Intuit SDE-2 Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

A problem solving round with 1 problem on DP. It was on a platform with a text editor provided. Was expected to solve the problem and write the code. Post initial discussion on the solution approaches came up with an optimized solution using Dynamic Programming and wrote the solution. Then some discussion on the Time and Space complexity of the solution. 

Interviewer was satisfied with the solution and also dry ran with 1 test case.

Q1. 
Possible Words from a Phone Number: Problem Statement
Given a string S composed of digits ranging from 2 to 9, determine all possible strings that can be created by mapping these digits to their correspon...read more
Ans. 
Given a phone number string, generate all possible words by mapping digits to letters on a T9 keypad.
• Create a mapping of digits to corresponding letters on a T9 keypad

• Use recursion to generate all possible combinations of letters for the input phone number

• Sort the generated strings in lexicographical order
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Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

This round happened on the same day after 1st round. It was a Low level design round with one problem to be solved in 60 minutes.

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This round happened on the same day after 2nd round. The platform used was codility. It was a System design/ Low level design round with one problem to be solved in 60min.

Round duration - 30 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

It was an HR round with focus on the work ethics, culture and my prior experiences. The recruiter was trying to test my situation handling capability by asking different scenario based questions.

Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Q1. 
Next Greater Element Problem Statement
Given a list of integers of size N, your task is to determine the Next Greater Element (NGE) for every element. The Next Greater Element for an element X is the firs...read more
Ans. 
Find the Next Greater Element for each element in a list of integers.
• Iterate through the list of integers from right to left.

• Use a stack to keep track of elements for which the Next Greater Element is not yet found.

• Pop elements from the stack until a greater element is found or the stack is empty.

• Assign the Next Greater Element as the top element of the stack or -1 if the stack is empty.
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Q2. 
Clone Linked List with Random Pointer
Your task is to create a deep copy of a linked list, where each node has two pointers: one that points to the next node in the list, and a 'random' pointer which can ...read more
Ans. 
Create a deep copy of a linked list with random pointers.
• Iterate through the original linked list and create a new node for each node in the list.

• Store the mapping of original nodes to their corresponding new nodes.

• Update the next and random pointers of the new nodes based on the mapping.

• Return the head of the newly created deep copied linked list.
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. 
Smallest Window Problem Statement
Given two strings S and X containing random characters, the task is to find the smallest substring in S which contains all the characters present in X.
Input:
The first...read more
Ans. 
The task is to find the smallest substring in string S which contains all the characters present in string X.
• Iterate through string S and keep track of characters in X using a hashmap

• Use two pointers to maintain a sliding window with all characters from X

• Update the window size and start index when a valid window is found
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Q2. 
Connect Nodes at Same Level Problem Statement
Given a binary tree, connect all adjacent nodes at the same level by populating each node's 'next' pointer to point to its next right node. If there is no nex...read more
Ans. 
Connect adjacent nodes at the same level in a binary tree by populating each node's 'next' pointer.
• Traverse the tree level by level using a queue.

• For each node, connect it to the next node in the queue.

• Set the 'next' pointer of the last node in each level to NULL.

• Use constant extra space and do not alter the node structure.
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Q1. 
Closest Palindrome Problem Statement
You are given a string 'S' that represents a number. Your task is to find the closest palindromic number to this integer represented by 'S'. The closest number is defi...read more
Ans. 
Find the closest palindromic number to a given integer represented by a string.
• Convert the string to an integer and iterate to find the closest palindromic number.

• Check for palindromic numbers by reversing the digits and comparing with the original number.

• Handle cases where multiple closest palindromic numbers exist by choosing the smaller one.
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. 
Minimum Operation Needed to Convert to the Given String
You are given two strings str1 and str2. Determine the minimum number of operations required to transform str1 into str2.
Explanation:
An operatio...read more
Ans. 
Determine the minimum number of operations needed to transform one string into another by moving characters to the end.
• Iterate through each character in str1 and check if it matches the first character in str2. If it does, calculate the number of operations needed to move it to the end.

• If no match is found for the first character in str2, return -1 as transformation is not possible.

• Repeat the process for each test case...read more
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Q2. 
Snake and Ladder Problem Statement
Given a Snake and Ladder Board with 'N' rows and 'N' columns filled with numbers from 1 to N*N starting from the bottom left of the board, and alternating direction each...read more
Ans. 
Find the minimum number of dice throws required to reach the last cell on a Snake and Ladder board.
• Use Breadth First Search (BFS) to explore all possible paths with minimum dice throws.

• Keep track of visited cells and the number of dice throws needed to reach each cell.

• Consider the effect of snakes and ladders on the next position.

• Return the minimum number of dice throws needed to reach the last cell.

