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Sabre Interview Experience for SDE Role | NIT Jamshedpur

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Eligibility Criteria: CGPA >= 7 and no current backlogs, Minimum 60% in 10th and 12th.

Eligible Branches: CSE, ECE, EEE.

Round 1 (Online Test): This round consisted of 40 MCQs and two coding questions. MCQ section covered all the main subjects of computer science (DBMS, Operating System, Data Structures & Algorithm, Computer Networks) and a range of aptitude questions from various topics (BODMAS, Permutation, Distance and time, Compound Interest, Data Interpretation, Percentage, Loss and profit, Time and days). Few MCQ consisted of predicting the output of C programs. Some questions had +3 -1 while others were +4 -1

The coding section had two coding questions. The first question was of 50 marks. The second question was of 100 marks.

Coding Questions:

  1. You are given an array of integers of length n. You are required to find the size of the largest triangular subsequence.

    Note: A subsequence S is called triangular if very triplet(s1,s2,s3) belonging to S satisfies as triangular inequality 

    Example:

    Input:

    A[] = {9,19,8,10,13}
    

    Output: 

    4
    

    Explanation: The subsequence {9,8,10,13} satisfies the condition

    Solution: There are a number of ways to do it. I did it by sorting the input than keeping a window with minimum size 3 and extending its size until the inequality is satisfied and reducing it if we fail in it

    C++




    #include <bits/stdc++.h>
      
    using namespace std;
      
    int main()
      
    {
        int n;
        cin >> n;
        int arr[n];
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
        {
            cin >> arr[i];
        }
        
        sort(arr, arr + n);
        int i = 0, j = 0;
        int len = 0;
        while (j < n)
        {
            if (j - i < 2)
            {
                j++;
            }
            else {
                if (arr[i] + arr[i + 1] > arr[j])
                {
                    len = max(len, j - i + 1);
                    j++;
                }
                else {
                    i++;
                }
            }
        }
        cout << len << endl;
        return 0;
    }

    
    

  2. You are given N coins of different value, that are arranged in a row, you are given Q queries of the following format

    1. 0 X Y — Compute the sum of all special coins in the interval [X, N]
    2. 1 X Y — Compute the product of all special coins in the interval [X, N]

    For each query, the Xth operation contains a special coin. Here a coin is considered a special coin if the distance of its index from the index of any other special coin is evenly divisible by Y.  If the coin is at i=2, is special and Y =3 then coin at i=5,8,11 are also considered special 1-based indexing is used, ex array 2 3 5 4 7, queries ==2

    0 1 3  ===> ans 2+4=6
    1 2 2 ===> ans 3*4 =12
    

    Solution: I couldn’t think of a better approach so went for the brute force approach with time complexity O(N*Q), I got partial, marks in it.

I did around 23 MCQ questions and completed 1 and a half code and was selected for the next round, From around 180 students appearing 38 were selected for the next round.

Tips: Speed is very important since the number of MCQ questions is high also since there is negative marking don’t guess. Some of the MCQ is time-consuming it is best to pick and choose the correct questions, Both sections are equally important since a combined score was considered. In the Coding Part we have partial marking so at least try brute force  if you are not able to find the correct answer of required time complexity

Study Operating System seriously & Don’t forget to practice SQL syntax problems because they form the core of tougher problems which can be solved with some practice, also avoid English based questions unless you are 100% sure.

Round 2 (Technical Interview): In this round interviewer asked me to explain the solution of both coding questions which I wrote in the previous round. He also asked to do time complexity and space complexity analysis of my solution. He asked if I can optimize my second solution. I had tried to come up with some sort of logic but was not able to do that but during an interview with a little help from the interviewer I was able to come up with an approach of using maps to store sum /product for every pair of given input ex we are calculating answer for each X, Y in our map that we are encountering in our answer

Note: For each X=1,2,3,….Y and Y=1,…..N

If we encounter 4,3 then we will store the result of 1,4,7,… N. So if X=4 and Y =3 is asked we can calculate for (1,3), (4,3), (7,3)and so on this will improve run time.

Similarly, we can do for a product the interviewer was satisfied with this. Then he asked me to perform insertion at the head and middle of a double circular linked list I was able to do it within the given time. Then I was asked the following question 

A multi-story building has several floors. Each floor has an elevator. The elevators in the building have a system with the following rules

  1. From any floor A, you can only move to floor that is A/p, where p is the prime factor of A smaller than a given number M
  2. Only one elevator moves at a time and it takes 1s to move to another floor

You are on the Xth floor and your friend is on Yth floor, You want to meet him and can meet on any floor, both of you can use an elevator, find the minimum time taken to meet

I was given 15 min, I tried a greedy approach but was not able to pass all test case, so the interviewer went ahead with further questions

  1. He asked me which all core subjects I knew I told him OS, DBMS, CN .So he asked me the following question
  2. What does Kernel do, its type and what are system calls?
  3. What is a deadlock, its prevention technique also asked me to write pseudo code for the Banker Algorithm?
  4. Difference between OSI and TCP/IP model.
  5. What is Virtual Function? What are they used for?

He then gave me a DB and asked me to write queries on it, I was able to do the first two but failed at the last one, use of aggregate function group by and writing subquery was used in solving this problem. The interview ended with me asking him questions about company culture etc.

Tips:

  1. Study DSA thoroughly also maintain a habit of writing quick and correct code.
  2. Prepare your core subjects nicely.
  3. Be ready with optimized solutions to the previous round coding problems.
  4. Be confident and accept your mistake humbly if you don’t know a few answers or you tell wrong answers.

Out of 38 students, 15 made it through to the Managerial Round.

Round 3 (Management Interview): The round mostly deals with things you have written in your CV. Since I was from web dev field I was asked a question like the difference between put and  post a request, Difference between authentication and authorization, JWT v Cookie, SQL v NoSQL DB, Client-Side v Server Side Rendering,

How is the user state maintained in my project etc? Discussion regarding how you can further improve your project and why did you use React over Angular etc was also done

He then shifted and asked questions like how to ISPs work and what happens when we search google.com in browser etc. Then I was given a puzzle cum game 

https://www.webgamesonline.com/mastermind/ 

I was able to complete it. The interview again ended with me asking him questions regarding sabre and its working.

Tips:

  1. Be prepared for questions about your project.
  2. You should be aware of basic everyday use things of the web  and their working like DNS, ISP, etc.

Round 4 (HR interview): This is one of the most fun rounds where you discuss yourself. Every question and answer is about you. So this won’t be tough. HR was super fun to talk with, there are no wrong or right answer just don’t contradict yourself. You would be given several situations and asked your response.

  1. If in future you start your own startup what are quality you will look in your employee
  2. If you are part of a team and one of the members is not contributing how will you react?
  3. Suppose you don’t get credit for work done by you how will you react?
  4. What are the qualities your friends admire in you, which one they dislike?

Tips:

  1. Be ready with an introduce yourself the question but don’t learn it.
  2. Be spontaneous.
  3. Do not contradict yourself.

A total of 5 candidates were selected, I was one of them, it is a pretty holistic experience and the student will all-round ability have a better chance to get selected!!



Last Updated : 04 Sep, 2020
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