Summary
I interviewed for an entry-level Software Engineer position at Unthinkable Solutions and was unfortunately eliminated in the first online assessment round due to severe platform instability, despite having working solutions for most problems.
Full Experience
I applied to Unthinkable Solutions through a referral for an entry-level Software Engineer position. Within two weeks, I was scheduled for an online assessment, which was the first of six eliminatory rounds. This round was conducted onsite at their Gurgaon office, using the company's in-house sandbox platform, and was set for 90 minutes. The assessment focused heavily on Data Structures & Algorithms, covering topics like Strings, Dynamic Programming, Backtracking, and Bitmasking.
During the assessment, I encountered significant technical difficulties. The sandbox compiler crashed frequently, often auto-refreshing and erasing my progress. Despite asking for help, the only suggestion I received was to 'refresh again,' which unfortunately didn't resolve the issue. As a result, while I was able to fully submit the solution for the first question, I couldn't submit my working approaches for the second and third questions.
Due to these submission issues and the eliminatory nature of Round 1, I did not advance to further rounds. It was a disappointing experience, reflecting a process that seemed rigid and evaluation-centric, with little attention paid to candidate comfort or fairness. All rounds required candidates to travel to Gurgaon at their own expense, with no reimbursement. The compensation packages mentioned were 5, 6, 8, and 10 LPA based on performance, with no additional perks discussed at this stage. I received no direct feedback since I was eliminated in the first round.
I would suggest that Unthinkable Solutions ensure reliable and stable coding platforms for their assessments, as frequent crashes severely damage the candidate experience. Providing on-site technical support staff would also be beneficial. It would also be fair to align the difficulty of Round 1 questions with the compensation structure and offer at least minimal feedback to candidates.
Interview Questions (3)
You are given two positive integers X and Y. You would like to reduce X to Y using the minimum number of operations. The allowed operations are: 1. Double X, i.e., X = 2 * X 2. Decrement X, i.e., X = X - 1. Concept tested: Working backwards from Y → X using division and increment operations efficiently.
Given a string array words, find the maximum value of length(word[i]) * length(word[j]) where the two words do not share common letters. You may assume that each word will contain only lowercase letters. If no such two words exist, return 0. Concept tested: Hashing + bitmask optimization to check for common characters between words.
Preparation Tips
My preparation for this role included my academic studies and internship projects, where I gained experience with the MERN stack and regularly practiced Data Structures & Algorithms. Specifically for Unthinkable Solutions, I focused on preparing for challenging Dynamic Programming problems, Backtracking/Greedy algorithms, and String manipulation problems involving HashMaps and Bitmasking. I also found that mentally preparing for potential technical glitches during the test itself was an unexpected but necessary part of the preparation given the issues I faced.