Ittiam Systems Interview Experience | Set 1 (On-Campus)

Ittiam systems came to our college to recruit students from circuit branches i.e (CSE, ECE, EE), Elligibility ->  more than 7.0 CGPA. It was their first time on-campus fresher recruitment (generally recruits experienced employee). It is an IP (Intellectual Property) company which mainly aims at  providing audio-video IP solutions along with it also works on modern technologies like cloud computing, machine learning, computer vision etc.

Here is my interview experience : It consisted of 3 rounds.

Round 1(30 mins):   Written Test
It was a written round (pen-paper). It started just after the company’s ppt (pre-placement talk). There were a total of 20 Mcqs (with negative marking), 10 from quantitative aptitude and 10 from technical aptitude to be solved in 30 mins.

Quant questions were from time&work,speed-distance(tricky one),few maths quesns viz. related to area of circle , mathematical reasoning (like questions on propositional logic, there exists and for all ->these type of questions can be found in discrete mathematics). Overall it was of average difficulty level.

Technical questions :- o/p quesns in C(based on static variable,register concept,i.e storage classes concepts), few quesns from OS (based on fork() system call), few quesns from computer architecture or organization (like big & little Endian system concept), few quesns from bitwise operators (mostly on XOR).

I solved only 12 of them, got into 2^nd round. (15 out of 120 went to 2^nd round).
Tip: Attempt those quesns only which you could solve i.e don’t waste time thinking on any quesn,

Keep in mind the negative marking also, getting 8-12 quesns correct will do the trick.

Note: Solve only those questions which you can later explain to the interviewer in the 2^nd round (yes, they ask the proper solutions of few quesns that you solved) coz that matters too for qualifying the 2^nd round.  i.e don’t just guess the solution of any question you didn’t understand, just leave them.

Round 2(1hr 30min approx):  Technical Interview

There were 2 technical panel. One for those students who were either from CSE or had solved more technical quesns in the written test. While the other panel was mainly for non-CSE students who had solved more aptitude quesns in the written student.

Process:- I went to the first panel. The interviewer started by asking my introduction. I gave a brief introduction.He then showed me my written paper and then pointed to a question and asked me how did I solve it.He did the same for 2 quesns more. I solved those questions. And after my every answer, he was neither confirming nor denying the veracity(correctness) of my solutions, infact he was confusing me by asking “Are you sure?” at the end of every solution . But I nod him confidently. So try to answer confidently.

Questions:-

1. He asked the fork() quesn from written test. I told him the answer and explained it. Then he asked what do you know about fork(), explain it. After explaining fork, he asked me given two processes spawned by fork and each one is printing something, how will you differentiate it.
   For this I explained him how write function can be used instead of printf because printf is a buffered while write is non-buffered function and then there was further discussion on few system calls.
2. He asked a question on Thread, I answered it and then Define thread, then how is it different from a process, then multi-threading concept. I answered these quesns by giving the standard answer and then also explained it in layman terms by giving example. (Note: Take your time to answer even the simplest question, don’t just define it because the interviewer was looking for some detailed explanation)
3. Continuing on multi-thread, he asked me if multiple threads are spawned by a single process,
   Then what do they share in common and also provide an example. I answered this question by explaining him about the process and thread structure i.e what does a process and thread image consist of at execution time . I told him about the address spaces and also justified him by giving the example of gui which supports responsiveness in the similar way and then he started giving me few another scenarios in which he asked what portion of thread will be shared and different for different threads.
   Note: I explained him everything by giving examples and drawing the process and threads images and even writing small programs in some cases.
4. He then asked me to write a simple swap program in C and then asked the difference b/w call by reference and by value.
5. He then asked me few variations of the same swap program . This was based on pointer compability and casting (keep in mind the special case of void pointer) .
6. A function exchange(src,size,dest) is given. A src memory area of certain size is given and is filled with characters .
7. i) you have to copy the content of src to another memory area dest with unknown size (it was simple, use malloc to assign mem for dest same as src’s size and while looping copy to dest ) then he added a variation that what if src’s content changed with somewhat smaller or larger content (in addition I said realloc can be used in this case ).
8. ii) Now there is only one mem area is given and src starts from the beginning and lasts till size while dest  starts at a place in between of src (i.e both area overlaps), now change the content without any loss.
9. What does a C program consist of? How is it stored in memory? Explain
   Refer: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/memory-layout-of-c-program/
10. In continuation of the above question, he gave me a C program and asked where will each and everything go in to memory?
11. He then asked me use of each section in memory and mostly focused on the uses of stack section with examples.
12. He then asked me difference b/w local static and global static variable in C? And where in memory will they be stored? Also asked the brief use of static variable? I explained it along with a example program and then he asked me a real life example –I answered it.
13. He also asked me about critical section of code. How to avoid the deadlock? Explain Mutual exclusion.
14. What are semaphores? Difference between Semaphores and mutex. Also asked about reader-writer problem.

Tip: Answer confidently, don’t get confused and take some time to clearly understand the questions as they were pretty simple but the interviewer was asking in a complex way. Be clear with OS, C, memory layout concepts.

After this round, only 2 qualified for 3^rd round. I was one of the two.

We were given a form to be filled before HR interview. It consisted of filling the basic information , previous internship experience (if any), what will you like to change if again given the same internship, and questions like what one thing you did in your life even that was not your responsibility and various such questions on life experiences.

Round 3(1hr 30min approx): HR Interview

After filling up the form, HR interview started and lasted for about one and a half hour .

I went into the room, handed him over the form and the HR had made the seating arrangement on his own such that between him and me there was large gap.

He looked over the form and told me that he will assess my form after this interview and started asking questions.

1. Tell me your candidature. -> I started my introduction but interfered in the middle by him, he asked me to tell something that is not in my CV.
2. Asked about my life, my family background.
3. Asked about my place and what is unique there and further discussion.
4. Asked about my hobbies and interests.
5. Asked about the college and a lot of discussion on it, the place, the culture, the food etc
6. Then a long discussion on my future plans, whether I will do higher study or not. I answered No and he again confirmed.. are you sure?. Note: Even you are going to opt for further study even after a 1-2 year window, never say to him, convince him that my first priority right now is getting a job and job only.
7. Now he asked me to switch position with him (not literally), he just told me to be interviewer for the moment and ask question from him. It went for about 20-25 min.
8. Then he asked me where will you see yourself in 5 years from now?

He was impressed by my answer for this.

9. He then asked me about my strength and weakness and my nature
10. He told me being an Introvert, you must be good at observing people so he then asked me to assess him personality wise, that how is he as a person, what are the good and bad qualities in him on the basis of that I observed him for a while in the ppt also
11. Finally asked me ,any questions about companies -> I didn’t ask anything and told him that almost everything was made clear in the ppt only. But before leaving I asked him that in case I am selected or rejected can I get my feedback of the interview. He replied NO.

Note: HR round was more of like discussion , few questions could be missing , could be disordered.

Tips: Be loud and try to make yourself comfortable with the interviewer.

Best of luck to everyone 🙂 And Thanks @geeksforgeeks.org