London Stock Exchange Group

Role: Full-Time (Software Engineer/Associate Engineer)

College: Not Specified (On-Campus)

Interview Date: September 2024

Interview Type: On-Campus

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Not Specified

Rounds: 4 rounds

Topics Asked: Java, C, C++, Aptitude, Data Structures, Algorithms, SQL, Logical Puzzles, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Web App Development, Tech Stack

Experience:

This recruitment process was conducted on-campus in September 2024, with all rounds completed on the same day after an initial resume screening.

Pre-placement Talk (PPT): Started around 9:15 AM, providing detailed information about the company's values, mission, work culture, and opportunities.

Round 1: MCQ Round: Duration was 30 minutes, with 30 questions. Questions were mostly from Java, with a few from C and C++. There were two aptitude questions, one involving decoding and another a problem with trains and time calculations. This was the only elimination round; 20 out of 200 students were selected to proceed, and there were no further eliminations after this round.

Round 2: Coding Round: Duration was 120 minutes, and candidates could choose any programming language.
Questions:
1. Given an array of numbers, find the maximum sum of non-consecutive elements.
2. You have two strings, S and T, both containing numbers. You need to swap the elements of the strings such that the first element of S is swapped with the first element of T, the second with the second, and so on. The goal is to minimize the difference between the two strings. Count the number of swaps made.
3. You are given a string S, which contains a paragraph separated by characters such as ' , ', ' . ', ' ? ', or ' ! '. Find the sentence that contains the maximum number of words.
Note: Even if problems couldn't be solved completely, writing out the logic was important as these questions could be discussed in the technical interview.

Lunch Break

Round 3: Technical Interview: This round lasted 40 minutes for the candidate. It started with the common question, "Tell me about yourself?". The interviewer then asked how the candidate approached the coding problems from Round 2, ensuring the explanations matched the written code. Two basic MySQL questions were asked, one on retrieving data and another on Joins. A puzzle was also given: "A farmer has three hutches—Red, Yellow, and Green. There are twice as many rabbits in the Green hutch as in the Yellow hutch."

Round 4: Case Study Discussion (Group Discussion): Candidates were presented with a case study to develop a web app for student analysis. The discussion focused on the entire software development lifecycle—from requirements gathering to testing and maintenance. They also had to describe how the dashboard of the web app would look. Feedback indicated that since the project was for LSEG and the hypothetical team had been with the company for 6 months, candidates needed to use the technology stack that LSEG already employed. A question was asked about how many team members would be required to build the project. After waiting for two hours, results were announced, and only one person was selected. The candidate noted that the HR team consistently engaged with and observed candidates throughout the day.