How did I apply?
Contacted HR at the start of November, if there are any openings for an SDE internship at sharechat. Sent me a test link at the end of November.
Online Assessment
The test was of 1hr 30mins, it had 3 coding questions, 2 of them were simple implementation and last one involved knowledge of segment tree. Make sure to solve fully all three of them to get call for further round.
DSA Round
the interview started, we both gave an introduction to each other.
First Question: https://leetcode.com/problems/k-closest-points-to-origin/
Second Question: https://leetcode.com/problems/jump-game-ii/
As i solved both questions quickly in 30 minutes, he told me to solve one more problem,
Third Question: Insertion sort using linked list (can create a new linked list and solve it), as this was a totally new question to me. I first dry run on example my approach. Then created some cases and convinced the interviewer about my approach and started coding. Took about 30 minutes to solve covering various edge cases.
Also at the end of the round, he told me generally CP guys can solve the first 2 questions easily and struggle in that last question. So, that’s why he asked me.
He sounded quite satisfied by my performance. Hence, was expecting would get a call for 2nd round.
Engineering Manager Round
It was supposed to be 1 hour round, but it got finished in 20–25 minutes. The questions were mostly DBMS and SQL concepts. He asked about two data structures used in hashmap implementation(Ans: array and linked lists), explain collision in hashmap, SQL vs NoSQL, ACID properties, Clustered vs non clustered index(A really good article to read: https://www.pragimtech.com/blog/sql-optimization). In the end, told me that’s all I wanted to know. Any questions from my side. Asked about how teams discuss new ideas?
Result and Views
Got a call within 2 days, that I have been selected and from when I can join.
Preparation Tips
1st round is fully DSA based. In the 2nd round, as the role was for backend. You can expect questions from DBMS and SQL, also computer science subjects.
If you learn something , don’t forget to clap it.
