FactSet Interview Experience for Software Engineer | On-Campus 2021

Round 1: The first round consisted of a total of 4 programming-based questions including DBMS query and Java Exception Handling. The test was on the HackerRank platform and the duration was 1.5 hours. Generally, they only ask questions from arrays, strings, hashing, stacks, queues, linked lists, and trees. You can use any language of your choice unless mentioned specifically in the question.

• Question no. 1 and 2 were programming questions. The first one was based on string manipulation. The second one was just a simple variant of 0-1 Knapsack problem. Even brute-force recursive solutions got accepted. I would say the difficulty was moderate.
• Question no. 3 was a DBMS question. We were required to write an SQL query that would produce the desired output as given in the question. The query was not that tricky. It consisted of where clause and basic aggregate functions like SUM.
• Question no. 4 was a Java programming question about exception handling. We were required to construct a class that implemented a method that throws an error. This error must be handled properly. As I was not proficient in Java I couldn’t solve this question.
• Tips:- I would suggest you practice solving programming questions on GeeksforGeeks. Learn to formulate basic SQL queries and if time permits familiarize yourself with basic Java programming as it would be really helpful to ace the first round. The pattern may change each year as our pattern was totally different from that of our seniors. So don’t get panicked in such situations. Keep a calm mind throughout.

I was able to solve the first three questions successfully out of all four. Nine students were selected out of 250 students including me!

All further rounds of interviews were conducted on the same day. Hence it was a bit hectic. They were all held 3 days after the first round.

Round 2(Technical Interview-1): First the Interviewer begins with a small introduction to break the ice. It was a One-to-One interview on HackerRank. All interviews were conducted simultaneously for all candidates from the same college. There were 3 DSA questions and the interview lasted for an hour. For this round, it wasn’t necessary for our code to get compiled. The questions were:-

1. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/find-a-peak-in-a-given-array/
2. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/maximize-the-number-n-by-inserting-given-digit-at-any-position/
3. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/count-pairs-two-sorted-matrices-given-sum/

We were I was able to solve all of the questions with the most optimal methods. 7 out of 9 cleared this round successfully including me.

Round 3(Technical Interview-2): This round had the same format as Round-1 but a bit tougher as we were expected to compile and run our code. It should work for all test cases given. Even the inputs had to be coded by us which was a bit annoying, to be honest. Three DSA related questions were asked:-

1. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/check-if-a-given-binary-tree-is-sumtree/
2. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/length-of-the-longest-substring-without-repeating-characters/
3. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/maximum-length-possible-by-cutting-n-given-woods-into-at-least-k-pieces/

I was able to successfully code and run the most optimal solutions in all three questions. Even if you don’t get the most optimal solution it is fine. Just explain your code with the correct time and space complexities. After this round, 5 students were selected for the next round including me.

Round 4(Director’s Round): This round was just like any other HR round. The interviewer gave their introduction and then asked us how our technical rounds went. Several other general questions were asked like:-

• Questions about the projects that I had mentioned in my resume
• Questions about the internships that I had mentioned in my resume
• My tech stack and the programming languages that I use.
• Questions about family background.
• OOPs questions like Inheritance and Polymorphism.
• One DBMS query to produce the given output.
• What do you do in your free time?
• Do you have any questions for me?

This round lasted for half an hour. I was nervous initially but then felt super excited after seeing my name on the selected candidate’s list. All 5 students were selected in this round. We all received our offer letters after a couple of days. 

The entire interview process lasted for 4 days but 2 days were weekends so effectively it lasted for 2 days.

My Suggestions:- 

• Never rush to solve the problem as soon as you see the question. First, ask a lot of questions about the test cases so that all edge cases can be covered. Then explain your logic verbally by dry running it on a sample test case. Then if the interviewer asks you to code it up you can code it on the IDE or else think of a more optimal solution if the interviewer says so.
• Always ask few meaningful questions at the end of the interviews. This gives an impression that you are genuinely interested in the company. Don’t waste this opportunity as it might give a bad impression otherwise.
• Practice a lot on platforms like GeeksforGeeks so that you do not fumble or get stuck on your interview questions. Remember it is normal to get nervous before your interviews. So take a deep breath and proceed with a calm mind!

All the best for your interviews! Good luck 🙂