Societe Generale visited my college for SDE profile and around 394 people applied for the company.
Round 1(Online Assessment):
- platform: Hirepro
- 3 sections: aptitude, coding, and english
Coding questions were of easy-medium level from leetcode
- problem1: find trace of the matrix
- problem2: given a rule, convert the given string into another string
- problem 3: assembly line scheduling problem
Interviews: platform: hirepro
Round 1: This was technical interview round, after introduction from both sides, the actual discussion started.
- He explained a little about LRU cache and wanted me to discuss an approach to implement it, I ran through some data structures that came to mind and explained why some would work and others wont.
- Ultimately i concluded that using a doubly linked list and hashmap is best way to implement it. He was satisfied and did not ask me to code it.
- Then he asked me https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/find-number-of-islands/, i gave him the approach and wrote the pseudocode
- He further asked me to find the median of two sorted arrays of size 10^5, I gave him the brute, better optimal way.
- Then he asked me about my projects ( on web development and blockchain ) and explain how i implemented a particular feature.
- He then asked me whether or not i have a question for him (this will be there in all the rounds, and always ask a question)
- In the end he said that he was impressed with my approach and immediately linked me for the second round.
Round 2: This was a technical + managerial round.
- The interviewer seemed to be an experienced guy and asked me for my intro, then he stated that he is interested on the project side of my resume and started questioning me on that.
- He asked me to explain what exactly is a blockchain and how exactly have i used it. After i was done explaining he asked me whether i had hosted the app or whether i can show him a live demo to which i replied in negative. I said that i worked on the backend part and did not have a complete app to show. ( Do try to host all the apps you make if possible).
- He then asked me about the website i created and whether i have hosted it. Luckily i had hosted the site and he got to view it. He was quite satisfied with it and asked me how i designed the schema for the same.
- Post this we talked about my machine learning project which was related to my core branch. I explained the premise of the project and the models i had used. He then asked me about the industrial significance which i replied in detail.
- After this he asked whether i had faced some conflict while working in team environment and how i dealt with it. I replied accordingly and he was impressed.
- Then he inquired about my hobbies and whether or not i knew something about Investment banking ( since SG is into IB )
- If you know something about such stuff it leaves a good impression but it is not mandatory per se.
- He asked me whether i had questions and i asked something about the work culture.
Round 3(HR Round): This round too started with formal greetings and then common HR questions related to strength/weakness, motivation to join SG, why coding or software when you are from non-CS ( very common question, if you are from non-CS be ready with a good answer).
- Then she talked about the company culture and policies and asked me if i have a question: I asked how does it feel like to work in such a big firm?
- Post the 3 rounds, around 8 students got the job offer and i was one of them. :p
General advice:
- Be calm and collected at all times, even if you are stuck or don’t know a lot about the approach.
- Interact with the interviewer while solving the problem, the thought relay is important
- Do some research about the company
- Be thorough with DSA and be very comfortable with at least the standard problems.
- Know about your projects in and out.
All the Best!!