Trainee Software Engineer in HSBC India
palakjain
5347
HSBCInterview

Company: HSBC Software Developemnt India Pvt Ltd
Position: Trainee Software Engineer

Status: New grad, BTech from a reputed university
Position: Trainee Software Engineer at HSBC
Location: India (city not finalized yet)
Date: January 12, 2019

The hiring process had in all 5 rounds. They are described as follows:

  1. technical test - online
  2. coding test - online
  3. technical interview 1
  4. technical inteview 2
  5. HR round
    Each round was an eliminartion round.
    There were 2 profiles that HSBC came for - ACES and STRIKERS.
    Aces profile had all the above mentioned round but the Strikers profile had only one technical interview instead of two(rest are same).

Round 1
Online Technical Test - consisted of MCQs from fundamentals of computer science like Operating Systems, DBMS, Networks, Programming and Data Structures

Round 2
Online Coding Round - Consisted of 2 questions to be coded in about 30-45 minutes of time(I don't remember te exact duration!)
The first question was based on basic logical thinking and some basic mathematics. The second one was based on Linked List in which we were expected to find the slope of the line whose coordinates were given in the node of the linked list.

Round 3
technical Interview 1 (45 - 50 minutes)- The questions were from a variety of topics.
The first question was "Tell me about yourself". It was followed by a coding question in which there was an integer input and the binary output(I don't rememer the question exactly). I proposed the solution based on arrays but the interviewer pushed me to optimize it further. Later, I came with an approach using Bit Manipulation to reduce the space complexity. The interview was covered breadth rather than depth of computer science domain. The question were very logical yet simple. There were quite a number of questions from concurrency control and indexing from DBMS. The interviewer also asked a question from the Ssubject Microporcssor, which is something that is not really expected in a computer science- based interview. Yet, having a clear mindset and patience can help to solve the question. The interviewer was quite helpful and even asked for water when I entered his cabin for the interview!

The interviewer also focused on areas like Operating System and Data Structures. There were questions like the following:

  1. "Can you use your computer without Windows?",
  2. "What is a cloud? Can you name some popular clouds?",
  3. "Which data structure id used to implement index in DBMS and why?"
  4. "On which latest technolog(y/ies) have you got your hands dirty with?",
  5. "Why only the above mentioned technologies, why not others?",
    etc.

Round 4
Technical Interview 2 (45 minutes)- This round was more focused towards projects and future plans/actions. th following questions were asked:

  1. Tell me about yourself
  2. Favourite college project and reason for rating it to the top
  3. (I mentioned in my resume about my interest in Android Development)
    a. Basics of Operating System
    b. Why Android, why not Windows or iOS?
    c. What do you think has made Android so popular?
    d. Basics of Android OS
    e. Why haven't you published the apps on Google Play Store, even after having developed so many?
  4. Plan for the next 5 years
  5. Why HSBC, even when it is not a tech company?
    etc.
    The questions were followed by a general discussion on my interests and competive coding(because I mentioned about Competitve Coding in my resume).

Round 5
HR round (30- 40 minutes)- The HR personnel scanned my entire resume and asked the following questions:

  1. something about yourself
  2. hobbies
  3. why HSBC
  4. Are you comfortable relocating to another city? (In my resume, it was mentioned that my school and college were in the same city that's why she asked me such a kind of question, presumably).
  5. As an Android Developer, which is your favourite app and why?
  6. Have you found any bugs in your favourite app(asked in question 5)? If yes, mention the possible solution to fix them.
  7. How would you improve favourite app(asked in question 5) in terms of performance or user experience etc.?
  8. About family, parents' profession
    etc.

All the interviewers were extremely polite, kind and patient. They valued my opinions and appreciated the out-of-the-box thinking. The process was smooth and less tiring. One of the interviewers even asked me if I were tired or not, and had lunch properly. It was really a nice experience to interview with such a wonderful organization.

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