Kantar

Role: SDE-1 (Software Engineer)

College: Not Specified (On-Campus)

Interview Date: Not Specified (Article last updated: July 23, 2025, describing a past event)

Interview Type: On-Campus, Full-Time

Result: Selected

Difficulty: Medium

Rounds: 4 rounds (1 Technical Test, 1 Coding Round, 2 Technical Interviews)

Topics Asked: Aptitude, Data Interpretation, Comprehension, C++ output questions, C/C++ fundamentals, DBMS basics, DS/Algo MCQs, OOPs, HTML/CSS, Data Structures (LinkedList vs Array List), RDBMS vs DBMS, SQL (inner join, outer join, left outer join, queries), Puzzle solving.

Experience:

Kantar visited the campus for Software Engineer and Business Analyst roles. The candidate appeared for the Software Engineer role. The first stage was a two-hour technical test on the MyAnatomy platform, which included aptitude (quantitative reasoning, data interpretation), comprehension analysis, C++ output questions, C/C++ fundamentals, DBMS basics, DS/Algo MCQs, and OOPs MCQs. This round was described as easy, and most friends cleared it.

Following this, a coding round was conducted for 18 students, where a question had to be solved within 30 minutes. The question was: "You are given a string s. You can convert s to a palindrome by adding characters in front of it. Return the shortest palindrome you can find by performing this transformation." (Example: Input: s = "DAM", Output: "MADAM"; Input: s = "aacecaaa", Output: "aaacecaaa"). This is a LeetCode problem.

Only 5 students were selected for interviews. The first technical interview (45 minutes) started with "Tell me about yourself." The interviewer asked about projects, how to extend them, and scale them up. Questions were also asked about Bootstrap and Hostinger, which were mentioned on the resume. The candidate was asked to explain the code written in the test. A relatively easy puzzle was also given: "You are given 9 coins which look all alike. There was one fake coin that you need to find out. The weight of the fake coin is a little lesser than other coins and you have a weighing machine."

After a week, only 2 out of 5 were selected for a second technical interview (30 minutes), including the author. This round also started with an introduction, followed by family details and other questions. DBMS normalization (1NF with examples on Notepad, screen shared) and OOPs concepts, especially inheritance, were discussed. The interviewer specifically asked, "Why does Java not support multiple inheritances?" Other questions included: "How to add CSS? (Inline CSS, Internal CSS, external CSS)", "Tell me the syntax of adding the CSS file externally", "Tell me some data structures you know. What are the uses of data structures in real life?", "Differences between LinkedList and Array List?", "Explain Normalization", "Explain the difference between RDBMS and DBMS", "Explain the difference between inner join and outer join with examples", and "Explain the left outer join." The candidate was also asked to write a SQL query based on joins.