Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Software Development Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

Interview preparation tips for other job seekers - Basic understanding of programming. Good knowledge of Data Structure and SQL will increase your chance in getting placed. Know what you write in your resume. Questions were asked mainly on this. Don't try to overexaggerate things. Keep it nice and simple and you will be good

Round: Test
Experience: 10 objective questions followed by 3 subjective questions. Subjective questions included coding (like reversing linked list), designing a software and testing a software. Also, Level order traversal, String manipulation, etc.
Total Questions: 13

Round: Interview
Experience: 3-6 rounds of interviews. I was selected just in 3 rounds of interview.
Tips: Practice writing codes on a piece of paper.

Skills: Programming skills
College Name: IIT-Kharagpur

Round: Test
Experience: Easy questions on aptitude and output for C/C++.
Tips: Try out questions from GeeksQuiz or -----/
Duration: 30 minutes
Total Questions: 15

Round: Test
Experience: Questions were easy and implementable within the time given. One was on linked list and the other on array/bit-wise arithmetic.
Tips: 2-3 Days of GeeksforGeeks would give you an edge in this round. Make sure you document your code with proper comments and write mnemonic variable names. Also if time permits write the logic or algorithm you've used in comments.
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 2

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: The overall experience was wonderful. It was my first interview and i was able to answer most of them. On the behavioral questions your opinion should be clear and you should be able to convince the interviewer properly.
Tips: Just be yourself, try to bring topics on which you've worked on earlier into the discussion so that the interviewer takes more time to analyze what you've accomplished. Don't hurry, if you don't know any answer, politely say you don't know it, but you would like to take a try.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: My interview lasted for 1 hr 15 mins and I started well with my Introduction and hobbies. It was behavioral initially. Be open  and honest  to your interviewer. Don't speak random stuffs you haven't done as your interviewer can instantly browse on the internet about what you are saying and verify them. Have a good understanding of DS/Algo and know at least one OOP. you should at least master one language, its not a huge bonus if you know a lot of them.
Tips: Be clear about what you say and write and instantly correct yourself if you've made a mistake. It shows that you are self-critical and you constantly improve yourself. It is good to accept any mistake you've done. Any code you write on paper should properly highlight your logic used. Its better to write a wrong code and debug/modify it on spot to make it correct rather than writing a code with zero error at first shot. It shows how you learn from your mistakes.
The interviewer wants to see how you adapt yourself and learn, he/she is not interested in how much you know.

Round: Behavioural Interview
Experience: This round was the final round for Microsoft Internship. It was an AA( As Appropriate ) Round, where you can expect technical as well as HR questions.
Tips: Feel confident about yourself and the game plan is again just to be yourself. Do some Research on the company you are sitting for and about their products/services, so that you can show that you are as much interested in joining the company as they want to take you in after clearing all these rounds. Always ask your interviewer some relevant questions, whichever round it may be. This is where you can ask about the company's policies, culture etc.

General Tips: Keep yourself motivated and build your resume. Have good working knowledge and make your fundamental concepts clear. Try to work on projects/internship or summer/winter training courses.
Skill Tips: Just give your best if you are willing for the company and never underestimate your abilities. Have some internships/projects/apps on your resume which you've made. Mention all the relevant work you've done, just don't brag about it. Prepare well for the behavioral questions. Be prepared to admit your mistakes and accept others' solutions.
Skills: Debugging, Openness, Technical, Honesty, Attitude
College Name: National Institute of Technology Durgapur
Motivation: Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen with an objective of "A Computer in every Home", since then Microsoft has carried on its effort and changed the way we do things and interact with others. It has achieved more than its primary objective and its one of the leading software companies in the world. Its exciting to be a part of it and take joy in developing solutions which affect billions of people worldwide.

Round: Resume Shortlist
Tips: Iterate it as many times as possible. get it reviewed by as many seniors as possible. Be precise in stating your works and achievements.

Round: Test
Experience: Aptitude material on the SPO website was sufficient. Shortlisting was done from a full fledged online test

Round: Group Discussion
Experience: I didn't prepare for any GD neither did face any.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Faced an online technical test. The company who hosted the test goofed up with the interface, so a lot of people wasted time over coding questions that could not be solved because of faulty interface. No request for retest was entertained. Shortlist was fixed on studying compile attempts, time devoted to various sections and other performance measures insensitive to the flaw.

Round: Interview 1
Experience: Ques 1: Given a compact data structures to store string sequentially: one byte stores length, l of the string; next l bytes contains the string characters.
Ques 2: Write a code to insert a given string in the ith place, making sure the DS is still compact.
Ques 3: Write tests to verify correctness.
Ques 4:How will you correct the parse tree for ((a+b)*c)/d? What all dat structures can you use.

Round: Interview 2
Experience: Ques 1: Given a function f that returns true/false based on whether the input string satisfies some criterion in C.
Ques 2: Write a function that verifies that all substrings of a given string satisfy the criterion in C.
Ques 3: You hand over n identical linked lists to n salesperson. After the day's work, these salesperson return back the lists. Merge these lists such that all insertions, deletions, updates are taken care of so that you can repeat this process for the next day.

Round: Interview 3
Experience: Told about myself, my interests, my work so far, my internship projects. Followed by a quick coding question.
int *p;p++
printf("%d", p);
int *f(){int q[12];return q;}
int *p= f();*p=23;
Whats the problem here?
Each interview ended with 'do you have any questions for us?'.

General Tips: Know about your course projects. Be clear with basic CS concepts like OS, compilers and databases Have sophistication in algorithms. Try to cooperate with SPO and make good use of their efforts. Start preparing as soon as possible. Try not to eat anything that might deteriorate your health during the placement. season. Develop priorities both sector and company wise.
College Name: IIT KANPUR