Infosys Interview Experience for Specialist Programmer 2022

Infosys Interview Experience for the role of Specialist Programmer/Power Programmer – 2022

I applied for the off campus recruitment program of Infosys for the role of Specialist Programmer (Power Programmer) and Digital Specialist Engineer in the last week of December, 2021 (during my 8th Semester).

The online assessment was conducted on 28th January, 2022 for which the communication was made on 15th January and the test link was sent to us 48 hours prior to the test.

Assessment Pattern :

It was a coding round which consisted of 3 coding questions with weightage attached to each one of them and the total time allotted was 3 hours.

First problem* was a combination of array and bit manipulation and the difficulty level was medium. The bit manipulation concept that helped me solve the problem was Smallest power of 2 greater than or equal to n.

2nd Problem* was based on dynamic programming but it could also be solved using the concept of binary search and the difficulty level was medium. It was a variation of the famous Aggressive Cows problem.

3rd Problem was a combination of Graph and DP.

I managed to solve 2/3 questions completely and was expecting an interview call for the SP role. I received the communication on 1st March, 2022 that I have been shortlisted for the interview round of the Specialist Programmer role and based on the interview performance I would be selected for SP/DSE/SE role.

My interview was scheduled on 19th March, 2022 and the communication for the same was made on 17th March, 2022.

Interview Day :

Mode of the Interview : Online
Platform : Microsoft Teams
Duration : 1 hour

My interview started in a very awkward situation when I unintentionally joined the meeting with a fake name. The night before the interview, I used a false name to access the meeting as my intention was to find out the interviewer’s name and view his LinkedIn profile to know about his skill set in order to prepare accordingly. However, I forgot to update my real name before the actual interview began.
As a result, the interviewer immediately pointed out that the interview seemed intended for someone else. It was a challenging situation for me, but I quickly explained that there was only one laptop in my family, and at that moment, my brother was using it for his online class. Thus, the fake name belonged to my brother, and I requested the interviewer’s permission to rejoin the meeting with the correct name. Fortunately, he agreed, and I was able to continue the interview with my genuine identity.

Another challenging situation arose when the interviewer raised concerns about my identity, pointing out that my face did not match the photo I had uploaded in the application form. This doubt was likely a result of the previous incident with the fake name. I made an effort to convince him that I was indeed the same person as in the photo, explaining that the picture was a bit old, which might account for the variations.

Despite my attempts to reassure him, the interviewer was still hesitant. In order to verify my identity, he decided to take a snapshot of my face and asked for my Aadhar card. Fortunately, after inspecting the documents, he agreed to continue with the interview and the interview began.

The interviewer introduced himself, explained his role at Infosys, and emphasized the value of having a career opportunity at Infosys. He remained calm and showed genuine kindness. Seeing that I was panicking due to the previous incidents, he reassured me, encouraging me to stay comfortable and calm throughout the interview.

Approximately 10 minutes had passed during all these, and then the interviewer asked me to introduce myself.

I introduced myself, providing a brief overview of my educational background, technical skills, problem-solving abilities, the projects I had completed, and my hobbies.

After that, he presented a coding question, providing a detailed explanation along with examples of test cases and asked me to share my screen and use any code editor to solve the question.

Coding Question : The question was of medium difficulty level and involved concepts related to arrays, hash-maps, and string rotation.

Initially, I conveyed my understanding of the question, which the interviewer agreed with. After thinking for a few minutes, I presented a brute force approach. While he acknowledged that it would work, he encouraged me to come up with an optimized approach. Taking a few more minutes to think, I explained the optimized approach, illustrating it with examples of 2-3 test cases and discussing its time complexity. Satisfied with the approach, he then requested me to proceed with coding it.

I began coding the solution while simultaneously explaining each line I wrote to the interviewer. After 15 minutes, I requested him to review my progress. He provided three test cases, but unfortunately, none of them passed successfully. He then pointed out a specific part of my approach that we had discussed earlier and asked me to analyze if I was coding that particular section correctly.

Even after spending an additional 10 minutes on the problem, I was unable to pass the test cases. At that point, as overall 35 minutes had already passed, he suggested that I skip the question and offered another problem for me to solve.

2nd Coding Question : This time, the interviewer presented a classic DSA question, like* implementing a queue using stacks while making the dequeue operation costly. Given its standard nature, I explained the approach confidently and proceeded to code it within the next 10 minutes. This time, the interviewer was quite satisfied with my solution.

Since 15 Minutes were left in the interview, the interviewer decide to check my core CS knowledge.

During the interview, I used Python to solve the coding problems, so the interviewer asked me a few questions related to Python, all of which I answered correctly.

Then he asked me some core CS Concepts listed below :

OOPs : Difference between Multiple and Multi Level Inheritance, difference between Compile time and Run time polymorphism.
DSA : Difference between Stack and Heap memory management
DBMS : Acid Properties, DCL

I was able to answer all these questions except the difference between Stack and Heap memory management.

The interviewer mentioned that he was done with the interview and asked if I had any questions for him. I noticed there were still 8 minutes left in the interview, so I requested another chance to attempt the 1st coding question that I was not able to solve at the beginning to which he agreed. Throughout the rest of the interview, I kept thinking about the hint he provided earlier. This time, I managed to identify and correct the mistake I had made before, and I explained the mistake that I was doing earlier. The interviewer went on checking m code on multiple test cases and to my delight, it passed all of them, and the interviewer appreciated my effort and seemed satisfied.

Next, he inquired if I had knowledge of Node.js, React, and Angular. I honestly replied that during college, I focused more on problem-solving and didn’t delve deeply into development. He acknowledged my dedication to problem-solving but stressed that in any organization, I would be expected to work on development tasks and should have some understanding of these technologies.

I mentioned that I recently started my internship at Cognizant, and I hoped to work on these tech stacks in the upcoming days. I assured him that by the time I completed my degree, I would have gained knowledge in these areas.

He seemed satisfied with my response, and then he concluded the interview, informing me that he would share the feedback with the higher authorities.

Verdict : On the 20th of April, 2022, exactly one month later, I received an email notifying that I had been selected for the role of Specialist Programmer. I couldn’t contain my excitement and jumped with joy as it was worth more than what I was expecting.

*Note : All the questions discussed above are memory-based and are variations of the problems that were asked during the test or interview. However, these are not the exact questions asked and sharing the exact questions asked is against the code of conduct.

Thank you for taking your time to go through my interview experience. I hope this would add value to your interview experience. Please find below some suggestions that might help you when you sit for your upcoming interview.

• Ensure to join the interview room 5-10 minutes before the scheduled time, and make sure of a stable internet connection and proper lighting
• Dress in a professional and simple manner.
• Keep your resume concise and only mention skills you are confident in.
• Prepare thoroughly about your project, as technical discussions about it might arise during the interview.
• Practice problem-solving consistently to be well-prepared for live coding challenges in the interview.
• During coding, engage in a discussion with the interviewer and avoid coding silently.
• Don’t panic in any situation, always remember that the interviewer has invested him time and effort interviewing you, so he/she also wants you to get selected.
• Maintain integrity during the interview and refrain from attempting to cheat using external means. Remember the one taking you interviewer is himself/herself a very qualified engineer and had been there quite a long back where you are now. Cheating could lead to rejection and potential blacklisting from the company.

Thanks & Warm Regards
Govind Choudhary