• If it is impossible
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Q3. Can you provide a high-level design of a web crawler?
Ans. 
A web crawler is a program that systematically browses the internet to index and collect information from websites.
• Start by identifying the target websites to crawl

• Implement a queue to manage the URLs to be crawled

• Use a crawler algorithm to visit and extract data from web pages

• Implement a mechanism to handle duplicate URLs and avoid infinite loops

• Consider implementing a robots.txt parser to respect website crawling rul
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Round duration - 70 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. Design a system that can efficiently handle millions of requests to save or update a key-value pair, as well as millions of requests to read the value of a key.
Ans. 
Design a system to handle millions of requests for key-value operations efficiently.
• Use a distributed key-value store like Redis or Cassandra for storing data.

• Implement sharding to distribute data across multiple nodes for scalability.

• Use caching mechanisms like Memcached to reduce read latency.

• Implement load balancing to evenly distribute incoming requests.

• Use asynchronous processing for write operations to improve pe...read more
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Interview was around 1.15 hrs. Initially it was self introduction for both sides. Then a string manipulation related question was posted and asked to solve. At last it was queries to interviewer.

Total time 1hr. Self introduction for both parties.
Questions on CICD process in my project and automation ideas to handle errors with different scenarios. Then queries if any.

Total time 1.15hr.
Self introduction and coding question related to linked list in codility. The question was enhanced depending on splving techniques. Finally queries.

Q1. Why are you looking for a change?
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. 
Rearrange String Problem Statement
Given a string ‘S’, your task is to rearrange its characters so that no two adjacent characters are the same. If it's possible, return any such arrangement, otherwise re...read more
Ans. 
Given a string, rearrange its characters so that no two adjacent characters are the same.
• Iterate through the string and count the frequency of each character.

• Use a priority queue to rearrange the characters based on their frequency.

• Check if it's possible to rearrange the string without any two adjacent characters being the same.

• Return 'Yes' if possible, 'No' otherwise.
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Q2. 
Find Nodes at Distance K in a Binary Tree
Your task is to find all nodes that are exactly a distance K from a given node in an arbitrary binary tree. The distance is defined as the number of edges between ...read more
Ans. 
Find all nodes at distance K from a given node in a binary tree.
• Perform a depth-first search starting from the target node to find nodes at distance K.

• Use a recursive function to traverse the tree and keep track of the distance from the target node.

• Maintain a set to store visited nodes to avoid revisiting them.

• Return the list of nodes found at distance K from the target node.

• Example: If the target node is 5 and K is 2 ...read more
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. 
My Calendar Problem Statement
Given N events, each represented with a start and end time as intervals, i.e., booking on the half-open interval [start, end). Initially, the calendar is empty. A new event c...read more
Ans. 
Given N events with start and end times, determine if each event can be added to the calendar without causing a triple booking.
• Iterate through each event and check if adding it causes a triple booking by comparing its interval with previous events

• Use a data structure like a list or dictionary to keep track of booked intervals

• Return 'True' if the event can be added without causing a triple booking, 'False' otherwise
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Round duration - 45 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Round duration - 30 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

It was in the morning about 10:00AM-10:40AM. The platform used for this round was hackerrank. There are 15 MCQ's which cover portions of Aptitude, Data Structures, DBMS, SQL

Q1. 
Minimum Operations Problem Statement
You are given an array 'ARR' of size 'N' consisting of positive integers. Your task is to determine the minimum number of operations required to make all elements in t...read more
Ans. 
Minimum number of operations to make all elements in the array equal by performing addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division.
• Iterate through the array to find the maximum and minimum values.

• Calculate the difference between the maximum and minimum values.

• The minimum number of operations needed is the difference between the maximum and minimum values.
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Round duration - 15 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

It was in the night around 7:00PM-7:20PM. Platform used for this round was skype. Interviewer was very serious while taking my interview.

Round duration - 360 minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

Timing- Any 6 hours of my choice in the 24 hour window. (10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. I selected)
Environment was very friendly and easy to use.
No significant activity.
This was the only coding round.

Q1. 
Prime Time Again Problem Statement
You are given two integers DAY_HOURS and PARTS. The integer 'DAY_HOURS' represents the number of hours in a day, and the day can be divided into 'PARTS' equal parts. You...read more
Ans. 
Find total instances of equivalent prime groups in a day divided into equal parts.
• Iterate through each part of the day and check for prime pairs in different parts

• Use a helper function to check if a number is prime

• Ensure the day is evenly divided by parts and each prime group has hours from different parts
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Round duration - 10-15 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Timing- 12:15 p.m. 
Environment was very good .
Not any significant activity.
The interviewer was very friendly and talked like friends.

Round duration - 20 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Timing- 12:30 p.m. to 12:45 p.m
Environment was very comfortable.
No other significant activity.
Interviewer was very good and talking very politely & friendly.