HARMAN Principal Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: On-site interview (5 hours).

4 back-to-back 45-minute coding interviews, followed by a design interview, with a lunch break with a Googler in the middle.

The first coding interview was a set of (surprisingly) trivial (no algorithms needed) incremental coding questions.

The two next coding interviews were problems straight from the "Cracking the coding interview" book. Even though I divulged that I'd solved pretty much exactly the same problem before, they didn't give me an alternative problem and I quickly coded up a general and optimal solution for the problems. Follow-up in-depth questions were minimal and not hard.

The last coding question was a pure algorithm question related to search trees/tries. No coding required, spent the whole time reasoning about the most effective algorithm. This was a bit of a brain twister.

The design question was related to high-level system design (not OO design) for storage and search in geographic data. Focus was effective search as well as scalability both in traffic and data volumes.

Tips: Read "Cracking the coding interview" or other similar literature. Solve all the problems and you should be good to go. If you solve a bunch of problems at HackerRank (or similar) as well, you'll have the added bonus of training on how to generalize the algorithms.

Round: Test
Experience: Written round: One programming question of 3 hours duration.All test cases were to passed.
Duration: 3 hours minutes
Total Questions: 1

Round: Technical Interview
Experience:
There were two rounds : tech PI and HR round.
A.Tech. PI: Firstly,interviewer went through my whole resume.He started asking questions from project done during summer internship.Questions were:
1.What is he project about?
2.Difference between 3G and 4G.
3.What is the aim of this research internship?
4.How much was i able to complete in two months?(I told that i am continuing as major project,since in two months time i could not get desired result).

Then, he went onto programming language i was comfortable. I answered C.
1.sizeof("shubham")
strlen("shubham")
I was asked to write output.Output would be 8 and 7. He asked why. Basic concepts should be clear.
2.Storage Classes in C-asked me concept and gave some questions to write output.
3.Constant pointers and pointers to constant. Asked to write output of snippets he gave.
4.malloc,caloc,realloc,free-syntax
5.Questions on pointers.

Basic concepts of let us C were asked mostly,that book is enough . Also see, GEEKSFORGEEKS, C section.

Operating System: Mutex and Semaphore,critical Section, Scheduling algorithms, Producer-Consumer Problem.
(Data Structures was not asked to me but others.)

Puzzles:
1. Maximum run a batsman can make in 50 overs.
2.There are 10 coins. 5 face head side and 5 as tail. You are blind folded.Make two piles of equal number of coins such that number of head in equal in both the piles.
Assumption:You can flip coin any number of times.

Question: Why do you want to join Samsung ,though placed in other company?

Questions: Any plans of future studies. I answered 'NO' only job.

Last question: Any question I would like to ask them. I asked what work would be doing in R&D. He explained me a lot of things.
Tips: 1.Be thorough with your project(done during internship or training) . You should be able to answer almost all the questions.
2.Study operating system very well if you plan to sit in samsung R&D.
3.Data structures and any one programming language.
4.Prepare puzzles as it can be asked by anyone. See programmerinterview.com etc.
5.Refer samsung archives of GEEKSFORGEEKS . Interview questions were mostly covering those.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: 1.Introduce yourself.
2.How would your friends describe you?
3.Tell the recent experiences of which makes you initiative.(i told that i am initiative,then he asked that question. So be ready with the examples,when u say any of your qualities.)
4.What is your weakness?
5.Puzzles.He asked me to fill the numbers from 1 to 8 in these 8 boxes, one number exactly once, such that no two consecutive elements are
adjacent(diagonally, horizontally or vertically) to each other.

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6.Which places in India have you been?


Skills: Solving Logic Puzzles, Basic C/C++, Data Structures, Operating Systems
College Name: NIT Raipur

Round: Test
Duration: 1 hour

Skills: General Coding And Problem Solving, Puzzle Solving Capability
College Name: NIT Jamshedpur

Round: Test
Experience: The first consisted of an online test which had an aptitude section which was pretty simply and then a programming section consisting of three different programs. The programs were logical required basic knowledge of array, sorting and a little bit of data structures.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Around 13 of us were shortlisted for the interview round, B.Tech and M.Tech included. The interview round was mostly interactive, where we had to mention about the various interns that we went through. A few programming questions were asked based on topics which we were comfortable with.
Tips: Just get used to coding, data structures and basic aptitude. GRE preparation as such helped me.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: Finally there was a HR round in which I was asked as to why I would like to work in Samsung R&D and general things about interests and future plans. On the whole Samsung took 3 B.Tech students and 2 M.Tech students when they came for placements apart from PPOs.

General Tips: Personally I feel that one should apply in only those companies in which they are sure of having job satisfaction. So don't apply to companies which you are not interested in just for the sake of having a backup because once you are placed you do not have a second chance.
Do not get dejected if you do not get through in the first few tries. Keep your hopes up and be confident when ever you get to interview rounds. Try to be assertive when giving answers. It is some times exhausting to go through placements but the moment you get placed you will have the best feeling ever.
Skill Tips: Just chill and take the test. Once you clear the online test, irrespective of your pointer if you have a good profile you can convince the interviewers.
Skills:
College Name: NIT Surathkal

Round: Test
Experience: The test started an hour late, which could have been avoided with some better planning. The test experience was pretty good for me since I am used to using HackerRank's online platform for competitive coding.
Tips: Maybe a little sample session before the actual test would help.
Duration: 75 minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: I enjoyed the interview experience; the panel was friendly and encouraging.

General Tips: Nice interview, questions were well thought out.
Skills: Algorithms And Data Structures
Duration: 2
College Name: IIT Madras
Motivation: What interests me about Microsoft is the nature and the scale of the work they're doing. Every day they impact billions of people worldwide, and I would love to be a part of this organization.

Round: Test
Experience: Decent knowledge of coding was needed.Speed was of essence.
Tips: Practice coding and be quick.
Duration: 75 minutes
Total Questions: 3

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: I had 3 technical interviews.The interviewers were very friendly.It involved writing paper on code which required me to be very precise and error free.
Tips: Practice coding.Practice writing code on paper and thinking out loud.

General Tips: Prepare well and be confident.
Skills: Unit Testing, Implementation Of Code Using OOPS, Database, Algorithms And Data Structures
Duration: 2
College Name: IIT Madras
Motivation: Microsoft.The company speaks