Deutsche Bank Interview Experience for graduates

Deutsche Bank recently visited our campus for hiring graduate analysts and interns. This was the first they visited our campus and I hope that they continue to visit our campus.

Online round: It consisted of three coding questions. There was one easy, one medium, and one difficult coding question. From this round, 22 students were shortlisted out of 240 students. The shortlisting for this round was based on coding scores and CGPA.

I think there was some fixed no of seats for girls(not sure though).

First Round: The interviewer for this round was a knowledgable person, first, he introduced himself and asked me to introduce myself. In my introduction, I said I love doing problem-solving so he asked me what kind of questions do you solve in competitive coding. So here are the questions he asked me.

1. What is the binary search?

I explained to him a binary search with an example. The example which I gave was finding the frequency of given no in a sorted array.

2. What is a Binary search tree?

I explained this by constructing BST from given nos. Then I explained to him in order traversal also.

3. What is the difference between primary key and a unique key?

I told him that the primary cannot have null value whereas a unique key can have a null value. He asked me a few other questions on primary keys which I don’t remember now xD ( sorry ).

4. What is meant by global variable, local variables, automatic variable?

Local Variable: I told him that the variable which is declared inside some blocks is called a local variable, their lifetime till the block. They can only be accessed inside the block.

Global variable: The variables which are declared outside all the blocks and can be accessed from anywhere in the code. They exist until the life of the program. I told him how can we access the global variable using the scope resolution operator.

At that time I did not know what automatic variable was, so I directly told no to him but later after the interview, I searched and found that local and automatic variables are the same thing.

5. What are the pointers?

I explained to him that pointers are the variable that holds the address of other variables. I told him about the references also. Then we had a discussion on the void pointer. I told him about the application of pointers.

Then he gave a code and asked me to tell its output. The code was:

void fun (int ptr )

{

ptr = 111;

}

int main(void) {

int p = 11;

fun (p);

printf ( “%d”, p );

return 0;

}

I was able to answer this question.

6. What is a queue and what is a priority queue?

• Queue: A linear data structure that follows first in the first out policy.
• Priority queue: Special queue which has priority. I told him priority queue is implemented using a heap data structure.

I explained to him the working of the max heap with the example and properties of heap data structure.

7. What is heap sort?

I wrote code for heap sort and explained the time complexity of all the operations. He was quite satisfied.

He asked me about greedy sort about which I had no idea :/

8. Project Discussion:

I explained to him my LRU cache project. First of all, I explained to him about the cache, its advantages, and its disadvantages. Then the various replacement policy in the cache.

Then finally I explained to him LRU cache, its time complexity, application advantages and disadvantages. I tried my best to explain it to him.

9. How code is compiled in c?

I told him that I don’t have an idea about c but I know how code complies in c++.

It is a three-step process:

1. Pre-processing.
2. Compilation.
3. Loading/Linking.

Then he told me it the same process in c also.

10. He asked me three output questions.

• First question :

  #include <stdio.h>
  
  int var=11 ;
  
  int main(void) {
  
  int var = var ;
  
  printf ( “%d”, var ) ;
  
  return 0;
  
  }

  I thought this code would produce compilation error but I was wrong (I gave him wrong answer ). I correct output was 0.

• second question: 

  #include <stdio.h>
  
  int main(void) {
  
  int x = 032 ;
  
  printf ( “%d”, x ) ;
  
  return 0;
  
  }

  I knew the output for this code and it was 26.

• Third question: 

  #include <stdio.h>
  
  int main(void) {
  
  {
  
  int x ;
  
  }
  
  {
  
  prinf (“%d”, x ) ;
  
  }
  
  }

  I told him that it will produce a compilation error because the scope of x is within the block and it cannot be accessed outside the block.

11. Puzzles: In the last three minutes, he asked me 2 puzzles which I was not able to answer due to my nervousness issues.

• First puzzle: If 5 machines can produce 5 T-shirts in 5 minutes then how much time does 100 machines will take to produce 100 T-shirts.
• Second Puzzle: If a shopkeeper increases the price of a good by 10 % then decreases it by 10%, will the shopkeeper be in loss or profit.

It was so dumb of me to not able to solve such easy puzzles. I will work on this part.

12. Difference between void main() and simply main().

I did not know the answer to this problem but I told him all the other things related to the question.

At last, I asked the interviewer for feedback on my interview he said that I need to work on my analytical skills.

Second round: My interviewer for this round was a very humble, sweet, and experienced person.

1. Final, Finally and Finalise in java.

2. Normalization and its form.

I explained to him why we do normalization, how we do it with a proper example, deletion anomaly, update anomaly, prime, non – prime attributes, partial dependency and transitive dependency.

3. Type of Databases.

I told him about the relational and non-relational database. How they vary form each other, their application, and all.

4. Design database for school.

I told him that I will use a relational database for school. I told him about the various table in Database and dependency between them.

5. Puzzle.

I gave him the wrong answer but he was very supportive and explained to me the right way of solving it. ( I am very bad at puzzles)

My interview ran for almost half an hour. In the end, I asked him for feedback. He said that He really liked my confidence level.

Third Round: This was HR kind of round. Usually, people call it PRO-FIT round.

My interviewer was a very jolly person and he had a wide smile on his face.

He started by asking whether am tired because of the length interview process to which I replied no because we all are at our home so we can chill and take rest in between the interviews.

Here are some of the questions he asked him.

1. Why there was a decrement in your CGPA?

I had 9.2 in my first year than an average of 8.6 something in the third year. I told him that from second-year onwards I started focusing on other skills apart from academics. I told him about writing, me being a secretary, and all the extra Co-curricular things which I did.

2. What kind of job you are looking for?

I told him that I am looking for a job that makes me financially stronger as I have to support my family financially. He was impressed by my honesty. A job where I have all-round development not just Technical development.

3. How is the condition in Delhi?

Delhi is my current place. I told him that since the last 5 months I have stepped only twice outside my house due to this COVID situation. Our safety is on our own hands.

4. Something you have learned apart from the studies?

I told him I have learned about spirituality. How to keep yourself calm in all situations.

5. What kind of article do you write?

I told him that I write on medium. I write articles about philosophy, life, and coding.

6. Your philosophy for life.

I shared a quote with him, which I believe a lot in my life. “So long as I don’t give up, My probability of success will never fall to zero”. I told him that I am a very optimistic person and I believe in god a lot.

7. My responsibilities as secretary.

I told him that I took coding classes for my junior, organizing event, getting sponsorship, and all. He was quite happy to know all these things.

In the end, I asked him for feedback to which he replied that I have a very positive approach toward life.

Fourth Round: This was also an HR round. The interviewer was a chill person.

The questions asked to me were.

1. The thing which you liked a lot about Deutsche bank:

I told him that DB is the company to follow sustain development. So I really liked this fact about DB.

2. Why are you the best fit for the company?

I told him that all my competitor who has made to 4th round are technically round but the quality which differs me from them is my optimistic approach towards life.

3. The difficulty you faced in your project.

I told him that all the projects that have mentioned in my resume are the projects which I have done individually. So the lack of guidance was the difficulty that I faced.

4. Explain any one of your projects.

I explained to him the LRU cache.

5. Your experience of working in a team.

I told me that I played volleyball in my first year and I led a team of 23 members as an event head.

Then there was some background check related questions.

A total of 10 students from the 4th year and 10 students form the 3rd year were selected. I am happy that I was one of them.

Tips:

• Be clear with CS fundamentals.
• Be confident.
• Try to communicate as much as possible.