Samsung R&D Institute Interview Experience for Internship (On-Campus) Bangalore 2021

Samsung R&D came for an on-campus Internship drive on our campus as it does every year on the 4th of October 2021. The registration form for the company was circulated by the TPC of our college and the online coding round was scheduled for 8th October 2021. Only Circuital branches (CSE + EEE) were allowed from both B.Tech. and M.Tech. to sit for the coding round. We were advised by our seniors to concentrate on the topics such as Binary Trees and Binary Search Trees as SRIB focuses a lot on those topics in the online coding round.

The day of the coding round (8th October 2021) :

The coding round for Samsung was conducted online on the Cocubes platform. We were made to solve 3 questions in 70 mins. The questions that were asked us were : 

• Top View of a Binary Tree
• Right View of a Binary Tree
• Castle Stones
  In the first two questions, we were asked to find the top and right view of any given binary tree and return the answer in the form of a singly linked list. The third question named Castle Stones gave us the total weight of stones that needed to be lifted and transported to a different location. We had to find the maximum weight of stones that could be transported with the given lifting machine if it could only lift a certain amount of weight at a particular time. The platform allowed us to use C++ STL for solving the questions. 

The day of the results of the Coding Round (18th October 2021): Overall 21 students were shortlisted from our college for the interview process, 20 from B.Tech and 1 from M.Tech. The interview was scheduled for all the students on the 22nd of October 2021. Due to a delay in conducting the Interview process (which was scheduled to be taken around 13th or 14th October 2021), SRIB decided to proceed with a single Interview round instead of 3 Interview rounds for all the students. 

The day of the Interview (22nd October 2021): My interview was scheduled at 10 am on google meet and we were asked by the concerned TPC coordinators to join 15 minutes early to not be late for the interview.  The Interviewer joined on time and was super friendly and highly encouraging. 

• He started by asking about me and college reopening to let me settle down a bit before starting with the actual interview. He then introduced himself and then asked me to introduce myself properly. The interview started and I was asked to explain oops in my own words. 
• He then asked me what Polymorphism is and its different types. 
• I was even asked to give some real-life examples to explain the same. He then went on to ask me several questions about computer science fundamentals like Dangling Pointer, Memory Corruption, etc.
• After he was done testing my Computer Science fundamentals he asked me to share my screen, open notepad, and implement insertion and deletion in a linked list from scratch. I was able to write the entire code within 5 mins taking care of all the edge cases. After I was done he asked me to explain my code and I did and he was quite satisfied with what I had written.
•  Moving forward with the interview, he then wanted to know my approach to implementing a student record system where insertion and deletion take place in O(1) time and the data structure that I considered suitable for achieving this, and why. I was able to come up with the brute force approach which involved the use of a Linked List but he wanted me to give an optimized solution that involved the use of Tries. He was constantly giving me hints and wanted me to think with him about the problem. 
• He even asked me some questions related to microprocessors as I had them in the second semester of my college. The second DSA question was to reverse a string but recursively. After thinking for some time I was able to come up with a solution in O(1) space. 
• With the deadline for the interview approaching he decided to conclude it with a puzzle. The puzzle went on as: Consider 3 insects sitting on the 3 corners of an equilateral triangle. What is the probability of them never colliding with each other? Assume all of them are moving at the same speed. At first, I was finding it a bit difficult to come up with a solution but eventually, I managed to give the correct answer which was 1/4 (every insect has an option to move in 2 directions: either left or right. The total number of insects is 3. Therefore the probability for 1 insect will be = 2/(2x2x2) which comes out to be 1/4) 
• Before finally ending the Interview he asked me whether I had any questions for him. I asked him for his feedback on my performance in the Interview and though he applauded me for being clear with my basics, he asked me to focus a bit more on the optimization part. I then thanked him and the interview ended. 
• The entire interview went on for 1 hour and 15 mins, unlike other students who had their interviews taken for not more than 45 minutes. 

The verdict: The results of the interview were announced at around 6 PM on the same day of the interview. A total of 12 students were selected for the Software Engineer Internship at SRIB in the Summer of 2022. 

Some Important tips and tricks :

• Never be late for an interview, It gives a very bad impression.
• If you can’t understand a question just tell the interviewer to explain it again rather than just jumping into the code and then getting stuck in between. 
• Avoid directly giving the optimized solution even if you know it beforehand, it makes the interviewer feel that you are just mugging up things. Start with brute force and then optimize the code slowly. 
• Be honest that you don’t have the knowledge about a particular topic rather than just guessing the answer.
• While writing code make sure that you keep explaining your code in between because an interview is like a conversation, not an exam.
• Interviewers not only focus on correct code but they also give importance to clean code, so make sure that the way you write code is tidy. Also, practice writing code on Google Docs or Notepad without using an IDE.
• Don’t panic when you don’t know the answer to a particular question. Instead, try understanding the question first and coming up with a solution from the knowledge you possess. 
• Good presentation and communication skills are a must. So practice communicating with people and explaining your ideas.