Snapdeal Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round: Test
Experience: Duration : 1 hr

Content : 22 MCQs , 2 codes

Platform : HackerRank22 MCQs : (Non trivial)

Quantitative Analysis : Time Speed Distance , Races , Percentage , Ratio Proportion , Probability , Number SystemCode Snippets :

Some very good questions which require an in depth understanding of pointer concepts, increment decrement operators, printf function, union etc

Examples :

->for(printf(“1″ ; !printf(“0″);printf(“2″))

     printf(“Snapdeal”);

->int a=-6

     cout<<(a>>2);

->printf(“%s”,”snap” “deal”);

->union u1{

     int a:2;

     int b:3;

     int c:4;

}var;

int main() {

     var.a=2;

     var.b=-6;

     var.c=4;

     cout << var.a << " " << var.b << " " << var.c;

}Codes : 

1)Overlapping paintings, find no. of paintings that can be seen distinctly, extreme co-ordinates of paintings are given. Ordering of paintings matter. ( Assume heights of all paintings are same, start and end coordinates are given )E.g.

5

1 4

2 6

3 4

8 10

7 10



XXXX

XXXXXX

XX

XXX <- This painting is hidden completely

XXXX

2)Given points of two lines segments A(x1,y1 x2,y2) & B(x3,y3 x4,y4) find whether the 2 segments intersect or not.

----- solved 2nd code ( all test cases ), all mcqs, 1st code ( 2/6 test cases) [ranked 3rd in online test]

Its very important to solve atleast one code.

My advice :->Before the test : check geeksforgeeks snapdeal interview archives and solve all the online coding questions ->During the test : (If you think you cannot do both the codes) Find the easier one and ‘complete’ it within 20 mins,solve as many mcqs in 30 mins , in last 5-10 mins try to pass the sample test case of the 2nd code (something is better than nothing)
Duration: 60 minutes
Total Questions: 24

Round: TEST
Experience: 3 coding questions ( any language )

duration : 1 hour

Only function to be written (no main())1) Check for balanced parentheses in an expression (STL allowed )

-----/

2)Given an array of positive and negative numbers , find the maximum sum of any subsequence.

Return both the sum and the subsequence.Ambiguous Question:

Maximum sum of any subsequence (note: it’s not increasing subsequence)will be sum of all the positive numbers in the array [Trivial]

Therefore, I interpreted subsequence as subarray -----/

3)Check if Btree is a BST

-----/

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: 1)Detailed Discussion on projects -> Note : He didn’t ask anything related to the content of my project but the actual use of the project in the real time world , the pros and cons of it , the scope in future , where is the technology applied presently etc

2) code : There are two sorted arrays. First one is of size m+n containing only ‘first’ m elements. Another one is of size n and contains n elements. Merge these two arrays into the first array of size m+n such that the output is sorted.This question was a modified form of -----/

But this solution is of O(m +n ) for merging + O(m) for shifting : he asked me to optimize without shiftingDon’t give the optimized solution first : My plan of action : O(n2) , O(nlogn) , O(m) + O(m+n) , O(m+n)

He was very happy with the way i approached the problem.

3) DBMS concepts : Indexing : why is it required , how is it achieved , why B+ tree , difference between B tree and B+ trees , types of indexing , difference between them , advantages and situations where they can be used , can we make an index for a group of tuples (ans : yes ) , why do we need such an index , multilevel indexing.

4)DNS – Domain name servers : what are they , how do they operate , what is iterative dns search , recursive dns search , TLD servers , Authoritative servers , why do we need them , how are they maintained , what are proxy servers , why do we need them , what are mail servers , under which server are they maintained (ans : under authoritative servers)

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: 1)Design a placement software

Requirements

     a)Choose a group of panelists for a particular college.

     b) panelists have different expertise

     c) colleges may have engineering , arts , science sections as well

     d) A panelist can be out for recruitment max 3 days in a fortnight (I asked him to give access to the personal calenders of all panelists )

     He asked me to draw the ER diagrams first

     Than asked me to show the normalized tables

     Then he asked me to code the whole thing especially the 4th requirement : time constraint (i did it using boolen vectors and kmp algorithm)

     He was happy with my design.Advice for design question : Ask for requirements first and keep writing them on a paper , and keep cross questioning on the available data.

