OA Round
Questions: Two easy to medium level questions were presented on the Hackerrank platform.
Candidate's Approach
No approach provided.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
First Round
Questions:
- Target Sum:
- The candidate provided a brute force exponential solution and then a top-down dynamic programming approach to achieve O(n*sum) complexity. However, the interviewer expected a more optimized solution which the candidate could not provide due to time constraints.
- Variation of Remove One Element to Make the Array Strictly Increasing:
- The candidate discussed the approach but did not have time to code it.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate initially attempted a brute force solution for the first question but shifted to a dynamic programming approach to optimize it. For the second question, they discussed the approach without coding due to time constraints.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Second Round
Questions:
-
Given a map<child,parent> representing graph edges, find the root of the tree having the maximum number of nodes.
- The candidate provided a solution with Time O(E) and Space O(min(V,E)), but the interviewer expected more optimization. The candidate mistakenly returned the maximum number of nodes instead of the root.
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- The candidate initially gave a brute force O(n*k) solution and later optimized it to O(n) using a sliding window approach, but struggled with running and debugging the code.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate provided an O(E) solution for the first question but made a mistake in the return value. For the second question, they successfully optimized their approach to O(n) but faced challenges during debugging.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Third Round
Questions:
-
Given an array, return true if there exists a triple of indices (i, j, k) such that i < j < k and nums[i] < nums[k] < nums[j]; otherwise return false.
- The candidate started with a brute force O(n^3) solution, then provided an O(n^2) solution, but the code failed due to a minor check.
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Snake Ladder LLD:
- The candidate wrote classes and code logic for the game but did not meet the interviewer's expectations for distributed environment logic.
Candidate's Approach
The candidate attempted to optimize the first question to O(n^2) but failed to account for a crucial check in their code. For the Snake Ladder LLD, they provided a basic structure but did not grasp the event-driven logic required for a distributed environment.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.
Additional Rounds
Notes: There were two more rounds: Software Design and Architecture and Hiring Manager Round, but the candidate was rejected after the Software Engineering Practice round.
Candidate's Approach
No approach provided.
Interviewer's Feedback
No feedback provided.