The best interview that I had attended to date is for a Startup called Tegile Systems. I still remember the truly techy manager and principal engineer who asked such wonderful, innovative questions that were a bit tough, but never in the interview did they try to take my confidence away from me.
Looking back at the company, the product range, and the way people behaved generally there, I think I missed the golden opportunity to be a part of this wonderful startup. TBH, at that time, I was in a dilemma whether to look out for a job or whether to stay back at my current company since my promotion was to happen two months later and it was under discussion. I thought of giving it a try, even though I was having a hectic work schedule and couldn’t prepare much for my interview.
Round 1: I was asked to go to the Bangalore office at KTPO by HR. I arrived early at the office. Even though there was a confusing initial HR round, I don’t think that it was ever a problem, but later on, when Ravi, the head manager took me to a separate cabin for an interview, I was highly impressed by the way he took the interview.
Even though I was not prepared for the interview, he had taken his time to look into my resume and LinkedIn profile to understand as much as he can about me. Moreover, before he started the interview process, he explained to me the high-level architecture of Zebi arrays, about which all parts of code the Bangalore site owns, and what would be my role on a day-to-day basis if I join them, etc. That itself created a good impression and I started regretting not preparing fully for the interview.
Then he asked me some coding questions. Unlike other interviews, I was given a laptop with Ubuntu and Eclipse installed and was asked to code using that.
- The first question was to create a filter based on end within Java, after creating your own ends with implementation and using that to filter a list and return a list of strings that end with the given string.
I coded it properly. Both of us together tested it using various inputs and I was allowed to correct them on the go.
- The second question was to create an encode/decode function for conversion from IP address string to integer and vice-versa. I was not able to answer it properly. By that time, it was already afternoon, and he dropped me to the nearest bus stop where I could take a bus to my office.
Round 2: A follow-up interview session was scheduled a week later. The principal software engineer named Keshav interviewed me.
- The first question was to predict output for a given coding snippet.
- After that, I was given a question to find out the number of directories, files, and size of the directory when input is a directory path. The original question involved multithreading – but he asked me to solve it recursively at first. I wrote a program, and he tested it against various paths.
There was a small difference when it came to larger folders. He told me that if there is an interview, they would get back to me. Unfortunately, I think they got a better candidate and that could be the reason why they didn’t call me for further rounds.
What did I like the most about the interview process?
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Very very techie manager who knows the product inside-out
That is one thing that still makes me feel that I lost a good chance to work under him. It would have been great working under him. Throughout the interview process, he ( as well as Keshav) was very positive, encouraged me to think properly, and told me not to panic. All these things rarely happen from managerial people.
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Intelligent questions
One more time if I am asked What is the difference between Abstract Classes and Interfaces, I would feel sick. The interview was properly done. They set time to prepare the questions and the interviewer was well-prepared. They were polite in saying whether I was correct or not, completely listened to my answers with 100% attention to detail, and never interrupted me when I was replying to their questions.
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The work environment
Although there are only 200 employees, I felt that I am in a company like Google. Look around and you see only passionate techies.
Ravi and Keshav,
If you ever happen to read this answer when Tegile is still hiring, and if it is possible to give me a second chance to attend the interview, please count me in. I regret my missed chance and would be happy to work there as I see that there are many things I can learn from great people like you.