Ion Group Interviews

My journey with ION Group began with an Online Assessment (OA) which consisted of two DSA questions and eight MCQs on CS fundamentals. The DSA problems were String Compression and designing a basic Job Portal. After clearing the OA, I moved to Interview Round 1. I had heard online that ION Group usually focuses on OOPs, puzzles, and basic DSA, and this proved largely true, although puzzles weren't asked in my specific interview. The interviewer started by asking me to rate myself in C++ and explain OOPs, why it's a better paradigm, and how to implement it. I discussed the four pillars, and when prompted about polymorphism, I explained its meaning and types (run-time and compile-time). He then asked me to open a code editor and implement classes to demonstrate both compile-time and run-time polymorphism. He specifically requested that I model the classes based on real-world entities, so I chose Vehicle and Car. I wrote the code, but due to lack of practice in OOPs coding, I encountered several bugs. I diligently fixed them, although I did panic a bit and accidentally wrote 'method overriding' when I was actually overloading a method. Eventually, my code for both types of polymorphism worked. This task took about 20-25 minutes. Following this, I was asked to write destructors for both classes. Initially, I made a mistake by calling the parent destructor in the child class, but I corrected it later. After the OOPs section, the interviewer inquired about the data structures I had studied, to which I listed vectors, sets, maps, etc. He then posed a question: 'Which data structure would you use to implement a phone directory?' I unfortunately forgot that a Trie is the standard solution and instead suggested map<int, string>. He pointed out that a phone directory primarily searches by name, making my map choice ineffective. I couldn't provide the correct answer, and the interview concluded shortly after. I don't think I'll be getting a call for the next round.

Company: ION Group
Role: Technical Analyst
Mode: On-Campus
Date: 25/07/2025

Round 1: Online Assessment in HarkRank

Duration: 120 minutes

• No. of Questions: 95 questions
• Type: Mostly aptitude, logical reasoning, and basic technical questions
• Note: Time management was the key. We had to solve questions as fast as possible.

• Self-introduction
• Project discussion
• Questions about the institution
• What do you know about ION?
• How do you maintain workload balance?
• What do you think about the Technical Analyst role?
• How would you explain what is Ai to a kid aged 4 to 8?
• A case-based question on teamwork: “Have you ever faced a situation where you had to lead or make a decision in a team?”

• Questions on AWS (from resume):
• What is EC2? (Full form and purpose)
• What are AWS security groups?
• How to clear cache memory in AWS?
• How are Gmail services handled in AWS?

• Write a program to count the frequency of each character in a string.

• Subnetting (basic check/uncheck logic)
• Subqueries
• Normalization

My Interview Experience at ION Group

I am a final year student at VIT, and I received an offer for a 6-month internship + full-time employment (FTE) on campus. ION Group visited our campus at the beginning of August, offering three roles: SDE, TA (Technical Analyst), and DS (Data Science). I applied for the DS role.

The eligibility criteria required 75% in 10th, 12th, and my pursuing degree. The selection process consisted of a total of six rounds: one online assessment and five interviews.

Online Assessment Round

The OA was tailored for different roles; I'll detail the one for the DS role. It had about 20 MCQ questions covering English, aptitude, SQL, and Python. Additionally, there was one medium-level SQL query and one Machine Learning problem. For the ML problem, a dataset was provided, and I had to code a solution in a Jupyter notebook and submit an output CSV file with my prediction values.

My interview was scheduled for the third week of August.

1st Round: Technical (1 hr 30 mins)

This round involved basic questions on Python, Pandas, and Matplotlib, including coding exercises. We then delved into discussions about my projects and internships. Since I had a Sudoku solver project on my resume, the interviewer asked about the algorithm I used and requested me to code it in Python. The round also covered some DBMS concepts and a classic puzzle: the mislabeled jars problem.

2nd Round: Case Study

This round took place just 15-30 minutes after the technical round with the same interviewer. I was presented with a case study about whether I would open a cafe business, given certain details. I had to outline strategies to ensure sales during the initial period. A follow-up question asked how to increase profit once the cafe was established.

3rd Round: Stakeholder Round (Hiring Manager)

This round was scheduled for the day after the case study round and lasted 30 minutes. The interviewer asked in-depth questions about my projects, followed by inquiries into my motivation for pursuing data science, the typical responsibilities of a Data Scientist, and the kind of work I aspire to do. We also discussed a technical case: given consumer goods data with an overstocking issue, what steps could be taken and what data would be necessary to resolve it.

4th Round: ION Day (Noida office) Culture Fit

The company arranged for my travel and stay for this round, which included a Group Discussion (GD) with the ION India head, Mr. Sanjay Chikara. We were asked only three initial questions: an introduction, my passion, and why I applied for the specific role. Following this, a question was posed that we needed to solve as a group. My tip for this round is to be confident, clear, and interactive.

5th Round: Future Fit

This final round was 10-15 minutes, conducted online via Microsoft Teams two days after the 4th round. It involved general questions such as my introduction, why I wanted to be a Data Scientist, details about my specialization and subjects, what I excel at in the field of data science, what I knew about ION Group and a Data Scientist's role there, and even personal questions about whether I had traveled outside India and where I'd like to go if given the chance.

I had an on-campus technical interview with ION Group. The interviewer was friendly, and we started with introductions, where I spoke about my projects and internship work. The session began with 2-3 puzzles. Following this, I was asked to identify the best data structure for a Snake and Ladder game. We then delved into concepts like priority queues, DBMS, SQL queries, and OOPS, including their real-life applications and how to implement the four pillars of OOPS in a given real-life scenario.