Intel Interview Experience (On-Campus) 2023

In the spring of 2023, I had the privilege of interviewing for a position at Intel on my college campus. The interview process was not only challenging but also provided an exciting opportunity to showcase my problem-solving skills using Java. In this article, I will recount my experience and share how I tackled two specific 2D array problems posed by the interviewers.

Problem 1: Counting 1s and 0s

The interview began with the classic “introduce yourself” question. After a brief introduction, the interviewer wasted no time delving into the technical questions. They asked me to open a notepad and presented the first problem:

Problem Statement: Given a 2D array containing only 1s and 0s, write a Java function to find the number of 1s and 0s in the array.

Solution:

I started by writing a Java function that iterated through the entire 2D array, keeping count of the number of 1s and 0s encountered. The code snippet looked something like this:

int countOnes = 0;

int countZeros = 0;

for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++) {

for (int j = 0; j < columns; j++) {

if (matrix[i][j] == 1) {

countOnes++;

} else if (matrix[i][j] == 0) {

countZeros++;

}

}

}

System.out.println(“Number of 1s: ” + countOnes);

System.out.println(“Number of 0s: ” + countZeros);

Problem 2: Replacing 0s with 1s

Once I had successfully tackled the first problem, the interviewer presented the second challenge:

Problem Statement: Given the same 2D array, write a Java function to replace all the 0s in a row with 1s if that row contains at least one 1.

Solution:

For this problem, I wrote a Java function that iterated through each row of the 2D array, checking if there was at least one occurrence of 1. If a row contained a 1, I replaced all the 0s in that row with 1s. Here’s a simplified version of the code:

for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++) {

boolean containsOne = false;

for (int j = 0; j < columns; j++) {

if (matrix[i][j] == 1) {

containsOne = true;

break;

}

}

if (containsOne) {

for (int j = 0; j < columns; j++) {

if (matrix[i][j] == 0) {

matrix[i][j] = 1;

}

}

}

}

Bonus Question: Finding the Second Largest Element

As a final challenge, the interviewer posed a bonus question: “Find the second largest element in the 2D array without sorting it.”

Solution:

To solve this problem, I implemented a Java function that iterated through the array while keeping track of the largest and second largest elements encountered. Here’s the code:

int largest = Integer.MIN_VALUE;

int secondLargest = Integer.MIN_VALUE;

for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++) {

for (int j = 0; j < columns; j++) {

if (matrix[i][j] > largest) {

secondLargest = largest;

largest = matrix[i][j];

} else if (matrix[i][j] > secondLargest && matrix[i][j] != largest) {

secondLargest = matrix[i][j];

}

}

}

System.out.println(“Second Largest Element: ” + secondLargest);

Conclusion:
My Intel campus interview experience in 2023 was both challenging and rewarding. It allowed me to showcase my Java programming skills and problem-solving abilities. By confidently addressing the given 2D array problems and the bonus question, I left the interview room with a sense of accomplishment and hope for a promising future at Intel.