ABOUT COMPANY: EPAM is one of the dream-job for freshers nowadays which is getting exponentially popular.
- This is a service-based company where you’ll provide end-to-end solutions to clients and do product development being a fresher only.
- As not many of the engineering students are aware of the EPAM drive completely and how to do it, I’ll just help everyone out by briefing every portion and answering the FAQs which I faced before sitting for the drive. Before you appear for your EPAM drive, make sure to go thoroughly as I’ve covered everything in detail about the organization and exams.
- I’ll just start with some minor details of mine which will help you out understand where do you stand.
Course: Bachelor of Technology
Discipline: Computer Science and Engineering
EPAM India Recruitment Drive Details:
Job role: Junior Software Engineer
Place: Hyderabad/ Bangalore/ Pune (You can enter your preference, but the final decision will be taken by the organization itself. )
My verdict: Selected
Recruitment Process in a brief: EPAM India has one of the most uncommon selection processes which is in my opinion, the most practical. Usual recruitment processes include Quantitative Aptitude, Logical Reasoning, English, Programming logic, Coding, Lateral thinking, Automata fix, etc.
- On the other hand, EPAM checks the candidates on their practical knowledge, conversation clarity, coding, etc. To be honest, exams consist of one day, a few hours and your abilities are checked.
- In many exams, mostly in quantitative aptitude and logical reasoning, there are problems which don’t actually check your skills. I mean to say is, that there many problems which particularly have one way of solving that, which is known to the author.
- Those problems do not showcase someone’s capabilities but are more theoretical. Either you know them, or you don’t. EPAM, with their unique recruitment process, judges a candidate based on perks required in real life only.
Round 1: The 1st round is a coding, aptitude, core concepts of java, data structures and algorithms round which is conducted through my anatomy portal as of today.
- You can give this round from home.
- Needless to say, this is completely off-campus and anyone can participate. I refer to organizations like PrepInsta or FacePrep.
- They keep updating about all the placement drives ever so often in their websites and YouTube channels.
- There are others too, but I mentioned which I use(d) [ i.e. no promotional activity behind the scene.]
Pattern:
- There were 3 programming problems to solve in Java only.
- You cannot use any other language strictly.
- EPAM is primarily product-based, they develop and excel in Java. However, this doesn’t imply that if you’re a Python expert, there are no opportunities.
- According to the orientation, they selected Java as because that is what they use primarily, and also, this is the most common language which is part of the academic syllabus in every college throughout India.
- Also, you need to have a working webcam which will be on throughout the exam. Leaving your chair, going somewhere else, anyone else appearing the camera, covering the camera, etc. is strictly prohibited and will give you warnings 1-2 times before canceling your exam. Don’t cheat! However, you can have water or stuff, given you don’t leave your seat.
- So sit prepared with pen paper bottle etc. whichever you need.
- Needless to say, no mobile phones are allowed. They’ll check your footage randomly later, so even if you do, you’ll lose then. Also, there is plagiarism checking, copying is also not allowed. Also, you cannot switch windows or open new tabs or you’ll be warned and your examination is liable to be canceled.
My Experience:
- We had to go through a bit of trouble. Myanatomy crashed for many aspirants.
- That’s why the test was taken again. However, it didn’t crash for me. In that attempt, I solved 3/3 problems.
- The hard one was from a graph, but looking closely I discovered that it wasn’t a graph solution. It was more of a searching algorithm.
- There were many given graph-related functions predefined, but they were of no use. It was kind of a trick question. In my 2nd attempt, I solved 2/3, 2 of them being the easy one and the hard one. Medium one was partial. However, as per cutoff, I cleared both attempts.
Round 2:
After the 1st round, selected candidates will receive an e-mail of selection. In my case, I received it for 3 days after. You’ll receive the mails a few times, each time with particular information updated.
For the second round also follows the pattern of the first round. But the mode of difficulty will be bit increased. There are 3 coding questions first one is medium, second one is hard, third one is very hard.
My Experience:
- For the MCQs, the questions were mostly on Threads, Synchronization, and inheritance. Brush those before you appear.
- I have solved the first and second questions. But for the third question, I will be a bit of trouble to understand the question. At last I understood the question and started to code. Basically, it is a dynamic problem. Finally, i solved the question but I missed some Test cases.
Round 3: I have received the email of the previous round that I have been selected for the third round. This is the G.D. round, i.e. group discussion.
Pattern:
- Group Discussion Format – 35min
- Welcoming, Context Setting & briefing the Topic By GD Moderator – 5min
- Discussion – 28min
- Closing Remarks – 2 min
- Topic: impacts on social websites
Round 4: After completion of round 3 I got an email that I am selected for Round 4 which was technical round. The interview is around greater than 1 hour. The interviewer nearly ask 60 questions in this one hour.
Few questions that I remember was:
- Introduce yourself?
- What is abstract class?
- What is abstract method?
- What is an interface?
- Difference between abstract class and interface?
- What are the oops concepts? and explain them?
- How many types of polymorphism?
- What is overriding?
- Difference between overriding and overloading?
- What is the use of finalize keyword?
- Difference between compile time polymorphism and run time polymorphism
- What will have if a method or variable will contain static keyword?
- Explain each keyword form public static void main(String args[])>?
- How was multithreading useful for our daily life?
- How a thread can be created?
- Interviewer posted few lines of code about multithreading in comment section. I should able to guess the output of that code?
- What is mean by inheritance?
And then the interviewer posted 2 coding question and answers which was I solved in the first and second rounds. She asked me to explain how I can approach to solve that questions.
And then she move to data structure questions:
- Explain stack data structure?
- Explain the difference between stack and queue?
- The interviewer ask the practical question on stack?
- How can u implement the stack using the array?
- Difference between the array and linked list?
- Difference between the single linked list and circular linked list?
- Again interviewer posted some piece of code on the comment section and I suppose to guess the output?
And then she move on to ask the questions on algorithms.
- Write an algorithm for quick sort ?
- Write an algorithm for bubble sort?
- Difference between quick sort and merge sort?
- In quick sort how the elements will be swapped?
- What is the best case and worst case time complexity for the quick sort?
- Write the binary search algorithm?
- What is the best case and worst case time complexity for the binary search algorithm?
- In quick sort, how the elements can be ordered or arranged to achieve the worst case O(n^2)?
After that, she asks me to explain my BTech projects and ask few questions about my projects?
Experience:
- The interviewer ask me around 60 to 70 min throughout my interview. Out of these I strongly answered nearly 55 questions.
- By end of the interview, The interviewer impressed to my presence. Even though I answered those many questions I have something feeling in my mind that should I gave my best or not?
Round 5: In the evening I got a mail, that I was selected for Round 5 which was HR round.
- This round was nearly 30 min. This will mostly be a normal conversation about hobbies, what you do and what not. HR asks about my family background, what are my hobbies, what should I do in my free time. And also asked my BTech projects.
- And some questions be like “what should you do If you have limited resources for your project.”? Actually I have done the project of “DRONE FLIGHT CONTROLLER“. And he impressed my project ask some questions related to my project.
- Finally, he explains the work culture at EPAM, and which technologies they are using, etc.
Finally, After 6 days I got the call from EPAM company, and said that “I WAS SELECTED“.
Suggestions:
- Practice more problems on dynamic programming.
- Get in depth knowledge on java core concepts.
- Understand and learn each and every concept on data structures and algorithms and implement it.
- Refer GeeksforGeeks interview experience reviews before you going to interview. Even I referred the reviews before my interview which was make me very helpful.