I hope everyone is doing well, I know placement drives can make you frustrated. But have patience, you are not alone. I applied through my college NIT Agartala. The company visited the college around mid-August. Registration forms for the exams were rolled on 17th August. The eligibility criteria were as:
- Eligible Branches: For B.Tech- CSE,ECE,EE,EIE; For M.Tech-CSE and MCA.
- Eligibility criteria: 65% throughout 10th, 12th, and UG or PG.
- No backlogs allowed. (students having active and dead backlogs were both not allowed)
There were basically 4 rounds of the drive.
Round 1: It took place on 27th August. It was an online test conducted on the Xobin platform.
The test was 1 hour 30 minutes. And had the following sections:
- Aptitude Questions
- Quantitative Analysis
- English
- Coding questions – 2questions
Tip for the first 3 sections: Try to do problems regularly from GFG or Prepinsta. Sometimes questions get repeated from the CAT exam too.
The coding questions were of moderate difficulty. The questions were:
- https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/check-for-balanced-parentheses-in-an-expression/amp/
- A variation of: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/minimum-number-platforms-required-railwaybus-station/amp/
Tip for the coding questions: Always try to do an optimized solution, because you are evaluated on the basis of this.
Around 150 students appeared for this round from my college and around 19 got shortlisted for the second round.
Round 2: It was the system design round conducted on the 30th of the same month. You are web-proctored on MS Teams.
It was a 30mins test.
Two questions were given and we had to solve any one of our choices.
The questions given to me were:
- You are asked to redesign a solution so that congestion in different coaches in the new metro rail service is reduced.
- Redesigning surge pricing for Ola and Uber for auto and cycle rickshaws in tier 2 cities. (Dynamic pricing for Ola and Uber auto and cycle rickshaw).
While answering this round, you can have the following points in your answer, because they prefer this format. And try to right in points, avoid essays.
- Problem statement
- Solution
- Flowchart
- Summary
- Conclusion
You can answer on pen and paper or word document or PowerPoint. It is totally up to you. But, they prefer the digital format.
The test started at around 10 AM and was over by 10:40 AM. And the results were announced at 12 noon the same day, personal interview rounds were scheduled for the same day from 1:00 PM.
- This was not a major elimination round, out of the 19 students that appeared, 16 students got shortlisted for the next round. The evaluation of the solution is basically done in 1 on1 interview. So, know what you are writing for the design round.
Tip for this round: Don’t sweat yourself thinking too much about the phrase ‘system design’. You don’t have to be too precise, because your approach and critical thinking under pressure is checked in this round.
Round 3: This was a 1 on 1 personal interview round.
- I was asked about DBMS, the project that I did on web development, and the design round solution that I submitted.
- On DBMS he gave me different situations, it was mostly problems that are faced on industrial levels. He was modifying it every 2 minutes. So, it was actually fun for me, because I was loving it and he too was I think. I gave him solutions, he modified it again. It lasted for around 10 mins.
- After this DBMS problem, he asked me to introduce myself, which was actually not traditional, because this question is usually asked at the beginning.
- He then asked me why I used a particular stack on my project, how does that thing work in my project. How did I deploy it? The project was grilled for around 15 minutes.
- And then we had a long discussion on the system design solution that I submitted.
- I did it on a word document, and he actually liked it very much, because no one did the way I did, because most of the others used pen and paper. Those are his words. Not mine. The interview was supposed to run for 30 minutes, but mine lasted for 50 minutes.
Out of the 16 students, 5 were selected for the next round.
Round 4: It was kind of an HR round and also a final meet round. All 5 of us were asked to join the same meeting at the same time.
- They told us that they can only hire 2 of the 5. So, we were given 30 seconds each and were asked why should we be hired (try to incorporate the values of the company in your answer).
- After this, they surprised us and told us that they were actually messing with us, and all 5 were selected. Luckily, I was one of them.
Out of the 5 students, 3 students were from CSE ( 1 was one of them).
Tips: Always be confident, have a smiling face. When a question is asked, try to chat with the interviewer, tell them your approach, your thinking. It is not like I knew everything, but I was confident enough and willing to solve whatever problem was thrown at me.
Thank You