Salesforce Software Developer Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round duration - 75 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This was an online coding round where we had 2 questions to solve under 75 minutes. The questions were of Medium to Hard level of difficulty and I found the problem statements to be a bit tricky.

Q1. 
Balanced Parentheses Combinations
Given an integer N representing the number of pairs of parentheses, find all the possible combinations of balanced parentheses using the given number of pairs.
Explanati...read more
Ans. 
Approach : 

1) First make a recursive function, say ‘solve’ taking the number of opening brackets ‘opening’, number of closing brackets ‘closing’ output string ‘output’, and an array of strings ‘ans’ as arguments.

2) Make the base condition as if ‘opening’ = 0 and ‘closing’ = 0 then push the output string in the ‘ans’ and return.

3) If ‘opening’ is not equal to zero then call the ‘solve’ function recursively by decre...read more
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Q2. 
Longest Happy String Problem Statement
Given three non-negative integers X, Y, and Z, determine the longest happy string. A happy string is defined as a string that contains only the letters 'a', 'b', and...read more
Ans. 
Approach : 

1) Let the 'X', 'Y', 'Z' be the maximum availability ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ respectively.

2) Declare an empty string say ‘S’ to store the answer string.

3) Run a loop till (x + y + z)
3.1) If ( 'X' >= 'Y' and 'X' >= 'Z' and the last two letters in ‘S’ is not “aa” ) or ( the last two letters in ‘S’ are “bb” or “cc” and 'X' is nonzero).
Add ‘a’ to ‘S’, and update 'X' to ‘x - 1’.

3.2) If ( 'Y' >= 'X' and 'Y' &g...read more
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This round had 2 preety decent questions of DSA . The interviewer was also quite freindly and helpful. I was able to solve both the questions under the given time frame and also discussed their respective time and space complexites.

Q1. 
Problem Description
Given a graph with 'N' nodes and 'M' unidirectional edges, along with two integers 'S' and 'D' representing the source and destination respectively, your task is to find all possible p...read more
Ans. 
Approach (Using Backtracking) : 

Let ‘allAllPaths(n, m, edges, src, des)’ be the function that returns a 2D array that contains all the possible paths.

1) Take the following variables: 2D array ‘Graph’, to store graphs and ‘Visited’ array to mark each node whether it is visited or not.

2) Clear graph, initialize the visited array to false.

3) Run a loop from 0 to 'm' :
3.1) Add the undirected edge between edges[i] [0] ...read more
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Q2. 
Cycle Detection in a Singly Linked List
Determine if a given singly linked list of integers forms a cycle or not.
A cycle in a linked list occurs when a node's next points back to a previous node in the ...read more
Ans. 
Approach : 

1) Initialize slow and fast at the beginning.

2) Start moving slow to every next node and moving fast 2 jumps, while making sure that fast and its next is not null.

3) If after adjusting slow and fast, if they are referring to the same node, there is a cycle otherwise repeat the process

4) If fast reaches the end or null then the execution stops and we can conclude that no cycle exists.


TC : O(N), where N =
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This round had 1 question related to BST followed by some standard questions from OOPS and Operating Systems.

Q1. 
Pair with Given Sum in a Balanced BST Problem Statement
You are given the ‘root’ of a Balanced Binary Search Tree and an integer ‘target’. Your task is to determine if there exists any pair of nodes such ...read more
Ans. 
Approach : 

1) Maintain a hash-map ‘mp,’ which keeps track of the nodes we have visited.

2) We will use a helper function, ‘helper’.

3) ‘helper’ takes ‘root,’ ‘target,’ and ‘mp’ as input parameters, where ‘root’ is the root of the binary tree, ‘target’ is the value which should be equal to sum of 2 nodes and ‘mp’ is the hash-map we use to keep track of nodes visited.

3.1) For a given root ‘toFind’ value is the other h...read more
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Q2. What is the difference between Early Binding and Late Binding in C++?
Ans. 
OOP is used commonly for software development. One major pillar of OOP is polymorphism. Early Binding and Late
Binding are related to that. Early Binding occurs at compile time while Late Binding occurs at runtime. In method
overloading, the bonding happens using the early binding. In method overriding, the bonding happens using the late
binding. The difference between Early and Late Binding is that Early Binding uses the...read more
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Q3. What is meant by multitasking and multithreading in operating systems?
Ans. 
Multitasking : It refers to the process in which a CPU happens to execute multiple tasks at any given time. CPU
switching occurs very often when multitasking between various tasks. This way, the users get to collaborate with
every program together at the same time. Since it involves rapid CPU switching, it requires some time. It is because
switching from one user to another might need some resources. The processes in mult...read more
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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?
Ans. 
If you get this question, it's an opportunity to choose the most compelling information to share that is not obvious from
your resume.

Example :

Strength -> I believe that my greatest strength is the ability to solve problems quickly and efficiently, which makes me
unique from others.

Ability to Handle Pressure -> I enjoy working under pressure because I believe it helps me grow and become more
efficient .


Tip : Emphasi...read more
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Round duration - 75 Minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

Online Round - 2 questions. 
75 minutes

Q1. 
Construct the Lexicographically Largest Valid Sequence
You are provided with a positive integer N. The goal is to generate the lexicographically largest sequence of length 2*N - 1, containing integers ran...read more
Ans. Backtracking Approach
Approach:
 
In this approach, we will be trying to find the valid sequence using backtracking. We will be creating our sequence from left to right and will be trying to fix the biggest possible integer yet to be used at the current position. We are fixing the biggest integer first because that will give us the lexicographically largest sequence that is possible. For every position, we will be fi...read more
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Q2. 
Zuma Game Problem Statement
You have a string of balls on the table called BOARD and several balls in your hand represented by the string hand. The balls can be of the colors red(R), blue(B), green(G), wh...read more
Ans. Recursive Approach
The idea here is to use recursion. At each step, we plan to insert the remaining balls in the string hand to the string board. Now the question arises, in which position do we have to insert the ‘i’th character of the string hand? The answer is simple; we have to insert ‘i’th character to all the positions on board to get all possible answers. That’s why we are using the recursive approach. After inse...read more
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Round duration - 40 Minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

1 Coding problem and 1 OOP problem

Q1. 
Ninja and Chocolates Problem Statement
Ninja is hungry and wants to eat his favorite chocolates, but his mother won't let him because he has already eaten enough. There are 'N' jars filled with chocolates...read more
Ans. Brute Force
The brute force approach to this problem is that we continuously iterate on the speed of eating chocolates till Ninja can eat all the chocolates within ‘M’ Minutes.
 
Algorithm:
1. Make a variable ‘sum’, which will store the sum of all chocolates which are present in all N jars.
2. Now to find the starting speed, we’ll use the fact that our required speed has to be greater than the average speed(sum/M), else the ...read more
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Q2. What is the difference between a virtual function and an abstract class in Object-Oriented Programming?
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Round duration - 40 minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

Resume based problems, OOPs, DBMS, OS problems

Q1. Design a platform similar to LinkedIn. What are the key features and architecture you would implement?
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Round duration - 15 Minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

Typical HR interview round. Short and crisp