Summary
I recently interviewed for an SDE Intern position at Scaler Academy through my college's placement portal. The rigorous process involved an Online Assessment, a take-home development project, followed by a development interview, a technical interview focusing on DSA and LLD, and finally a cultural fit round.
Full Experience
My journey to securing an SDE Intern position at Scaler Academy began with resume shortlisting through my college's placement portal. After successfully clearing the initial screening, I received an Online Assessment link.
Online Assessment
The assessment comprised two fundamental Data Structures and Algorithms questions and a set of MCQs covering both frontend and backend concepts.
Development Project and Interview
Following the online assessment, all shortlisted applicants, including myself, were assigned a full-stack project to be completed within a challenging two-day timeframe. Upon submitting my project, I advanced to the Development Interview stage. This one-hour interview primarily revolved around the project I had just completed. I was asked to thoroughly explain my code, justify design choices, and then the interviewer presented a task to implement a specific function directly into my backend code. I believe I provided a satisfactory solution, as I soon received a link for the Technical Interview, signaling the next phase of the application process.
Technical Interview
This round was heavily focused on Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) and Low-Level Design (LLD). I was presented with two primary coding challenges:
- The first question involved identifying the row with the maximum number of 1’s in a given binary matrix.
- The second question required me to find the minimum element in every sub-array of a given array, where each sub-array had a fixed size k.
Cultural Fitment Round
The final stage was the Cultural Fitment Round, where the discussion broadened. Questions were posed about my previous projects, delving into my experiences and the skills I acquired. Additionally, some basic HR questions were asked, designed to understand my personality, how I approach teamwork, and ultimately, how well I would integrate into Scaler Academy's company culture.
Interview Questions (2)
Given a binary matrix (a matrix containing only 0s and 1s), the task is to identify and return the index of the row that contains the maximum number of 1s.
Given an array of integers and a fixed integer k (representing the size of sub-arrays), the goal is to find the minimum element within each contiguous sub-array of size k. This means iterating through the array and, for each window of size k, determining its minimum value.