Summary
I had my second interview experience with Delhivery for an SDE 1 - Backend role in Gurugram after being laid off. The interview process involved two rounds focusing on DBMS, general programming concepts, and several Data Structures & Algorithms problems. While the first round went smoothly, I struggled with the implementation aspects of a linked list problem in the second round, which ultimately led to me not receiving an offer.
Full Experience
Hi everyone, this post details my second interview experience after facing a layoff. I had approximately 1 year and 4 months of experience before my company let me go. It was a tough situation, especially since I felt I had lost my touch with Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA), compounded by the challenging job market at the time.
After taking a day to process everything, I immediately jumped into job searching, creating accounts on various popular job boards and utilizing a LinkedIn Premium trial. This led me to Delhivery for an SDE 1 - Backend position in Gurugram, which required 1-3 years of experience.
First Round
I must say, this was one of the best interviews I've ever given. The interviewer made me feel incredibly comfortable, and it helped me ease into the discussion. This round primarily covered DBMS and general programming concepts. We also tackled two specific DSA problems:
- Left View of Binary Tree
- Next Greater Element
I felt very confident after this round and was optimistic about proceeding to the next stage.
Second Round
This round delved deeper into DBMS and questions related to my prior experience. Following that, we moved to DSA problems:
- Re-arrange even and odd nodes in a given linked list such that even-ordered nodes come first.
- Jump Game: Return if we can reach the end of the array, starting from index 0.
Self-Realization After Round 2
I did figure out the solution for the first DSA question (re-arranging linked list nodes), but when the interviewer asked me to implement the linked list node structure using struct and class, I got quite confused. I wasted a significant amount of time just trying to get the node implementation right, leaving very little time for the second DSA question. Moreover, I found the interviewer's constant movement and interactions with colleagues a bit distracting. I also believe a lack of sleep might have hampered my thinking process during this crucial round.
Ultimately, I knew the feedback wouldn't be positive. It was a major setback, and I felt I had missed a truly great opportunity.
Interview Questions (4)
Given the root of a binary tree, imagine yourself standing on the left side of it, return the values of the nodes you can see ordered from top to bottom. This can typically be solved using a level-order traversal (BFS) or a recursive approach (DFS).
You are given two non-duplicate arrays, nums1 and nums2, where nums1 is a subset of nums2. Find the next greater element for each element of nums1 in nums2. The next greater element for a number x in nums1 is the first greater number to its right in nums2. If it does not exist, output -1 for this number.
Given the head of a singly linked list, rearrange its nodes such that all nodes at even positions (e.g., the 2nd, 4th, etc., assuming 1-based indexing) appear before all nodes at odd positions (e.g., the 1st, 3rd, etc.), while maintaining the relative order within both the even and odd groups. For example, if the input list is 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5, the output should be 2 -> 4 -> 1 -> 3 -> 5.
You are given an integer array nums. You are initially positioned at nums[0]. Each element nums[i] represents the maximum length of a forward jump from index i. Determine if you can reach the last index (nums[nums.length - 1]).
Preparation Tips
After being laid off, I took a day to cool down and then immediately focused on job searching. I created accounts on every popular job board and subscribed to LinkedIn Premium for a month. I realized I had lost touch with DSA, which was a significant concern given the job market situation.