Titan

Role: SDE 6 months Intern + FTE

College: Not Specified (On-Campus)

Interview Date: 27 August 2022

Interview Type: On-Campus/Internship/Full-Time

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Medium to Hard

Rounds: 4 rounds

Topics Asked: Data Structures, Algorithms, System Design, DBMS (MySQL vs MongoDB, Indexing, Queries), Projects, Internship Experience

Experience:

Titan (Directi) visited the campus for an SDE 6 months Intern + FTE role.

Round 1: Online Test (75 min)

The test consisted of 3 questions: 1 Medium and 2 Hard.

• Question similar to "Allocate the minimum number of pages".
• Question similar to LeetCode problem 2203, "Minimum Weighted Subgraph With the Required Paths".
• Given a source and destination, find the path with minimum stress level in a Graph. The stress level of the path is defined as the maximum weight of an edge present on this path.

Tips: Giving Codechef and Codeforces live contests helps solve problems faster under time pressure.

Algo Round I (70-80 min)

The round began with an introduction, followed by questions about internship experience and fields of interest. The interviewer shared a document with a coding question: "Maximum Distance" (Codeforces problem 1081/D). The candidate had to explain the approach and write the code. The question was initially hard to understand but became clear after discussion. The interviewer provided extra time to complete the code and was supportive, offering hints.

Algo Round II (60 min)

After an introduction, the interviewer shared a document with another coding question: "Contest Balloons" (Codeforces problem 725/D). The candidate developed an approach, and while writing the code, discussed test cases where the code might fail, correcting it accordingly. Interviewers were very supportive and provided hints.

Final Round (70 min)

The interviewer was a Senior Manager with 10 years of backend experience. Discussion started with the candidate's internship experience and a brief overview of projects on the resume. Questions were asked about MySQL vs MongoDB preferences and experience. One project involving MySQL was discussed in detail, including table structures, attributes, relationships, and queries for specific functionalities. Indexing and types of indexes used in the project were explained. Real-life scenarios were given, such as handling a "Comment" table with 1 million rows, how much to show on the frontend, criteria for selection, and appropriate indexing/queries. A system design problem related to "Aarogya Setu" was also discussed.

Overall Experience: The candidate was not selected.