Interview experience

Overview: 4 rounds total - 1 online assessment (OA), 1 communication assessment, and 2 interview rounds. Final outcome: Selected.

OA (Round 1)

Format: 60 minutes, coding + MCQs.
Section 1 (Coding, 2 problems, medium):

• Problem 1: Implementation of AP/GP/Fibonacci-style sequence logic.
• Problem 2: Grid DP variant (similar to Minimum Path Sum but asking for maximum instead of minimum). (Link: Minimum Path Sum)

Section 2: 6 MCQs on JavaScript.
Section 3: 6 OOPs MCQs.
Section 4: 6 SQL MCQs.

Communication assessment (Round 2)

Short assessment to evaluate reading, writing and spoken English — basic comprehension and expression.

Technical interview (Round 3, Interview 1)

Format: 1 hour. Focus on OOP, DSA and SQL.

• Started with discussion on the 4 pillars of OOP and then moved to my project experience.

• DSA (3 questions) - solved all optimally:

  1. Middle of the linked list
  2. Longest palindromic substring
  3. First non-repeating character in a string

• SQL: 2 questions involving joins and aggregate functions , solved both, but got stuck on one optimal variant.

Technical + Behavioral (Round 4, Interview 2)

Mix of technical design, SQL and behavioral:

• Revisited the SQL query from the previous round.
• Discussed hobbies / motivations.
• DB design: Designed a schema for the Asia Cup (end-to-end) and wrote multiple queries based on it, good discussion on DBMS concepts and trade-offs.
• Puzzle: “Two cubes make a calendar” puzzle , solved it with one hint. (Link: Two cubes make a calendar)
• Interviewer feedback was positive.

Final verdict

Selected.

Tips (what helped me)

1. Strong grasp of DSA (practice edge cases and optimal time/space).
2. Solid DBMS & SQL fundamentals (joins, aggregates, schema design).
3. Good understanding of OOP concepts.
4. Know your resume thoroughly, be ready to discuss any project/technology listed.

Thanks for reading!

References

• OA second problem (related): Minimum Path Sum - LeetCode
• Puzzle: Two cubes make a calendar - Puzzle A Day