SquadStack Interview Experience for Product Engineer-I (Intern +FTE)

SquadStack, a SaaS-based startup, came to our college campus in mid-August for recruitment for the profile of Product Engineer – I. The whole process had in total 5 rounds:

Round – 1: Aptitude + Technical MCQs: I don’t remember the exact number of questions, but remember that it had to be finished in the time span of 40-45 minutes. Questions covered topics like quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning, verbal ability, etc. For the technical MCQs, questions on JavaScript, ReactJS, Data Structures, DBMS, OS, etc. were covered.

Round – 2: Coding Test: There were two coding questions that were to be solved in 1 hour. The questions are listed below:

• https://leetcode.com/problems/building-boxes/description/
• https://beizhedenglong.github.io/leetcode-solutions/docs/bulb-switcher-iii

Round -3: Interview Round – 1 [Tech Deep Dive + Coding]: First off, I was asked to introduce myself. Then the interviewer went through my CV and shot questions on the projects I’d done in my internship {some ML & Python questions related to that for 10 mins.}.

Then, came fundamental questions + coding, some of which (as far as I can recollect) are listed below:

Java + Python Questions:

• Elaborate on the differences between interfaces and abstract classes.
• Can an object be passed by reference or passed by value in JAVA?
• Can there be a problem with memory leakage in JAVA? If so, how we can prevent them?
• Are strings immutable or mutable? Specify the reasons for the same.
• What is a static method?
• Differences between lists and tuples in Python.

DBMS Questions:

• Tell briefly about ACID properties.
• Is it possible to delete an entire database? Also after deletion, is there any provision for rollback?
• What is the usage of the TRUNCATE command? Also, specify the difference between the DELETE and TRUNCATE commands.
• What is your understanding of SQL & RDBMS in general?
• What do you know about NoSQL Databases?

OS Question:

• What is race condition?
• What are a deadlock and the conditions for the same?

Coding Question: https://www.codechef.com/problems/TWTCLOSE 

(I was asked about approach, live coding on a Notepad, analyzing time complexity, optimization, etc.)

Round -4: System Design (Bar-Raiser) Round: Design an OTT platform (like Netflix, Prime Video, etc.)

There was another round (Culture Round or HR) as well, but I wasn’t able to clear round 4, so wasn’t able to attend it. That round was all about checking competency under pressure, workplace conflict, why you want to join the company, etc.

Overall, it was an enriching experience and I got to learn key lessons!