Cadence Design Systems SDE-2 Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Standard Data Structures and Algorithms round . One has to be fairly comfortable in solving algorithmic problems to pass this round with ease.

Q1. 
Find All Pairs with Given Sum
Given an integer array arr and an integer Sum, count and return the total number of pairs in the array whose elements add up to the given Sum.
Input:
The first line contain...read more
Ans. 
Naive Solution :
 
A simple solution is to traverse each element and check if there’s another number in the array which can be added to it to give sum.

TC : O(n^2)
SC : O(1)


Efficient Solution (Using Hashing ) :

We create an empty hash table. Now we traverse through the array and check for pairs in the hash table. If a matching element is found, we print the pair number of times equal to the number of occurrences of the...read more
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Q2. 
Minimum Number of Jumps Problem
Given an array ARR of N integers, determine the minimum number of jumps required to reach the last index of the array (i.e., N - 1). From any index i, you can jump to an in...read more
Ans. 
Approach 1 : Naive Recursive Approach

A naive approach is to start from the first element and recursively call for all the elements reachable from first element. The minimum number of jumps to reach end from first can be calculated using minimum number of jumps needed to reach end from the elements reachable from first.

minJumps(start, end) = Min ( minJumps(k, end) ) for all k reachable from start

TC : O(n^n)
SC : O(n)


Appr...read more
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Round duration - 70 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This round was preety intense and went for over 1 hour . I was asked 2 preety good coding questions (one was from Graphs and the other one was from DP) . After that I was grilled on my Computer Networks and Operating System concepts but luckily I was able to answer all the questions and the interviewer was also quite impressed.

Q1. 
Two Teams (Check Whether Graph is Bipartite or Not)
Determine if a given undirected graph can be divided into exactly two disjoint cliques. Print 1 if possible, otherwise print 0.
Input:
The first line ...read more
Ans. 
Algorithm :

1) Create a graph such that there is a edge between each pair of enemies.

2) We need to find that the above graph is bipartite or not. Check whether the graph is 2-colorable or not

3) We can do that by running dfs and using an auxilary array col to store the assigned col of the node.

4) If we can color the graph with two color such that no two enemies have same color then only we can create two teams.


TC : O(V+E...read more
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Q2. 
Maximum Length Pair Chain Problem
You are provided with 'N' pairs of integers, where the first number in each pair is less than the second number, i.e., in pair (a, b) -> a < b. A pair chain is defi...read more
Ans. 
Approach 1 (Using DP ) :

Observe that , If a chain of length k ends at some pairs[i], and pairs[i][1] < pairs[j][0], we can extend this chain to a chain of length k+1

Steps :

1) Sort the pairs by first coordinate, and let dp[i] be the length of the longest chain ending at pairs[i].

2) When i < j and pairs[i][1] < pairs[j][0], we can extend the chain, and so we have the candidate answer dp[j] = max(dp[j], dp[i] + 1...read more
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Q3. Can you explain the TCP/IP Protocol?
Ans. 
1) TCP or TCP/IP is the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.

2) It is a set of rules that decides how a computer connects to the Internet and how to transmit the data over the network.

3) It creates a virtual network when more than one computer is connected to the network and uses the three ways handshake model to establish the connection which makes it more reliable.
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Q4. Can you explain the DHCP Protocol?
Ans. 
1) DHCP is the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.

2) It is an application layer protocol used to auto-configure devices on IP networks enabling them to use the TCP and UDP-based protocols.

3) The DHCP servers auto-assign the IPs and other network configurations to the devices individually which enables them to communicate over the IP network.

4) It helps to get the subnet mask, IP address and helps to resolve the DNS. I
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Q5. What is meant by multitasking and multithreading in operating systems?
Ans. 
Multitasking : It refers to the process in which a CPU happens to execute multiple tasks at any given time. CPU switching occurs very often when multitasking between various tasks. This way, the users get to collaborate with every program together at the same time. Since it involves rapid CPU switching, it requires some time. It is because switching from one user to another might need some resources. The processes in m...read more
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Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

This round majorly focused on past projects and experiences from my Resume and some standard System Design + LLD questions + some basic OOPS questions which a SDE-2 is expected to know .

Q1. How would you design a system like Pastebin?
Ans. 
Approach :

Pastebin allows users to store text-based data over the internet for a set period of time and generate a unique URL corresponding uploaded data to share that with anyone. Users who create that data, can also modify it by logging in to the same account.

Database Schema :

i) users(userID, name, createdAT, metaData)
ii) paste(pasteID, content, URL, createdAt, expiryAt)

Algorithm :

1) create_paste(api_key, content, ex...read more
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Q2. What is data abstraction and how can it be achieved?
Ans. 
1) Data abstraction is a very important feature of OOPs that allows displaying only the important information and hiding the implementation details.

2) For example, while riding a bike, you know that if you raise the accelerator, the speed will increase, but you don’t know how it actually happens.

3) This is data abstraction as the implementation details are hidden from the rider.

Data abstraction can be achieved through:

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Q3. What is the Diamond Problem in C++ and how can it be resolved?
Ans. 
The Diamond Problem : The Diamond Problem occurs when a child class inherits from two parent classes who both share a common grandparent class i.e., when two superclasses of a class have a common base class.

Solving the Diamond Problem in C++ : The solution to the diamond problem is to use the virtual keyword. We make the two parent classes (who inherit from the same grandparent class) into virtual classes in order to a...read more
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Q4. What are friend functions in C++?
Ans. 
1) Friend functions of the class are granted permission to access private and protected members of the class in C++. They are defined globally outside the class scope. Friend functions are not member functions of the class.

2) A friend function is a function that is declared outside a class but is capable of accessing the private and protected members of the class.

3) There could be situations in programming wherein we w...read more
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