VMware has come to our campus in early August for recruiting. They conducted 5 rounds in total.
Round1: Online Aptitude + CODING
This is a shortlisting round and the exam consisted of Mcq’s over networks, DBMS, and some general Aptitude. Followed by a coding question that had some long story explaining the problem but the idea was to find all the permutations in alphabetically sorted order and print them. ( The languages allowed were C, Cpp, and Java. )
After the round, Around 50 people got shortlisted.
Round 2: Technical 1
This was 2 to 3 days after the round-1 results were announced. The interview is scheduled in Zoom and we had 4 members group in for a panel. This is a Code-pair round and the hackerrank link was shared with us in the mail.
He started with a basic introduction about me, followed by 4 coding questions.
- This was a question on substrings and finding the right string satisfying given criteria.
- He had given me an array of dates and asked me to sort them in order. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/sort-an-array-of-string-of-dates-in-ascending-order/amp/
- This was a variation of finding the triplet pairs that sum to a given target. He was more interested in coding ability and structure rather than the actual answer, but yeah mine got accepted so no issues. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/find-a-triplet-that-sum-to-a-given-value/amp/
- The question was related to graphs, he had given me an adjacency list and asked me to perform DFS. Then he asked a follow-up question on how I can maintain a precedence order.
Hint: You can change the DFS function slightly to have a stack that pushes the node after recursion is completed. ( known as topological sort )
Note: Remember you have to code these solutions while explaining and execute after writing each solution. Depending on the panel, questions can vary.
Then followed by Debugging questions in Java, and questions on DBMS, Pipe command and its use, diff between Su and Sudo, Asked me to write a CLI that searches for a file (using GREP), Networking related questions, and some on how I tested my projects like Unit testing, Smoke Testing, Black and white Box, and a lot more. ( I forgot what exactly he had asked as that went more like a rapid-fire )
Round 3: Technical 2
- This happened the next day. This round too had a Hackerrank’s Codepair link attached to it and happened for an Hour. The interviewer started with my introduction followed by questions from my resume and projects. She then asked me to rate myself in Python. I answered 6.0/10. She had first asked me to reverse the list of numbers using Python tactics. [ Answer: arr[::-1] ]
- She then asked me OOPS in python, Implement polymorphism( overriding and overloading ), File management as she asked me to count the no of words in a given file having ‘XYZ’ and replace it with my name and some follow-up questions after that. She then asked me about my project called ‘StreamZ’ and being from QA, she was more focused on SWE questions like SDLC, what was my contribution to my team ( I was Scrum master and team leader ), and was asked about how we wrote test cases over selenium and how unit-testing or say any testing methodology would help in real-life? There was a healthy discussion of what factors decide that a code is production-ready ( basically do’s and dont’s)
- She was very much impressed as I was very prompt, confident, and clear with the instructions. She then started asking me about Open source, The organizations to whom I contributed, the flow of git, branching norms, Continuous Integration and development (CI/CD), My familiarity with macOS, Linux, and Windows, Questions on Security protocols like AES and a lot of followups.
- In the last 10-mins, she asked me about situations where not doing proper testing caused the issues and I gave an example from my 1st Semester and she was positive over that later after that situation happened, I would have made testing an integral part. Lastly was given a puzzle Gold-bar-puzzle, solved it in 2-3 mins and we had some discussion about the work culture at VMware, projects, Innovation involved, etc.
Note: Having a clear idea about what you code, Being consistent in the flow, and having wider technical knowledge is the key.
Round 4: Managerial Round
This was conducted 1.5 hrs after the previous round and is for 45-min to an Hour. The interviewer is from the product design and development manager who was very much knowledgeable in his domain. He asked my introduction, followed by SDLC questions, Customer is the product explain, How a newly built product is tested ( I answered both from a stakeholder point of view and Customer POV ), Alpha & Beta testing, etc.
This was followed by questions on computer technology ( which is my strength as I love tech and was building knowledge since my childhood – TechEnthusiast and Experimenter which made a plus ). He asked me about Encryption algorithms and I told him about AES ( I started doing my Intern in cryptography at DRDO 2 weeks before this interview), Told him all the constructs involved, types-128,192,256 and process happening and where it’s used, etc. We discussed Demand selling as I brought the word up, and a lot more happened in the flow.
Lastly, he explained to me what he does, how his team innovates and creates cloud products with agile processes, etc. ( I only know few VMware products, but all the products he said were completely new to me )
Note: The key here is confidence and how we express our ideas and thoughts matters a lot. He was very very happy with my Communication skills and told me to keep the same energy and confidence throughout my Career.
Round 5: HR
I received the mail after 2 hours (at 8:00 pm) with the link to join the meeting. The HR was very friendly, Calm, smiling, and asked me a basic introduction, About my family and explained to me what VMware does follow by what role I would choose if offered, Why and why not, etc. He was very positive gave me the freedom to have my choices and told me about the intern culture etc.
At 11:00 pm the same day, The results were out. 4 of us are offered Intern only and 3 were given FTE + Intern. Fortunately, I was one of them and I was very happy when I knew this out.
Final Verdict: Selected FTE + Intern
The individual details about how many are progressing further after each round wasn’t public and each of us received individual emails with information about our panel, timing, and Round Type.
All the Best