PTC Associate Software Analyst Interview Questions and Answers

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This was a technical round with questions on DBMS.

Q1. What is data integrity?
Ans. 
Data integrity refers to the accuracy, consistency, and reliability of data throughout its lifecycle.
• Data integrity ensures that data is accurate and consistent in storage and transmission.

• It involves maintaining the quality and reliability of data over time.

• Methods for ensuring data integrity include checksums, encryption, and error detection codes.

• Examples of data integrity violations include data corruption, unautho
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Q2. What is a trigger in the context of a database management system?
Ans. 
A trigger is a special type of stored procedure that automatically executes when certain events occur in a database.
• Triggers are used to enforce business rules, maintain data integrity, and automate repetitive tasks.

• They can be triggered by INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE operations on a table.

• Examples of triggers include auditing changes to a table, updating related tables when a record is modified, or enforcing referential
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Q3. What is the difference between clustered and non-clustered indexes in a database management system?
Ans. 
Clustered indexes physically order the data in the table, while non-clustered indexes do not.
• Clustered indexes determine the physical order of data in the table, while non-clustered indexes do not.

• A table can have only one clustered index, but multiple non-clustered indexes.

• Clustered indexes are faster for retrieval of data, especially range queries, compared to non-clustered indexes.

• Non-clustered indexes are stored se...read more
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Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

Technical interview round with questions on DBMS.

Q1. What is the difference between UNION and UNION ALL in SQL?
Ans. 
UNION combines and removes duplicates, UNION ALL combines without removing duplicates.
• UNION merges the result sets of two or more SELECT statements and removes duplicates.

• UNION ALL merges the result sets of two or more SELECT statements without removing duplicates.

• UNION is slower than UNION ALL as it involves removing duplicates.

• Example: SELECT column1 FROM table1 UNION SELECT column1 FROM table2;

• Example: SELECT column...read more
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Q2. What are the functions of a cursor in PL/SQL?
Ans. 
A cursor in PL/SQL is used to retrieve and process multiple rows of data one at a time.
• Allows iteration over a result set

• Retrieves data row by row

• Can be used to update or delete rows in a table

• Must be declared, opened, fetched, and closed
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Q3. Write a SQL query to fetch the nth highest salary from a table.
Ans. 
SQL query to fetch the nth highest salary from a table
• Use the ORDER BY clause to sort salaries in descending order

• Use the LIMIT clause to fetch the nth highest salary
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Round duration - 30 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This was a managerial round with typical behavioral problems.

Math and verbal round .

General topics to speak

Q1. Duplicates in array College Projects Hashmap implementation
Ans. 
Implement a function to find duplicates in an array of strings using Hashmap.
• Create a Hashmap to store the frequency of each string in the array

• Iterate through the array and check if the frequency of any string is greater than 1

• If yes, add it to the list of duplicates

• Return the list of duplicates
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Round duration - 75 minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

Coding Test with 3 problems. 1 Easy , 1 Medium , 1 Very Hard

Q1. 
Job Scheduling Problem
You are provided with a list of jobs, where each job has a specific deadline and profit. The goal is to schedule these jobs such that the total profit is maximized. Each job require...read more
Ans. 
The goal is to schedule jobs to maximize profit while meeting deadlines. Each job takes one unit of time and only one job can be scheduled at a time.
• Sort the jobs in decreasing order of profit

• Iterate through the sorted jobs and schedule them based on their deadlines

• Keep track of the total profit achieved

• Ensure each job is completed before its deadline
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Q2. 
Spiral Order Traversal of a Binary Tree
Given a binary tree with N nodes, your task is to output the Spiral Order traversal of the binary tree.
Input:
The input consists of a single line containing elem...read more
Ans. 
Implement a function to return the spiral order traversal of a binary tree.
• Traverse the binary tree level by level, alternating between left to right and right to left.

• Use a queue to keep track of nodes at each level.

• Append nodes to the result list in the order they are visited.
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Q3. 
Structurally Unique Binary Trees of Dragon Balls
Goku has ‘N’ Dragon Balls, where each Dragon Ball is unique. The ith Dragon Ball has ‘i’ stars on it, meaning the first Dragon Ball has 1 star, the second ...read more
Ans. 
Count the number of structurally unique binary trees that can be constructed with given Dragon Balls.
• Use dynamic programming to solve this problem efficiently.

• The number of structurally unique binary trees can be calculated using Catalan numbers.

• For each test case, calculate the number of structurally unique binary trees modulo 10^9 + 7.

• Return the count of unique binary trees for each test case.
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Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

In depth questions on Subjects like OOP , DBMS , OS , Javascript.

Round duration - 40 minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

Questions on my resume, projects, internship done. Interviewer was a bit harsh on me.

Q1. What are the differences between low-level and high-level programming languages, and can you explain some kernel-related questions?
Ans. 
Low-level languages interact directly with hardware, while high-level languages are more abstract and easier to read/write.
• Low-level languages are closer to machine code and hardware, while high-level languages are closer to human language.

• Low-level languages require more manual memory management and are less portable, while high-level languages have automatic memory management and are more portable.

• Examples of low-lev...read more
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Karet Interview :
5 back to back System design question, we don't need to explain each component but more like list as many as points. Need to finish all the question in 15min

1-2 problem solving question : It's not fency algorithm round with tough question. But true problem solving round using basic knowledge such as hashmap, heap

Q1. Design File System : You have given file size and collection in input 1 : get total size 2 : find top k collections in size
Ans. 
Design a file system to calculate total size and find top k collections in size.
• Create a file system class with methods to add files and calculate total size.

• Maintain a data structure to store the collections and their sizes.

• Implement a method to find the top k collections based on size.

• Consider using a priority queue or sorting the collections based on size.

• Handle edge cases like empty collections or invalid input siz
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Q2. Find total size
Ans. 
Calculate the total size of an array of strings.
• Iterate through the array and sum the length of each string.

• Use the `length` property of each string to get its size.

• Handle edge cases such as empty strings or null values.
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Q3. Find Top k collections
Ans. 
The question is asking to find the top k collections.
• Use a sorting algorithm to sort the collections in descending order based on a specific criteria.

• Select the top k collections from the sorted list.

• Return the selected collections as an array of strings.
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