Cadence

Role: QA Engineer Internship+PPO

College: On-Campus

Interview Date: Not Specified (Last Updated: July 23, 2025)

Interview Type: On-Campus, Internship + PPO

Result: Selected

Difficulty: Not Specified

Rounds: 3 Rounds (2 Technical, 1 Technical + HR)

Topics Asked: OOP, Design Patterns, Automation, OS, C/C++, Data Structures, Linux, DBMS, Bit Manipulation, Puzzles

Experience:

Cadence Design Systems visited the campus for an internship + PPO offer. Resumes were screened, and 35 students were shortlisted for interviews. All rounds were virtual via Zoom.

First Round (25-30 Minutes):

• Self-introduction.
• Technologies the candidate is proficient in.
• OOP concepts and design patterns.
• Situational question related to automation for a QA Engineer role.

15 out of 35 students were selected for the next round.

Second Round (60 minutes): This round was purely technical with two puzzles at the end.

• Questions about OS, semaphores, context switch, multithreading.
• C, C++ questions: `calloc`, `malloc` uses, differences, syntax, comparison with `new` keyword in C++.
• Questions about storage classes in C and their uses.
• What is the `volatile` keyword?
• Write pseudo-code for subtraction of two numbers represented by linked lists and return the output as a new linked list. The interviewer was friendly and helped with corner cases.
• Puzzles:
  • Three ants and a Triangle: Three ants on three corners of a triangle randomly pick a direction and move along an edge. What is the probability that any two ants collide?
  • Burning ropes: How to measure 45 minutes using two ropes where each burns in 1 hour.

2 students were selected after the second round, and 3 were asked for another round.

Third Round (1 hour 45 minutes): This was a panel interview with 5 interviewers.

• Questions on Data Structures, OOP, C, C++, OS, Linux, and DBMS.
• All about `static` keywords in C and C++.
• Runtime Polymorphism and its implementation using `vptr` and `vtable`.
• Write code for finding the number of set bits in a given integer.
• Critical section problem in OS and what is a deadlock.
• Basic commands in Linux.

Overall Experience: One more student was selected after this round, making a total of 3 selected students. The interviewers invested a lot of time, looking for well-rounded personalities and critical thinking. Tips included being confident and logical, and not answering if unsure.