Veritas Interview Experience (On Campus)

Veritas visited our campus to hire students for the Associate Software Engineer position. Due to the Covid-19 situation, the entire interview process was done on the WEBEX platform.

1. The interview consisted of 4 rounds:
2. Online test (Hackerrank platform)
3. Technical Interview
4. Managerial Interview
5. HR interview.

Round 1 (Online test): The online test was conducted on the Hackerrank platform. To avoid plagiarism, we were asked to turn our cameras on throughout the test. The test consisted of 20 MCQs and 2 coding questions. There was no negative marking.

The MCQs were based on basic concepts of C (pointers, function calls, etc..), Operating Systems, and Computer Networks.

The two coding questions asked were:

1. Given a string consisting of the characters ‘<‘ and ‘>’, it is balanced if, for every open bracket(‘<‘), there exists a closed bracket ‘>’ appearing after it. We can try to balance the string by replacing ‘>’ with ‘<>’. So, we are given an array of strings S, and an array of integers R, where R[i] is the maximum number of replacements allowed in S[i]. We need to output an array A such that A[i] is ‘1’ if S[i] could be balanced and ‘0’ if S[i] cannot be balanced.
2. Convert a binary linked list to decimal.

Around 60 students appeared for the test and 32 were shortlisted for the next rounds.

Round 2 (Technical Interview): The technical interview began with the interviewer’s introduction, and he went on to explain his position at Veritas and what projects he was working on. He then asked me to introduce myself. He then asked me to give a basic overview of the projects that I had done. After that, he asked me 3 coding questions.

1. Find the middle of a given linked list in C and Java
2. Write Code to Determine if Two Trees are Identical
3. k largest(or smallest) elements in an array | added Min Heap method

The interviewer first asked me what data structure I would use to get the result without sorting the array. I said heap would be the best option. Satisfied with my answer, he then asked for the complete implementation of the code. 

He then asked some questions about the Django framework, since I had done one of my projects in the Django. He then asked to explain different types of joins in DBMS. 

1. He then asked me a puzzle: Mislabeled Jars

He suddenly switched to HR mode and started asking questions about my family and about what I understood throughout the Pre-Placement Talk. I had to share my screen to avoid plagiarism throughout the interview. It lasted for about an hour.

The interview went well overall. The interviewer was friendly and offered hints whenever necessary.

Out of 32 students, 17 were selected for the next round.

Round 3 (Managerial Interview: The interview was part-technical and part-HR. The interviewer was friendly. He asked me to introduce myself first. After that, he asked some questions about the company and why I preferred Veritas. Listening carefully throughout the Pre-Placement talk helps a lot to answer such questions. We then had a brief discussion about the projects that I had done and how the projects helped me push myself towards working in a data management company like Veritas. This was the end of the HR part, and he started asking technical questions. He asked some questions regarding normalization in DBMS. The questions were a bit tricky as he was asking them indirectly. He then asked me to write a fully-working code of merge sort. The interview lasted for about 45 minutes.

Out of 17 students, 11 were selected for the HR round, and I was one of them.

Round 4 (HR Interview): The interviewer made me comfortable with some casual talk in the beginning. He asked me to tell me about myself and my family. He then asked about my internship and the challenges I faced with my colleagues during the internship. He asked me this question because I had mentioned all my projects are done by me alone and I had no experience working as a team. He then put forward some scenarios that happen in the office and asked me how I would react:

1. If you and your teammate worked together for a project, and he steals the entire credit and gets a promotion. How would you react in such a situation?
2. Your manager is very arrogant and asks the entire team to be competitive. But, you understand that this may cause conflicts in the team and be collaborative is highly important. What would you do in such a situation?

I felt I could have answered the first question a bit better, he was expecting an answer that would not cause any office politics. 

He then asked if I had any questions. I asked some basic questions about the functioning of the company and that’s it, the interview ended. It lasted for about 30 min.

Unfortunately, it was not my day as I was not among the 7 students who were offered the job. So always remember, the HR round is as important as the technical ones. Nevertheless, it was a great experience we have to move on and wait for our day.