Round 1: (Java Online Coding Challenge)
This is an online coding challenge on Java (150 minutes). Webcam is a must-attend test. There are 3 questions: 1 easy, 1 medium and 1 hard. If we submitted the previous question, we can only move on to the next question.
Problem 1: The first question is a simple one, we should assign a class pointer to a given function. It takes almost 15 minutes to complete the code. But the actual time is 45 minutes. But the disappointment was that I forgot to put a pointer at some point, and when the time was up, I committed the code.
Question 2: This is a medium problem, and the label “medium” misleads me. The problem is simple, and that is to do something on an array and return a certain value by doing something to it. The given time was 50 minutes, and I solved the problem in about 30 minutes. Only accepted in some test cases, but after some changes, all test cases are accepted.
Problem 3: Within the allotted 1-hour time, I solved the puzzle within 40 minutes and found that the time to solve the problem was less than the medium time. This is a question based on the longest palindromic subsequence, and my rigorous practice of dynamic programming over the past few months has helped me pass all the test cases with ease.
After the results were announced, I was selected for the second round with 80 points, and on July 22, 2019, I was invited to write the second round of the EPAM competition at MLRIT in Dundigal, about 7 students from my university, G. Pullaiah College of Engineering and Technology, and about 5 students from GPREC, Coolor. I thought my friends and I were going to be in a tough situation because we were supposed to compete with other people for 943 students who were going to take the second round of exams.
Round 2: (JAVA Coding Challenge)
THIS ROUND CONSISTS OF 11 MCQ QUESTIONS BASED ON JAVA, OOPS, C++++, DBMS, NETWORKING, AND OPERATING SYSTEMS (OUT OF 20 POINTS). There are also 2 Java coding questions, one of which is intermediate and the other is hard. The total time of this test is 2 hours. The question was a bit easier when I answered the question three times. The time limit for intermediate-level questions is 40 minutes. It’s easy to solve this problem and it takes 20 to 30 minutes. The hard level is all about finding the largest size square submatrix that is all 1 and if I don’t use dynamic programming, it almost kills me. The given time was only an hour, and it took me about 50 minutes to solve the program.
I have the mark 91/100 where my friend and I 81/100 were selected for further rounds, because the marking of the split starts at 61/100, so a total of 150 students were selected from the total of 950 students who participated in the second round of EPAM. From there, the real challenge begins, as there are still 3 rounds of G.D, TR and HR rounds.
Round 3: (Group Discussion)
This was followed by a group discussion round. Actually, it was very interesting because we had the opportunity to get to know each other and make very few friends after the round. We get a situation where the plastic ban economy vs the environment. The lecturer gave us 10 minutes, 1 minute for thinking, 8 minutes for discussion, and 1 minute for conclusion. My group consisted of 8 members and my friends. We started talking 1 minute later and the discussion went on for a long time. Since there wasn’t much to talk about on the topic, only 2 people were eliminated in this round. The remaining 6 members were asked to continue to the next technical round.
Round 4: (Technical Interview)
It was so annoying that only one member of the group participated in the interview for 30 to 40 minutes. Since I was a newcomer with no experience in technical interviews, I was shaking like hell, but I just felt like I could do it and relaxed.
Interviewer: Are you nervous?
Me : Yes sir ! Because this is my first technical round.
Interviewer : Okay, let’s have a look at your resume?
(I gave my resume to my husband, and he went through it)
Interviewer: So you did a live project, right? Can you explain?
Me: Yes sir. (and explained my project in full)
After listening to my project, I think there was a change in his expression, from serious to normal, and his expression changed.
Interviewer: So should we go for the technical round?
Me: Yes, sir.
Interviewer: Can you explain why variables are declared as ch, i, j in mid-level code?
Me: Mr. Chairman, I don’t think it’s the right way to represent such a variable in this way, because we need to declare it in a decent way for better understanding, but due to time constraints, I want to finish the code as soon as possible, so I declare it like this. Sorry sir, next time I will declare the variable name with perfect meaning…
Interviewer: Can you tell us about the time complexity of the hard-level code you are doing?
I: Mr. President, the time complexity of the code will be O(2n^2+n) because there are two nested loops for manipulation and one nested loop for printing values.
Interviewer : What is an abstract class, and where and how to use it?
I : explained its definition as well as examples.
Interviewer: What is inheritance?
Me: Explain in detail with an example.
Interviewer : What is an object, what is the difference between a quote and a pointer?
I : An object is just an instance of a class, it can generally be said that it is something that we can touch and fall into, and as a class we can assume but not touch or perceive it. Reference pointers are used to reference objects and illustrate them with examples.
Interviewer: What is polymorphism?
Me: I just thought about it and explained a little bit, I said I’m poor on Java because I work on a completely different platform, but I know the basics of Java.
For some time now, the interviewer asked me all sorts of questions about Java, and also asked to write code for the Fibonacci series and so on…
Interviewer: What’s your favorite data structure?
I : Sir, I like QUEUE the most.
Interviewer: Why stand in line?
Me: When the first person comes, he just goes out (because he’s going to get the first preference), and the interviewer laughs a little.
Interviewer : Why don’t you use Queue everywhere? Why use other data structures?
Me: Mr. President, I need to stack the pre- and post-representations of the expression, but I can’t queue them. Therefore, according to our requirements, we only use advantageous data structures.
Later, 4 to 5 more questions were asked for the data structure alone.
Interviewer: Do you want to ask me something?
Me: Mr. President, if someone like me who is interested in one technology is placed in a project that uses another technology, how much support will the company provide?
Interviewer : Detail their company and the projects they are currently working on.
At last
Interviewer : Thank you, you can leave.
I : Sir, thank you very much. Leaving the room with a smile.
Later, Madame came into the room and asked me if I had been selected for the weather in the HR department. When Mom left outside, I was waiting for the results of the weather, if I was eligible for the next round, and then Mom smiled and replied that you were selected for the next round. My heart is a little cold, but unfortunately my friend is not eligible for this round.
Round 5: (HR)
In terms of human resources, the interviewer asked me some simple questions such as introducing myself to me and giving me a brief introduction along with my skills and projects, then the interviewer became interested in my project and asked me to explain and subsequently explained it. I’m going to talk about my family background, tell me about my family background. Then he finally asked me why didn’t you join your brother’s company? I said sincerely, “Sir, I don’t want to join a troublesome company because that’s not what it means, and if I join my brother’s company, then there will be rumors that his brother proposed him and pulled him because they didn’t do it.” “Can’t see my talent. So I didn’t want to join my brother’s company, I wanted to stand up on my own, because I didn’t want to listen to this kind of gentleman’s rumors. “
He said your interview is over and you can leave, I left the panel and smiled and said thank you.
Of the 80 students selected for the technical round, only about 30 members were selected for HR.
Members who have completed the HR round gather together and say that within a week you will receive a confirmation email about whether or not you have been selected for the working weather.
Luckily, I received an email that I had been selected for EPAM.
