NatWest Markets Lead Java Developer Interview Questions and Answers

Round duration - 90 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

There were 33 questions in total. The objective questions were simple.

Q1. 
Sort Big List Dates Problem Statement
Mary is an enthusiastic party-goer who struggles with remembering event dates. Help Mary by sorting a given list of event dates in an ascending order.
Example:
Inpu...read more
Ans. 
Sort a list of event dates in ascending order based on year, month, and day.
• Sort the list of dates based on year, then month, and finally day.

• Use a sorting algorithm to rearrange the dates in ascending order.

• Ensure the constraints are met for each date in the list.
Answered by AI
Add your answer
Q2. 
Pair Sum Problem Statement
You are given an integer array 'ARR' of size 'N' and an integer 'S'. Your task is to find and return a list of all pairs of elements where each sum of a pair equals 'S'.
Note:
...read more
Ans. 
Given an array and a target sum, find all pairs of elements that add up to the target sum.
• Iterate through the array and for each element, check if the complement (target sum - current element) exists in a hash set.

• If the complement exists, add the pair to the result list.

• Sort the pairs based on the first element and then the second element.

• Handle edge cases like duplicate elements and pairs with the same values.

• Example...read more
Answered by AI
Add your answer
Q3. 
Maximum Sum Problem Statement
Given an integer N, your task is to recursively break it into three integer parts: N / 2, N / 3, and N / 4. You need to compute the maximum sum possible by dividing the numbe...read more
Ans. 
Given an integer N, recursively break it into three parts and find the maximum sum possible.
• Recursively divide N into N/2, N/3, and N/4 to find the maximum sum

• Compare the sum obtained by dividing N with the sum of N itself

• Return the maximum sum for each test case
Answered by AI
Add your answer

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Technical Interview round with questions based on DSA.

Q1. 
Duplicate Integer in Array
Given an array ARR of size N, containing each number between 1 and N-1 at least once, identify the single integer that appears twice.
Input:
The first line contains an integer...read more
Ans. 
Identify the duplicate integer in an array containing numbers between 1 and N-1.
• Iterate through the array and keep track of the frequency of each element using a hashmap.

• Return the element with a frequency greater than 1 as the duplicate integer.

• Ensure the constraints are met and a duplicate number is guaranteed to be present.
Answered by AI
Add your answer
Q2. 
Sum Root to Leaf Numbers
You are given an arbitrary binary tree consisting of N nodes, each associated with an integer value from 1 to 9. Each root-to-leaf path can be considered a number formed by concat...read more
Ans. 
Calculate the total sum of all root to leaf paths in a binary tree formed by concatenating node values.
• Traverse the binary tree from root to leaf nodes, keeping track of the current path sum

• Add the current node value to the path sum and multiply by 10 for each level

• When reaching a leaf node, add the final path sum to the total sum

• Return the total sum modulo (10^9 + 7)
Answered by AI
Add your answer
Q3. 
Topological Sort Problem Statement
You are given a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Your task is to perform topological sorting of the graph and return any valid ordering.
Explanation:
A directed acyclic g...read more
Ans. 
Implement a function to perform topological sorting on a directed acyclic graph (DAG) and return any valid ordering.
• Create a graph data structure to represent the DAG

• Use depth-first search (DFS) to perform topological sorting

• Maintain a visited array to keep track of visited nodes

• Return the ordering of nodes after DFS traversal
Answered by AI
Add your answer

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Technical interview round with questions based on DSA.

Q1. 
LCA of Binary Tree Problem Statement
You are given a binary tree consisting of distinct integers and two nodes, X and Y. Your task is to find and return the Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) of these two nodes...read more
Ans. 
Find the Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) of two nodes in a binary tree.
• Traverse the binary tree to find the paths from the root to nodes X and Y.

• Compare the paths to find the last common node, which is the LCA.

• Handle cases where one node is an ancestor of the other.

• Consider edge cases like when X or Y is the root node.

• Implement a recursive or iterative solution to find the LCA efficiently.
Answered by AI
Add your answer
Q2. 
Rotated Array Minimum Finder
You are provided with a sorted array that has undergone 'K' rotations (the exact value of 'K' is unknown). A rotation involves shifting each element of the array to the right,...read more
Ans. 
Implement a function to find the minimum number in a rotated sorted array efficiently.
• Use binary search to find the minimum element in the rotated array.

• Compare the mid element with the start and end elements to determine which half of the array to search next.

• Continue the binary search until the minimum element is found.
Answered by AI
Add your answer
Q3. 
Maximum Binary Tree Construction Problem
Given an array TREE of 'N' unique integers, construct a maximum binary tree using the following rules:
1. The root of this tree is the maximum number in TREE.
2. T...read more
Ans. 
Construct a maximum binary tree from an array of unique integers following specific rules.
• Find the maximum number in the array to set as the root of the tree.

• Recursively construct the left subtree with elements before the maximum number.

• Recursively construct the right subtree with elements after the maximum number.
Answered by AI
Add your answer

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

The interviewer called my via phone and simultaneously provided me a link where I had to write the code for a given problem. It was scheduled at 12:30 pm, so timing was not an issue. It was a standard DP question involving a 2D matrix. The question was easy and I was able to code it within given time.

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

The interviewer asked me two coding questions in this round.

Q1. Write an efficient program to find the sum of the contiguous subarray within a one-dimensional array of numbers that has the largest sum.
Ans. 
Efficient program to find sum of largest contiguous subarray within a one-dimensional array.
• Use Kadane's algorithm to find the maximum sum subarray in O(n) time complexity.

• Initialize max_sum and current_sum to 0, iterate through array updating current_sum and max_sum.

• Return max_sum as the result.
Answered by AI
Add your answer

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This was on-site round at their Bangalore office. The interviewer was friendly and helpful. The interview held inside a conference room.

Q1. 
DFS Traversal Problem Statement
Given an undirected and disconnected graph G(V, E), where V is the number of vertices and E is the number of edges, the connections between vertices are provided in the 'GR...read more
Ans. 
DFS traversal problem to find connected components in an undirected and disconnected graph.
• Use Depth First Search (DFS) algorithm to traverse the graph and find connected components

• Maintain a visited array to keep track of visited vertices

• Iterate through all vertices and perform DFS on unvisited vertices to find connected components
Answered by AI
Add your answer

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This was the next round of the onsite interviews. Took place in the same conference room as that of the previous round.

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This was the third round of the onsite interview. 
 

Maths based questions

Implement a function to calculate the exponential of a base number to a given exponent, handling both positive and negative components.

Time based sections were given

Q1. Resume related questions were asked, core subjects and dsa
Add your answer

Q1. HasMap explanation
Ans. 
HashMap is a data structure in Java that stores key-value pairs.
• HashMap is part of the Java Collections framework.

• It allows for fast retrieval of values based on keys.

• Keys in a HashMap must be unique, but values can be duplicated.

• Example: HashMap map = new HashMap<>();
Answered by AI
Add your answer
Q2. Related question on concurrency
Add your answer