Zynga Interview Experience for SE-1 ( Experienced )

The interview was held in the Bengaluru Studio.

For more than 1 yr experienced.

There were 3 technical F2F rounds and all rounds were white boarding rounds where production ready code (if asked) was to be written.

Round 1: 1 hr

There were 3 questions in this round :

1. Parse and check if a list of ip addresses are valid addresses – https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/program-to-validate-an-ip-address/
2. Convert a roman number to decimal – https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/converting-roman-numerals-decimal-lying-1-3999/
3. Minesweeper game design and code – More on different components and how to go about writing the code – Can be solved using graph algorithms like DFS/BFS.

Apart from the above questions, in depth discussion about Maps in Java and C++. How maps handle collisions – Linear probing and Chaining concepts. How are hash functions implemented.

Discussion on previous work experience and technologies used.

Round 2:  1 hr

1. Detailed discussion on concurrency in OS – Semaphore, Mutex locks, Threads – Binary Semaphore vs Counting Semaphore.
2. Discussion on Java concepts like Garbage collection and Threads. How Garbage collector removes unused references?
3. What are smart pointers in C++.
4. Further discussion on Maps and different types of map implementations in Java ( TreeMap, Linked Hash Map etc. )
5. Design and code how a chat UI handles stream of incoming messages in bounded screen ( Whatsapp, Facebook chat screens ). Some idea about android UI helped me to solve this. I gave a solution using LinkedLists and RecyclerView ( Android concept). Interviewer wasn’t completely satisfied with the solution. Discussions on stuff like – scroll speed, gesture control etc. on the UI.

Round 3: Hiring Manager round – 1.5 hrs

1. Discussion on previous work experience and technologies worked on.
2. Question on tree – https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/print-level-order-traversal-line-line/
3. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/zigzag-tree-traversal/ – a variation of above question.
4. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/given-a-sequence-of-words-print-all-anagrams-together/ – Solution using hashmap and sorting preferred.
5. Discussion on maps and collisions.
6. Interviewer asked me to roughly draw the architecture of the application on which I worked in my previous firm. He asked me the technology used and role of each component in the architecture.
7. Brief Discussion on TCP vs UDP. Different layers in TCP/IP model and what each layer is responsible for.
8. Discussion on previous projects .
9. Why I want to join Zynga and expectations from the company.

I was finally selected and I accepted the offer.

The interview experience was really amazing and the interviewers were very friendly and helpful.