Cadence interview Experience | Software Development Engineer

CADENCE: OFFICE INTERVIEWS
Round-1 Online Test:
Section 1: 20 Aptitude MCQs for 20 Min
Section 2: 10 Technical MCQ for 10 Min
Section 3: Coding: 60 Minutes
1. Reverse a Linked list
2. Check Balanced Parentheses
3. Given chess Board size print squares of each size present in chess board
4. Given a text file status.txt representing transition of states of 50 bulbs. Each line of Text file is of type “1234 25”: indicating bulb 25 changes its state at 1234 second.
Assuming all bulbs are initially switched OFF print final states of all bulbs.

Round-2 Technical Interview 1(1+ Hour):
1. Discussion about online test questions and most optimized approaches for all of the above.
2. Check whether given tree is BST or not and write production level code for same.
3. Given an infinite Binary complete tree with level order for first few level as
1
2 4
3 5 7 9
6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Given string sequence containing ‘l’ and ‘r’ only print nodes along that route
For ex if string is “lllr” print 1-2-3-8.
Write Production level code for the same
4. Check whether given n-ary trees are mirror of each other given only roots.
5. Given a row and column sorted matrix find pair with given sum and write production level code for the same.
6. Shallow Copy and Deep Copy concept, how does computer treat negative integer assignment to unsigned integer, overloaded equality operator and shallow copy impact of the same.
7. 5 people A B C D E with time for crossing a river resp. being 1 min, 2 min, 3 min, 4 min, 5 min. At a time only two people can travel in boat. Find min. time to transport all the people to other side of the river, given anyone in the boat can drive it at its speed.

Round-3 Technical Interview 2(1 hour): you have to write functions with all test cases handled
1. Intersection Point of two linked lists.
2. Maximum sum subarray with case of negative integers handled.
3. First non-repeating character in a stream of integers.
4. Detect cycle in undirected graph.
5. Kth smallest integers in a stream of arrays.
6. Merge k-sorted arrays (Why don’t we simply merge arrays and then obtain a single array and why to use heap based method. Hint- what will happen if one array is billion size and others of small size with normal merging. )
7. Discussion on free() vs Delete() and little bit about storage Classes.
Round 4: Technical Interview 3(45 Min.)
1. Discussion about my 2nd and 3rd year Internships.
2. Discussion about my Major Projects.
3. Discussion about Hash Map, Hash Function and suggest a hash map for detecting anagrams.
4. Clone a Linked list with random pointers:
Discussed 3 approaches and was asked to write code Hash Map based approach with all test cases and corner cases handled.
5. Malloc() vs New(), Virtual Table and Virtual Pointer, structure Padding.

Round 5: Managerial/ Technical Interview 4 (1 Hour):
1. Merge k-sorted arrays (You have to write code using STL)
2. Extension of question 1: If file size is bigger than Ram size: Use external sorting concept.
3. Given m arrays representing m train routes each of different size containing station numbers. You can move between 2 train routes only if they have a common station. Given 2 station, find whether it is possible to reach from one to another.
Solved using Union based approach.
Pointers along with hash map based approach.
Further Find minimum train routes I have to change to reach from source to destination.
Hint: Consider each train route as Graph Node and join it with other nodes who have a common station and apply BFS.

Round 6: HR Round
1. Discussion about Current PPO offered.
2. Open to go to US for Projects or not.
3. Where do I see myself etc
I made through all of them. Also since this was for a US based team, you will get chance to work on US projects and go there as well. (”-”)