HSBC Interview Experience for Trainee Software Engineer (On-Campus) 2023

My interview experience with HSBC Technology India, HTI was for the role of Trainee Software Engineer (TSE) as a fresh graduate during Nov 2023.

The process consisted of 3 rounds and took place on campus. The interviews were conducted in GITAM, Visakhapatnam.

Verdict: SELECTED

Round 1 – Online Assessment (Aptitude, Technical, and Coding) on the AON platform:

This round has 2 separate rounds for Aptitude and Coding, those who qualify in the former round will qualify for the latter rounds.

Aptitude + Technical round: I underwent online assessments comprising aptitude and technical questions. The duration of the assessment was 75 minutes, with sections covering English usage (20 questions), Analytical Reasoning (20 questions), and Technical (30 questions).

• English section: 20 questions focused on testing proficiency in English. Questions on tenses, sentence corrections, articles, correct verb forms, and paragraph questions were given.
• Analytical Reasoning section: I felt this section is quite challenging based on Logical reasoning, and puzzles, identifying relationships.
• Technical section: This section comprised 30 questions from various CS topics like DS & Algorithms, a few questions from Programming languages (C, Java, Python), OS, DBMS, OOPS concepts, Machine Learning (moderate level), and Cloud Computing (basic level).

The Aptitude and Technical questions were easy and a few reasoning questions were tricky. I managed to navigate them confidently and carefully.

After the completion of this online assessment, those who pass the cutoff will receive a email to take the coding round within the next 5 minutes.

Coding round: Having successfully cleared the previous round, I proceeded to the coding round, which had a duration of just 30 minutes. Given the short time, I anticipated that the questions would be relatively easy, and indeed it was.

Question 1 (Easy) :

Given an integer `n` and have to calculate the minimum number of operations to reduce n to 1.

Operations:

1. Dividing n by x, where x is an integer such that x < n and n % x = 0.

2. Subtracting 1 from n.

Approach:

Python3

# Time Complexity: O(1), Space Complexity: O(1)
n = int(input())  # read the input integer
if n == 1:  # if n is 1 return 0
    print(0)
else:
    if (n % 2 == 0 and n != 2):  # if n is an even number divide the number with n//2 resulting 2 and reduce 2 to 1
        print(2)  # this takes 2 operations
    else:
        if n == 3:  # if n is 3: 3-1==>2 and 2-1==>2
            print(2)
        else:  # n is odd: n=n-1 (even) ==> n=2 ==> n=n-1
            print(3)  # total 3 operations

Question 2 (Easy-Moderate) :

To calculate the maximum perimeter of a polygon that can be constructed using the side lengths provided in an array `arr` of size N. If it’s impossible to form a polygon, output -1.
I found the same question on GFG, here is the link to the question

Maximize Perimeter of Quadrilateral formed by choosing sides from given Array

Approach:

Python3

# Time complexity: O(nlogn), Space Complexity: O(n)
def find_perimeter(arr):
    arr.sort(reverse=True) #sort the arr in decreasing order
    while(len(arr)>=3): # break the loop if len(arr) is less than 3
        if arr[0]>=sum(arr[1:]): # to construct a polyogn, the largest side should be less than the sum of all other sides
            arr.pop(0) # if not remove the first element (largest side) from the array
        else: 
            return sum(arr) # return the sum of arr as perimeter of the polygon
    return -1  # returns -1 if no such polygon is possible

arr=[1,12,1,2,5,50,3]
print(find_perimeter(arr))

I solved the 2 questions within 10 minutes. I recommend to solve questions on GFG, and LeetCode.

Within 2 weeks of successful completion of the round 1, I received a mail from my TPO stating that I have qualified for the next round.

Round 2 – HSBC Values Assessment on HSBC Portal (Psychometric assessment):

I heard this round as the filtering and elimination round, this round checks whether we do align with their company culture and values.

Before going to this round, I researched about the Company and its values.

This round has 75 personality trait questions, on average it takes less than ~15 minutes to complete, focusing on professionalism and personality development.

Each question has three options, and the task is to select the trait that most closely resembles us, followed by the next most similar one. I noticed that some questions were repetitive.

Within a week, I received selection mail for the interview at GITAM, Visakhapatnam. Meanwhile I revised the core CS concepts and get in-touch with my seniors working at HSBC and got some valuable experience.

Round 3 – Interview Rounds at GITAM

They provided us with all the necessary facilities. The session began with a pre-placement talk presentation taking few questions on HSBC, followed by the technical round interview.

Totally there are 6 panels, the interviewers are very much experienced and most of them had 15+ yrs of experience in working at HSBC.

As luck would have it, I was the final candidate to be interviewed. I had lot much of time to further revise the topics and further research about the company in-depth.

My technical interview lasted approximately 40 minutes.

Technical round Questions:

1. Introduce yourself (Tip: Prepare your introduction speech thoroughly, include your education details, your skills, projects, internship (if any), highlight your achievements, volunteer experience adds the value, strengths and weakness.. not more than 2 minutes )
2. As i was profound of Machine Learning and Python, I got few questions on those.
3. Questions related to my projects. Take your time not more than 3 minutes explain your work clear cut to the interviewer (Tip 💡: Highlight your role and contributions in the project, emphasize the idea of your project, mention the tech stack used)
4. Questions on DBMS and SQL (Tip : Be thorough with SQL queries and their functions, Triggers, Joins and Cursors)
5. Programming Language, I chosen Python. Few questions on Python keywords and their usage and asked me to write a python code including the keywords in the code. (Tip 💡: Learn a programming language in-depth)
6. As my resume includes, Cloud Computing and GCP, interviewer asked few questions on Virtualization, Cloud Types, and Storage options on Cloud.

Within few minutes, my HR interview was scheduled.

HR Round Questions:

1. Introduce yourself (HR wanted to know about me other than the details included in my resume)
2. Why would you like to work in HSBC?
3. How will you contribute to the team>
4. Any experience of leading a team or have been a part of community or a club?
5. What life lessons you learnt during your education and ever helped any of your friends in their tough times?
6. Relocation options (Hyderabad/Bangalore/Pune)
7. What are your interests other than academics?

Ask few questions at the end of interview, as they could make some good impression on you.

My HR interview round took around 15-20 minutes.

The next morning, I received the selection mail from the HSBC forwarded by my TPO.

Verdict: SELECTED

Here are some tips to crack placements:

• Prepare your resume, don’t lie in your resume.
• Review the CS core concepts including OS, OOPS, DBMS, and at least one programming language.
• Go through your Projects.
• Brush up your coding skills.
• Be confident while speaking to the interviewer, minimize your grammatical errors and do not loose your eye-contact with the interviewer.
• Research about the company xyz.
• Assess yourself why would you like to work in the company xyz.
• Be Calm and Confident.