Vassar Labs Interview Experience (On-Campus)

Vassar Labs came to our college for three different positions R&D || AE Backend || AE UI. The process consists of-

• 1 aptitude test
• 2 technical rounds( but for the R&D position they took 3 technical rounds)

Round 1(Aptitude Test): There was 51 MCQs type question that needs to solve in a one-hour duration. 

• These questions were based on programming languages like java, javascript, python,c++ and some related to time complexity and OOPs concept.
• There was one programming question that could be coded in any preferred language.
• I was able to solve all the problems and got shortlisted for the next round.

Round 2(Technical Interview): I was a bit nervous about this round. The interviewer was very friendly. He started the interview in a smooth manner and asked me to relax and take this discussion as a normal discussion between my college friends. 

1. I was asked to introduce myself.
2. The project discussion went for more than 20 minutes. The interviewer was very much interested in my work and that’s why the discussion went so long. There were many follow-up questions like why this project, what motivated you to do such project, is this an individual project or group project, what were the challenges did you face and how did you overcome them. He was very impressed with my project and that gave me confidence that I can clear this round.
3. After the project discussion, I was asked questions based on the OOPs concept

• What is OOPs, their key feature and how do you implement them in the real world?
• What is the difference between encapsulation and abstraction through real-world examples?

Since Vassar Labs works on Java. I was asked Java fundamental questions like –

• Why should one learn Java and not C++?
• What makes it different from other languages?
• What are JDK, JRE and JVM?

Apart from this theoretical knowledge, you need to be prepared with a good understanding of Data Structures and Algorithms. I was asked 2 programming questions

• Reversal algorithm for rotation of an array from right
• linked list (insert at the head, insert at a certain position, insert at the tail, reverse the linked list)

I answered pretty much all the questions and within a week got mail for my next round.

Round 3(Technical Interview): This round was difficult for me. It was started with a brief introduction and the layout was like within 1 hour you will be given for solving 4 coding questions. 

• Question 1: I was given a scribble which was actually a directed acyclic graph. I was asked to find the shortest path. The solution was based on Kahn’s algorithm for topological sorting but at that moment I wasn’t able to solve this question through this approach.
• Question 2: Binary search
• Question 3: Check for Balanced parenthesis
• Question 4: Segregate 0s and 1s

I cleared this round and received mail for the next round.

Round 4(Technical Interview): In this round, I was given 1 programming question that needed to be solved within 1 hour. I solved the problem but wasn’t able to optimize my solution.

RESULT: Not Selected

Unfortunately, I was not selected but I was very happy that I was able to clear all the rounds and got to know all the pit holes where I need to work.  Overall, it was a good experience.

Tips:

• Focus on your strong points.
• Be confident and honest.
• Don’t get nervous.
• First, listen carefully to what the interviewer is asking and if you do not understand the question then you should ask your interviewer to repeat the question again and only then answer the question.
• Before the actual interview, go through all the interview experience floating online and prepare accordingly for the company.