Summary
I applied for a Software Developer Intern position at Box8 in August 2024. The process included an online assessment and one technical interview round where I discussed my projects and solved two DSA problems. Unfortunately, I was rejected and not moved forward to the subsequent rounds.
Full Experience
My interview process for the Software Developer Intern role at Box8 started with an online assessment. This round consisted of three coding questions that I had 1.5 hours to complete.
Following the online assessment, I was invited for a technical interview, which lasted 60 minutes. The interview began with my introduction, after which the interviewer delved into my resume. We spent a good 30 minutes discussing my fullstack project; I walked them through it, and they asked several questions related to API design, how authentication works, different types of databases, and their implementation details. The remaining 30 minutes were dedicated to Data Structures and Algorithms. I was given two coding questions to solve:
- Chocolates Distribution Problem: I was given an array representing the ratings of students. The task was to distribute chocolates among these students such that any student with a rating greater than their immediate neighbor must receive more chocolates than that neighbor. The goal was to return the minimum total number of chocolates needed.
- Two Sum with Negative Numbers Follow-up: The first part of this question asked me to find a pair of numbers from an array of positive integers whose sum equaled a given target. The follow-up extended this by asking what modifications would be necessary if the array contained negative numbers as well.
Regrettably, I was not shortlisted for the second interview round, indicating my rejection for the position.
Interview Questions (2)
Given an array of integers representing the ratings of n students, I was tasked with distributing chocolates such that:
- Each student gets at least one chocolate.
- If a student's rating is higher than an adjacent student's rating, they must receive more chocolates than that adjacent student. I needed to find the minimum total number of chocolates required.
The initial problem was to find a pair of numbers from an array of positive integers that sum up to a specific target value. The follow-up question asked what modifications would be needed in the approach or algorithm if the array could also contain negative numbers.