Siemens PLM came to our college in the last week of September. Due to COVID-19, the whole interview process was completed virtually. We had a Pre-Placement Talk and Online Test on the same day. All three interview round was completed on the next day.
About 300 students appeared for the online test.
Online Test: On-line test was taken on the HackerEarth platform. There were 31 questions, all MCQs. Questions were mostly based on C/C++ (predict the output types) and some on logical ability and quantitative. 48 students were shortlisted from this round to appear for interviews.
Interview Round 1 (Technical): It was two interviewer panel and the interview lasted for about 1 hour.
They started by introducing themselves and then asked for my introduction, asked about my interests other than technical things, I said reading, so then they asked about my favorite book and author.
Then they started with questions:
- Four pillars of OOP (all 4 with examples). In runtime polymorphism, they asked how the code works for virtual functions (I told the method using a base class pointer). Then they gave a situation where there was a Base class and three subclasses A, B, C all inherited Base. At runtime, if we want to know which class the base class pointer is pointing to, how do we find it? I didn’t know if any standard approach existed for this, so I told we could write a virtual function in the base class, override it in the subclass and just print the name of the class in it so that when we call this function, the current class name will be printed and not the base class name. They said it was a unique approach. (I didn’t get if they were impressed or being sarcastic).
- Difference between C++ and Java (features, how compilation works, which one I think is better and why, etc).
- Then told to write code (in any language, I chose C++) to take two string as input, find if the second string is sub-string of first without using any STL functions.
- What is SQL? Different between SQL and NoSQL, when to use which type of database.
- Some questions on my resume projects.
- Then gave a puzzle: You have 3 jars of capacity 3 lt, 5 lt, and 8 lt, the 8 lt jar is filled completely with water. Now you have to use these 3 jars to divide the water into two parts of 4 liters each.
- Any questions?
20 students were shortlisted for the next round.
Interview Round 2 (Techno-HR): It was one interviewer panel and this round took about 35-40 mins.
The interview started with my introduction. In my introduction, I had mentioned I was good at C++. So, the interviewer told me to rate myself on C++ on a scale of 1 to 10. (Never overrate or underrate yourself, IMO 7-8 is just about right).
After this, for every question, he asked the next question based on the answer I gave.
- Tell me something about C++.
- What does object-oriented mean?
- After I explained the 4 pillars, he told me to take a look around the room, and find an object which has properties of encapsulation and abstraction. I had an extension box on my table, so I told him that’s the object. It has wires, buttons, sockets, connections all under one unit which we call as extension box, that’s encapsulation. And all the internal working of how the connections are made, how after the button is pressed the connections work is hidden inside, that’s an abstraction.
- Next, he asked how can we pass arguments to functions? I told the two types (by value and by reference).
- Then he gave a code having 3 ‘add’ functions (storing sum in one variable and returning it) with (int i, int j), (int& i, int& j) and (int *i, int* j) as parameters. And asked the working of all three. Then some questions to confuse me, like
- If there are two ways to pass a parameter, then how come there are 3 different functions here.
- If a function called is added in stack and pointers are used in dynamic memory allocation hence stored in heap, then in the 3rd functions with *i and *j, where is that pointer stored?
- Then he gave a code having 3 ‘add’ functions (storing sum in one variable and returning it) with (int i, int j), (int& i, int& j) and (int *i, int* j) as parameters. And asked the working of all three. Then some questions to confuse me, like
- Difference between struct and class. I told the only difference was that the default accessibility of struct is public while the class was private. Then he asked if everything is the same then can struct have all the constructors that class has?
- What is the default constructor, when do we need to write our own constructor? (Working of the parameterized constructor). If the compiler creates a copy constructor on its own, then in which case should we explicitly write our copy constructor? In what cases is copy constructor called.
- In which of the following 2 cases is copy constructor called and why?
Test t1, t2;
Test t3 = t1; // case 1
t2 = t1; // case 2
- Some basic questions about projects like what was your role in the group project? What were the hurdles? Tell me about a time when you made a mistake and you had to correct it later. What did you learn from this situation?
- Any questions?
11 students made it to HR Round.
HR round: The interviewer was very friendly. This round lasted for about 25 mins.
- Quick introduction. How was your day? How many companies did you interview before this? Why do you think got rejected? Were Siemens interviews difficult than others?
- What are your interests?
- What do your parents do?
- Why did you take computer engineering?
- Explain to me what is pandemic if I’m someone who has heard this term for the first time. Was the Modi government’s decision right to impose lock-down and all. Some more discussion on this.
- Then she showed a drawing of a bus in Paint, and then asked which direction it’s going (if the door is visible then left, else right).
- How do you feel about learning new technologies on your own? How fast can you learn? I told about my experience of learning Android Studio before it was introduced in the college syllabus.
- You have these skills written in your resume, which one would you prefer working on? I said I would be comfortable working in any of those and if any new skills are required then I can learn those as well.
- Any plans for further education? What if after joining Siemens for 2-3 months you feel like you should’ve gone for further education?
- Any more questions?
7 students were selected. I was one of them.