Status: New Grad SUNY Albany MS
Position: C++/Python Software Eningeer Brain Corp
Location: San Diego
Date: 07/24/2019
Take Home Coding project:(Can't disclose details due toNDA)
45 Minute skype interivew:Behavioural questions ,questions related to C++ and Python such as threading,optimization and basic C++ OOP Concepts
45 Minute technical skype interview with lead software engineer:was pretty similar to the first round with an emphasis on debugging and build tools,and some behavioural questions
Onsite 5 hour interview process
1st round with software eningeer ,with discussion related to background and debugging.With questions related to how would you debug your software .Since I was only aware of GDB and backtracing ,I was only able to answer that but it seems the interviewer wanted more professional approach to debugging which I wasn't aware of
2nd round with another software engineer :2 coding problems.
- given a cyclic list find the longest sub list.T
- given a string print the characters and how many times they occur in alphabetical order.For eg:given "hello world" the output would be a0b0c0d1e1f0g0h1i0j0k0l3 and so on.I was able to illustrate the process that we could use a map.
Answer:for every character in the string,we simply store that character and the no of times it occurs.But when it came t displaying the result,I forgot the way to display the result,but with some hints from the interviewer I was able to do it.As for the first my initial approach was to put the nodes of the list and then use that result to compute the longest chain (Similar to longest increasins subsequence).But the interivewer said this is not right.
Third round with principal software engineer :Advanced questions related to C++,Python and robotics motion planning. - difference between malloc and new
- deadlock
- forward vs move
- global interpreter lock
- Memory management exception handling
Team Lunch
Fourth round:with another software engineer from R&D.Questions related to Machine learning and computer vision.one coding question related to image resizing.Given an image,scale the width and height .For eg:Input image is 2x2,after scaling width by 0.5 and height by 3 output is of dimension 1x6.
Answer:create a matrix of dimension WxH where W and H are the new width and height after scaling.Then all pixel values in this image are simply the old pixel values scaled by the relevant factor
Round 5With lead software engineer.Company tour and some behavioural questions.
- How has your overall interivew experience been
- Another approach to debuggin.
In the end,he told me you have strong theoretical background,but I am looking for more practical oriented experience.
Round 6: Brief discussion with recruting coordinator about company benefits and salary.Didn't pay much attention to those as I am more oriented towards the technical benefits I can obtain from working.
My own thoughts or experience: I don't focus much on company perks or benefits when looking for a job ,as my major focus is on how well does the work done by the company align with my interests.Overall brain corp culture and work benefits are extremely good,but during the interivew somehow I got the vibe that no one was interested in my skills.And although I was able to answer all the questions in the third and fourth round,I feel that not doing well in the first and second round and the lead software eningeer's remarks about me having a strong theroretical background but not much of practical experience sealed my chances.