2) code : Find square root of a number

     I gave an interative O(n) solution ,

     He told me to optimize : I did it in O(logn) with binary search

     Further optimize to O(1) : I got stuck ,after a lot of discussion on different techiniques he gave me a hint that he would be using my function a lot of times then I immediately told him to use hash maps and save the previous results.

He started smiling and asked me if i had any questions for him 

3)OOPs concepts :Aggregation , composition, encapsulation , abstraction , inheritance , polymorphism.Went further deep into the concepts of encapsulation and abstraction, difference between them , a real world example (i used mobile phone : mobile phone blue print is abstract class , bluprints for different versions of the same mobile i5,i6 etc are derived classed , actual mobile phones are objects encapsulated.),what is data hiding , relation between data hiding , encapsulation , abstraction.

Round: HR Interview
Experience: If you have made till here that means you are selected.The HR guy in snapdeal is the coolest HR I have met .He asked me name of the campanies that have hired me till now,i gave him both their names and he was like ‘tab toh tum rejected ho bhai ‘.(non)Typical HR questions followed :D.

College Name: NA

Round: TEST
Experience: Test was on hackerrank. We had to do 22 MCQs and 3 coding problems which are as follows:



1) Given a string of parenthesis only, check if it’s valid or not.-----/



2)Find next greater number with same set of digits.



-----/



3) Given an array where each element is the money a person have and there is only Rs. 3 note. We need to check whether it is possible to divide the money equally among all the persons or not. If it is possible then find Minimum number of transactions needed

Round: HR Interview
Experience: All students who got selected for Technical Round 2, were selected for HR Round.This round was a really good one, because the HR interviewer asked different questions to different peopleA few puzzles like 25 horse puzzle were asked and a few maths problems like number of rectangles in a chess board.He asked me to tell something about myself, which isn’t there in the resume.And mind well each and every word you speak, each and every conscious or sub-conscious gesture of yours is taken into account. [The HR round was one of the bests I’ve ever had, gave some feeling of the Roadies Interview XD]The most important thing for SnapDeal is that, don’t give up on the questions at all, because even if you don’t hit the solution, the interviewer provides lots of hints, and in the end, even though you give him an inefficient solution, but provide the proper code, you will be through :).

College Name: NA

Round: Test
Experience: Online Test-21 (MCQ) +2 (Coding) in 1 hr. Test conducted on hackerrank21 MCQ had almost 10 aptitude and 11 C output based questions.



Give preference to coding questions. Try to solve both questions ( Pass all test cases for one of the questions and do attempt the other question ( even brute force would pass many test cases )



Aptitude can’t be solved just within a minute. Solve C o/p based questions first.Questions-



1. Overlapping paintings, find no. of paintings that can be seen distinctly, extreme co-ordinates of paintings are given. Ordering of paintings matter. ( Assume heights of all paintings are same, start and end coordinates are given )E.g.



5
1 4
2 6
3 4
8 10
7 10


XXXX
XXXXXX
XX
XXX <- This painting is hidden completely
XXXX Simple O(N^2) solution. Starting from rightmost painting, check if it completely hides any painting or not based on start and end coordinates. ( modification of interval selection problem )2- Given points of two lines segments A(x1,y1 x2,y2) & B(x3,y3 x4,y4) find whether the 2 segments intersect or not.



