HARMAN Software Developer Interview Questions, Process, and Tips for Experienced

Round duration - 120 Minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

This round had 3 preety good questions to be solved under 2 hours . The first question was from Graphs and DSU , the second question was related to DP and the third one was from Recursion.

Q1. 
Most Stones Removed with Same Row or Column
On a 2-D plane, there are ‘N’ stones placed at some integer coordinate points. Each coordinate point can have at most one stone. A stone can be removed if it sh...read more
Ans. 
Given a 2-D plane with stones at integer coordinate points, find the maximum number of stones that can be removed by sharing the same row or column.
• Iterate through the stones and create a graph where stones in the same row or column are connected.

• Use depth-first search (DFS) to find connected components in the graph.

• The maximum number of stones that can be removed is the total number of stones minus the number of conne
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Q2. 
Gold Mine Problem Statement
You are provided with a gold mine, represented as a 2-dimensional matrix of size N x M with N rows and M columns. Each cell in this matrix contains a positive integer represent...read more
Ans. 
The task is to determine the maximum amount of gold a miner can collect by moving in allowed directions in a gold mine represented as a 2D matrix.
• Create a 2D DP array to store the maximum gold collected at each cell

• Iterate through the matrix from left to right and update the DP array based on the allowed directions

• Return the maximum value in the last column of the DP array as the final result
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Q3. 
All Possible Balanced Parentheses Problem Statement
Given a positive integer N, generate all possible sequences of balanced parentheses using N pairs of parentheses.
A sequence of brackets is called bala...read more
Ans. 
Generate all possible sequences of balanced parentheses using N pairs of parentheses.
• Use backtracking to generate all possible combinations of balanced parentheses.

• Keep track of the number of opening and closing parentheses used.

• Add opening parentheses if there are remaining, and add closing parentheses only if there are more opening parentheses than closing.

• Recursively generate all valid combinations.

• Return the list o
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This round had 2 questions from DSA. Both the questions were preety straightforward and were asked to check my implementation skills and how well do I handle Edge Cases for tricky problems.

Q1. 
Stack using Two Queues Problem Statement
Develop a Stack Data Structure to store integer values using two Queues internally.
Your stack implementation should provide these public functions:
Explanation:
...read more
Ans. 
Implement a stack using two queues to store integer values.
• Use two queues to simulate stack operations: push elements to one queue, then move all elements to the other queue to simulate pop and top operations.

• Maintain the size of the stack and check for empty stack using the size of the queues.

• Handle edge cases such as popping or getting top element from an empty stack.

• Ensure the implementation follows the specified pu...read more
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Q2. 
Rotate Matrix by 90 Degrees Problem Statement
Given a square matrix 'MATRIX' of non-negative integers, rotate the matrix by 90 degrees in an anti-clockwise direction using only constant extra space.
Inpu...read more
Ans. 
Rotate a square matrix by 90 degrees in an anti-clockwise direction using constant extra space.
• Iterate through each layer of the matrix and swap elements in groups of 4

• Transpose the matrix and then reverse each row to achieve the rotation

• Ensure to handle edge cases like odd-sized matrices
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This round also had 2 questions related to DSA where I was first expected to explain my approaches and then discuss the time and space complexities of my solution. After that , I was asked some core concepts related to OOPS and OS.

Q1. 
Triplets with Given Sum
Given an array ARR consisting of N integers, find all distinct triplets in the array that add up to a given number K.
Example:
Input:
T = 2
N = 5
ARR = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
K = 9
N = 4
...read more
Ans. 
Find all distinct triplets in an array that add up to a given number.
• Use three nested loops to iterate through all possible triplets.

• Sort the array first to easily skip duplicates.

• Use two-pointer technique to find the remaining element for each triplet.

• Handle edge cases like empty list or no triplet summing up to K.
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Q2. 
Trapping Rain Water Problem Statement
You are given a long type array/list ARR of size N, representing an elevation map. The value ARR[i] denotes the elevation of the ith bar. Your task is to determine th...read more
Ans. 
Calculate the total amount of rainwater that can be trapped between given elevations in an array.
• Iterate through the array and calculate the maximum height on the left and right of each bar.

• Calculate the amount of water that can be trapped at each bar by taking the minimum of the maximum heights on the left and right.

• Sum up the trapped water at each bar to get the total trapped water for the entire array.
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Q3. What is the Diamond Problem in C++ and how can it be resolved?
Ans. 
Diamond Problem is a multiple inheritance issue in C++ where a class inherits from two classes that have a common base class.
• Diamond Problem occurs when a class inherits from two classes that have a common base class, leading to ambiguity in accessing members.

• It can be resolved in C++ using virtual inheritance, where the common base class is inherited virtually to avoid duplicate copies of base class members.

• Example: c...read more
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Q4. What is thrashing in operating systems?
Ans. 
Thrashing in operating systems occurs when the system is spending more time swapping data between memory and disk than actually executing tasks.
• Occurs when the system is constantly swapping data between memory and disk

• Causes a decrease in system performance as it spends more time on swapping than executing tasks

• Usually happens when the system does not have enough physical memory to handle the workload efficiently
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Round duration - 30 Minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This was my last round and I hoped it to go good just like the other rounds. The interviewer was very straight to point and professional. The interview lasted for 30 minutes.

Q1. What is something about you that is not included in your resume?
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