One Advanced Interview Expereince for Software Engineer 2023 (Off-Campus)

Introduction: I applied for One Advanced (mostly addresses as just Advanced 😉 ) through their off-campus hiring program while I was in my 7th semester.

Role: Software Engineer

Location: Ahmedabad/Bangalore/ Vadodra

Round 1: It was a basic aptitude test with 40 questions. The questions were of easy-medium level and required speedy calculation and observation as we were given a time limit of 20 minutes. I might have scored 38/40.

Round 2: A technical assessment of 1 hour on Hackerrank. There were 20 MCQs on concepts of OS DBMS and mostly OOPs concepts were asked from code snippets all in Java. So, you must have at least basic knowledge of Java to understand the syntax in my case, Java was not my primary language but I managed to clear the sectional cutoff(if it exists).

There were 2 SQL queries that were of medium-hard level. I wasn’t able to solve any of them.

2 Coding Questions which were quite basic. Just required knowledge of basic STL.

1. Backspace String Compare: https://bit.ly/3z5fB93
2. Minimum swaps to sort the array: https://bit.ly/31aOOpe

I solved the first question completely and in the second one, I could pass 12/13 test cases. The last one gave TLE.

But I managed to clear the cutoff and received an interview call 😉

Round 3( Technical Interview): There were 2 Interviewers who interviewed me on the Hackerrank Platform for 1 hour.

TR1: Introduce yourself.

TR2: Solve the coding question given. Given 3 arrays: name, price, and weight of products. Count the number of duplicate products. A product is called duplicate if all 3 arrays have the same value for a particular index.

I told him about the brute force approach with O(n²) time complexity. 3/13 test cases passed. Since there wasn’t a TLE I was sure there is some semantic error with my code. But, the mental pressure which had built up made me apologize for not being able to pass 100% test cases.

TR2: No problem Shreyash. Tell me about your projects. 

Me: Sir I have worked on MERN and ML. Described a project built using VanillaJS.

TR2: Okay then what is ReactJS, What is MongoDB? Difference between NoSQL and RDBMS. What are collections in MongoDB? Is there any limit of documents that we can upload on MongoDB?? If yes, then what is it?? Which database must be preferred and when??

TR1: Okay another coding question. Count the number of occurrences of a particular character in a given string.

Although I explained to him the right approach. The edge case was that our constraints were case-sensitive and I was not supposed to use any built-in function for string conversion.

My failure to solve the very first coding question made me nervous and I totally forgot the brute force way to change the case of characters using ASCII arithmetic. 

Although I verbally explained his approach and he was 90% satisfied.

TR2: Given a C++ Snippet on OOPs and tell me the output.

TR2: What are encapsulation and abstraction? Differentiate between them.

Successfully told.

TR1: Solve the SQL query.

Since I am not much acquainted with SQL, I found the question very tough!!

It was on the UNION operator where we were supposed to combine 3 tables and display some specified attributes based on some condition.

I said sorry sir I haven’t worked with the UNION operator.

TR1:- Okay then tell me the theoretical aspects of the UNION operator. Where and how do we use it??

I answered and he was satisfied.

TR2: Given another SQL query on natural join.

This one I successfully solved passing all test cases.

TR1:- Okay tell me how would you connect the MongoDB database with your application. Write the Code for it.

I wrote whatever I remembered he was convinced.

TR2: Which application do we use to access MongoDB? Is it MongoDB compass??

1. By this time the time limit of 1 hour was over.

TR1 & TR2: Any questions for us?

Me: Sir please give me feedback of the interview.

There was voice attenuation. So couldn’t hear properly.

TR1 & TR2: It’s good that you are proficient with theory but you need to work on your practical skills. Also, answer confidently. Don’t rush. Don’t panic. Be calm and take your time before attempting a question.

Verdict:- Waiting for results.

Tips:

1. NEVER ignore SQL!!!!! The questions were very tricky in both interviews as well as online assessments. I recommend doing ample practice on Leetcode and Hackerrank.
2. Whatever you mention in your resume, Just make sure you cover the basics of it. Just making projects won’t help you. Take down notes of important functions and commands of languages and tools you have used.
3. Besides keeping notes of built-in libraries and functions, it’s important to keep your basics clear. The interviewer might not allow you to use them. Take down notes of whatever you learn.
4. Never be overconfident as this was the biggest mistake I have made in my under- satisfactory performance. Be mentally prepared for a tough interview but ensure that your basics are clear.

All the best 😉