Infosys

For the Infosys Specialist Programmer role, the first thing that stood out to me was the difficulty of the coding assessment. I had to solve three DSA problems within the allotted time, and the questions were not basic implementation exercises. The set covered different concepts, including dynamic programming, graph algorithms and greedy techniques. I realized fairly quickly that knowing the concepts was only half the battle because I also needed to recognize the right approach quickly enough to actually code it. I concentrated on getting one question completely correct first and then used the remaining time to work through the other problems. The assessment allowed partial progress on some questions, so even when I couldn't immediately see the complete solution, I tried to build as much of it as possible. A reported Specialist Programmer campus experience describes three medium-to-hard questions involving DP, graphs and greedy techniques, with partial test cases being sufficient for shortlisting. The technical interview was much more interactive. I was asked to introduce myself and then the interviewer moved directly into coding. One of the problems involved identifying a particular person in a group, and I was expected to derive an efficient solution using a stack-based approach. Another problem was related to shortest paths. We discussed Dijkstra's algorithm initially, and the interviewer then changed the requirements and asked how the problem could be approached as a dynamic-programming problem. I found this part useful because it tested whether I actually understood the algorithm rather than whether I had memorized a particular solution. A reported selected candidate described these same types of graph and shortest-path discussions during the Specialist Programmer interview. After the coding discussion, the interviewer moved towards my resume. I had to explain my projects, the technologies I had used and some of the decisions behind them. There were also questions from core computer science, particularly databases and programming fundamentals. Recent Specialist Programmer reports consistently mention resume-based questions, SQL and CS fundamentals alongside DSA. I eventually received the selection confirmation. What I liked about this process was that the technical interview wasn't limited to reproducing the exact solution from the coding test. The interviewer kept modifying the problem and expected me to reason about the changes. For me, the most important preparation areas would therefore be strong DSA fundamentals, especially DP and graphs, combined with SQL, CS fundamentals and detailed knowledge of everything written on the resume.