Sapient

Role: Internship

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: Not Specified

Interview Type: Internship

Result: Not Specified

Difficulty: Not Specified

Rounds: 2 rounds (with a discussion-based component)

Topics Asked: Projects (ML, business perspective), OOP concepts (Shopping Cart design), User-friendly application design, Behavioral (accomplishments, learning style, role models)

Experience:

This internship interview experience involved an online test and a technical discussion.

Round 1: Online Test

A total of 8 people were shortlisted for the next round after an initial online test.

Round 2: Technical Round (Domain Discussion Interview)

The interview was hosted on Microsoft Teams and lasted over 1.5 hours. The interviewer started by asking about the candidate's projects, showing keen interest in the business point of view and expecting the candidate to articulate how their projects would cater to clients. Since the candidate had ML projects, they were asked to explain them in depth and demonstrate a thorough understanding. Questions about making products/applications user-friendly were also discussed, with a case study on the Aarogya Setu COVID app, focusing on how to maximize user adoption and define 'usability'.

Following the discussion, a coding session was conducted on the CodeInterview platform, entirely based on OOP concepts. The candidate was asked to code the basic structure of a Shopping Cart (similar to an e-commerce website), explaining how to structure Products and the Shopping Cart itself. The interviewer continuously probed for deeper understanding, asking for more attributes and functionalities, testing not just coding but also the translation of real-world concepts into OOP. Theoretical OOP topics were also covered.

This was followed by a more casual discussion round, where the interviewer inquired about the previous technical round, hobbies, and projects (emphasizing problem-solving approach). The candidate was asked about inspiring figures in Computer Science and various scenarios to judge their thought process. Questions included: "Which accomplishment were you most proud of and the entire process as well as your mindset leading up to that accomplishment?", and "How was your general approach to learning; are you more of an independent worker, or do you prefer to consult others while learning something new?".