Status: ~14 years experience as Java/C# Developer and QA
Position: Lead/Senior Member of Technical Staff at Salesforce
Location: Hyderabad
Date: March 21, 2020
Submitted my resume in response to a job opening on LinkedIn.
Directly received an email invite to HackerRank Aloha5 Coding Challenge after some 7-10 days of applying.
About the test:
Date : 21 March 2020
90 minutes
2 coding problems - both are there on LeetCode
Problem 1 : https://leetcode.com/problems/repeated-substring-pattern/description/
Problem 2 : https://leetcode.com/problems/largest-number/description/
Significant points:
I was able to finish off both with 30 minutes left, as I struggled with 2nd problem a bit.
I used the leftover time to format the code, add decent amount of comments and explanation of time complexity etc.
Finally clicked "Submit Test" with 16 minutes still left.
UPDATE : (31 March 2020) - Got an automated email with tips for preparing for in-person interview. Here is the link in the automated email https://www.salesforce.com/company/careers/candidate-resources/
UPDATE : 2 April 2020
Had a telephonic interview.
Problem 1 : https://leetcode.com/problems/next-greater-element-iii/
Problem 2 : https://leetcode.com/problems/reorganize-string/
I struggled in both.
Problem 1 : Covered many cases but not cases like 2371
Problem 2 : Barely 15 minutes left.
Worst part about the interviewer : He was simply not letting me explain any of my chain of thoughts and ideas - just kept showing off his over-smartness and barely allowed me to speak for both problems.
I had nothing to lose - so I simply told him sternly - Would you let me speak ? Would you let me explain any idea ? Only then I described my thought process.
Such a ridiculous fellow - was simply parroting that I want a consistent algorithm - and no handling of any category of cases !!
Summarily, he was not even letting me classify the types of inputs into 2-3 categories.
Dude, how the hell do you guys code ?
Every coding problem has inputs which can be usually classified into 2-3 patterns.
Obviously a Rejection.