Carl Zeiss Interview Experience (On-Campus) 2023

Hola folks! Hope you are doing well this placement season.

During the placement season, Carl Zeiss visited our campus. It visited the campus around the first week of August.

• Round 1: This round consisted of 9 tasks on an app, including quantitative questions, memory games, puzzles, and a verbal section.
• Round 2: A total of 55 people, including MCA and B. Tech students, were selected for this round. This technical test had 40 questions and 2 coding questions, with a duration of 90 minutes. It was different for each role. I applied for a SWE/full-stack role. The first 20 questions were based on REST API basics, HTML tags, CSS flexbox, and grid methods. The next 20 questions covered OOP and DSA basics. Two coding questions were given, one easy and one medium. I completely solved the first question and passed 7 test cases for the second.
• Round 3: Around 16 people were selected for this round, which consisted of one technical round, followed by an HR round for those who cleared the technical round. I also interviewed for a cloud computing role, resulting in two technical rounds and one HR round for me.

ROUND 1 Technical Interview – Devops Role(45mins):

It started with my intro and then they asked about my projects for 20 minutes two panelists cross-questioned my projects. Then a few questions on Operating systems and questions on Computer Networks were asked. Check Interviewbit’s important questions for the interview on these two topics. I was able to answer all these questions till now and then they have asked me what is cloud what is the need for cloud computing what is DevOps what is micro services and how VPN works. The interviewers were friendly and at the end, they gave me good feedback and suggested on how to improve on those areas where I am lacking.

ROUND 2 Technical Interview – Full stack development Role(50mins)

This interview started with DSA questions:

DSA Q1

A string is balanced if it has an equal number of R and L in it. You were given a string where you must return the number of different balanced substrings

Ex: RLRRLLRLRL output:4(RL, RRLL, RL, RL)

DSA Q2

https://leetcode.com/problems/reverse-words-in-a-string/ interviewer and I had a good discussion on the corner cases for 5 min.

DSA Q3

This is a follow-up for the question 1

Now we must return the substrings that are repetitive which means we must return

RL, RRLL, RLRRLL, RL, RLRRLLRL, RL, RLRRLLRLRL (for the sample input in Q1)

DSA Q4

This is also a follow-up for the question 1

We must return the maximum number of balanced subsequences.

I was able to solve all 4 questions and the interviewer was satisfied and we have moved on to our full stack part.

He started with questions on React because I have all my projects built on react.js.

1. The questions were what is prop drilling how can we avoid it?
2. What are states and what are functional components and the difference between functional and class components?
3. What are the Advantages of Virtual Dom and why react is preferred why not angular which is also a famous JavaScript library?
4. What are hooks and what are the uses of use effect and usestate hooks.
5. What is a react router and how do you implement this in your project? I have talked about react-router and Routes Route Links
6. Why async and await are used.

Till now I have answered everything and now he started asking questions on REST API I was able to answer some of them. Then he asked questions on software architecture and SOLID principles.

In the end, I told him that I was good in OOPS and he asked only one question which was what is a relationship and has a relationship.

Round 3: HR Round

This round started with my intro and the HR introduced himself and the conversation started. I have explained my projects and why I have done them. Your project should be useful and it should solve a problem which is existing. That is what gives your project weightage and even you can feel it while explaining it. I have explained all the technical terms and how my project solves real-world problems. I have presented this for 20 mins. Then he moved on to my Honors and responsibilities section and we talked about my achievements and then he started some of his memories which he has also done in his college life. Then he asked me behavioral questions and I answered them using the STARS approach and mentioned the courses that I have done from IIM Ahmedabad and Meta and explained what I have learned from them. Talked about LEAP and TREAT leadership styles and how Satya Nadella inspires me as a leader. The conversation was fantastic and this round went on for 40 mins. In the end, with a smile the HR gave me a handshake and said we will update you with the next proceedings.

Verdict: Selected and offered 6-month internship + FTE

A total of 5 people from B. tech for different roles has been selected and I am very happy that I am one of them. Two for the data Engineer role and the other two for the DevOps role and I was selected for the Software Engineer Role.

Hope this helps you in your preparation and all the best for your future :).

Important Note: Always make sure of what you are putting in the resume. If you are clear on them, it gives you a great opportunity for you to talk and present yourself. Also never bluff if you do not know. Even the interviewer does not expect you to answer every question that he asks. Be confident and never ignore HR rounds. Cause some times they are tiebreakers so always present your best self in every round of the interview.