Simpler approach ( short code )-



-----?module=Static&d1=tutorials&d2=geometry2#line_line_intersectionLength / complicated soln-



----- cut-off -



I solved 2nd question and passed 1 test case for first question ( misunderstood the question during online round !! :p ) and solved 4 MCQ's only ( all fluke )



So my advice, do solve both coding questions for sure and solve C o/p questions in last 15 min
Duration: 60 minutes

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Avg 20-30 mins. 22 shortlisted



My went on for 1 hr to 1hr 15 minsInternship based dicussion (20-30 mins ). Based on Cloud, Virtualization, Networking



Q1- Given N, find LCM from of all numbers from 2 to N. Give the complexity expressed in the form of Number of prime numbers <= N. Had to be really precise in terms of complexity ( in terms of prime factors, maximum recurrences, each recurrence complexity ). Long dicussion on complexity. Don't say any method whose complexity you cannot prove. (E.g saying that i can use Sieve of Eratosthenes for prime pre-processing will lead to question of complexity of Sieve which is O( Log LogN), that cannot be proved trivally. ) So avoid using any such termsQ3- Spring / Hibernate in JAVA



Told him i work in C/C++ only. No experience in JAVAQ2- Types of SQL- NoSQL and SQL(Relational DBMS ). Why the need of NoSQL- Big Data AnalyticsQ3- How would you design DBMS for Snapdeal's website's shoe section.



Now if you want to further break it into Sports and Casual Shoe would you break the DB into two or add another entity ? Full justificdation



I initially answered with a multi-level indexed structure for DBMS storage. Could not answer on the second part of the question. He asked if i knew DBMS and i told him I do not know DBMS. He skipped the question and ended the interview. Told him i had advanced DBMS lab in my course currenlty and would learn it before graduating.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: Q1- -----/



Q2- -----/



Q3- ----- was the first one to solve all 3 in 45 mins roughly and went for next interview. Shortlisting criteria- 2 questions in 1 hr – 1hr 15 mins even though they said that we had 2 hrs to solve all 3 questions !!

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: 4 shortlisted. This round went for almost 1hr 45 min - 2 hrs for me since I solved the Round 2 question earliest. Other 3 had almost 45 mins interview.Q1- Variation of



-----/



Given a dictionary of words and a number n. Find count of all words in dictionary that can be formed by given number n.



I started by exponential solution and reduced it to polynomial. We discussed various approaches and tried a variety of methods and after 1-1.5 hrs of discussion finally ended up with an O(1) solution with some pre-processing overhead. After achiveing O(1) time complexity, he asked to further optimize the space complexity.



Usage of Trie / TST. Internal Implementation of Hashing structure and replacing the hashing mechanism using Trie / TST.Q2- Given an array of elements. We can perform following operation only- Increase an array element. Cost of operation is the amount of increment made per array element. Now for a given H, we need to make any H ( not necessarily consecutive ) elements of array equal with minimum cost.E.g.



N=6, H=4



2 3 5 6 4 4changes to -> 4 4 5 6 4 4



Cost is ( 4-2 + 4-3 = 3 )N=6, H=3



2 3 5 6 4 4changes to -> 2 4 5 6 4 4



Cost is ( 4-3 = 1 )



Optimal complexity- O(N)

Round: HR Interview
Experience: 3 shortlistedTypical HR round.I would like to thank geeksforgeeks for a exhaustive set of interview questions and study material on data structures-algorithms.

College Name: NA

Round: Test
Experience: 20 Aptitude Questions.

2 Coding Questions – 1. Given points of two lines A(x1,y1 x2,y2) & B(x3,y3 x4,y4) find whether the points intersect or not!

2. Overlapping paintings, find no. of paintings that can be seen distinctly, extreme co-ordinates of paintings are given
Total Questions: 20

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Formal Intro!
Coding :
1. Given a binary search tree, and a number k, find two nodes in the tree such that their sum adds upto k!
2. Print a binary tree in zig-zag order!
I was asked to code both using Java!Some simple puzzles.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Write a program to print “Hello” and “World” infinitely using two threads, such that one thread prints the String “Hello” and the other prints “World”!
– Why sleep() cannot be used?
– Why have you used synchronized keyword?
– How will a deadlock occur in this program?
– What will be the solution for breaking the deadlock?Write a program in Java to find whether a given tree is a subtree of another one or not! both iterative as well as recursive!

College Name: NA