Arcesium | Software Engineer | India | [Passed]
Summary
I interviewed for a Software Engineer position at Arcesium in Bengaluru, India, with 1.9 years of experience. I successfully cleared all technical and managerial rounds, eventually receiving an offer which I chose to reject due to my preference for backend-focused roles.
Full Experience
I began my interview journey at Arcesium with an Online Assessment. I received the link on June 3, 2024, and completed the test on June 7, 2024.
GDPR Notification and Scheduling
After successfully completing the OA, I received a GDPR notification on June 10, 2024. My first technical interview was then scheduled for June 21, 2024, from 5-6 PM.
Technical Round 1 (1 hour)
This round involved two coding questions: 354. Russian Doll Envelopes and 91. Decode Ways. I discussed my logic and approach, provided a detailed dry run, and then proceeded to code the solutions on Hackerrank, making adjustments for various edge cases. Approximately 15 minutes after the interview, I received a call from the recruiter informing me that I had been selected for the second technical round, which was scheduled for the very next day, June 22, 2024.
Technical Round 2 (1 hour)
In this round, I was interviewed by two individuals. We started by discussing my resume and projects in detail. The coding questions asked were 162. Find Peak Element and 1248. Count Number of Nice Subarrays. They also shared a LeetCode link for 3. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters, but we decided to skip it as I had already solved it previously. For the problems I did solve, I thoroughly discussed my approach and thought process before providing the solutions.
Hiring Manager Round (June 27, 2024)
The Hiring Manager round primarily focused on my resume and an in-depth discussion of my projects. We had a detailed Q&A session where I explained my project architecture and answered various technical questions related to them. I also solved an additional DSA question and engaged in discussions about system design concepts. My preferred location, Bengaluru, was also discussed during this round.
HR Round (June 28, 2024)
During the HR round, we covered my work experience, salary expectations, and location preferences. The recruiter initially mentioned available positions in Hyderabad, but I reiterated my preference for Bengaluru, and they assured me that a suitable position would be found there. Subsequently, the recruiter contacted me twice regarding a full-stack role (80% frontend, 20% backend), but as I prefer backend roles, the recruiter mentioned that finding a suitable backend-specific position might take more time.
Result
Initially, I was waiting for a suitable backend position in Bengaluru. I eventually received the offer letter in August but decided to reject it as I was seeking a pure backend role.
Interview Questions (4)
Given a set of envelopes, where each envelope has a width and a height, determine the maximum number of envelopes you can Russian doll (i.e., put one inside another). An envelope can be put into another if and only if both its width and height are strictly greater than the other envelope's width and height. This is LeetCode problem 354.
A peak element is an element that is strictly greater than its neighbors. Given a 0-indexed integer array nums, find a peak element, and return its index. If the array contains multiple peaks, return the index to any of the peaks. You may imagine that nums[-1] = nums[n] = -∞. You must write an algorithm that runs in O(log N) time. This is LeetCode problem 162.