example.
10. What are the different types of inheritance in Java?
11. Why multiple inheritance is not supported in Java?
12. What is method overloading and method overriding?
13. What are association, aggregation, and composition?
14. What does String… stand for in Java?
15. What are dangling pointers?
16. What are lvalues and rvalues?
17. What is a static variable?
18. What is call by value and call by reference?

He asked me to share my screen and write a SQL query. Find the 2^nd  largest salary from the employee table.

He asked me to write an example code implementing Polymorphism and Inheritance using both Java and Python. While I was writing the code he asked me some questions related to my resume and the projects mentioned on my resume. After this, he started asking me questions based on some real-life and office related scenarios and wanted to know how i will be reacting in those situations. E.g.  He asked if I am dealing with two customers having equal priority and both of them gives me a task to complete within a very small time frame. Which one I would prefer doing and why provided only one task can be done in the given time frame, and then he asked a few more questions related to this scenario. He gave me some more similar scenarios and went ahead with the questions.

He also asked me questions related to the Organisation I was interviewing for. Like what does the company do, Where are headquaters of the company, Who is the CEO, In which area of Bengaluru is the office of the company located?

He concluded by asking if I had any questions for him.

Round 4: It was a telephonic interview conducted by HR. Firstly, she asked me to introduce myself, and then she asked me about my hobbies and family background. Then she asked if I am available and interested in the offered position.

I was fortunate enough that I made through all the rounds and offered the position of a Software Developer at Aptean.

Tips: Have a decent CGPA above 8 and a good CV. Don’t fake your resume and don’t lie in your interviews. Just go through all your projects and activities mentioned on your resume right before the interview. Practice on GeeksforGeeks, HackerRank, interviewBit for coding questions, and revise the basic probability and aptitude concepts beforehand.  The company mainly focuses on the Data structure and Algorithms so brush up all the topics. Just be confident and keep a smile on your face.