Tower Research Capital LLC SDE-2 Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round duration - 90 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. 
Word Ladder Problem Statement
Given two strings, BEGIN and END, along with an array of strings DICT, determine the length of the shortest transformation sequence from BEGIN to END. Each transformation inv...read more
Ans. 
The Word Ladder problem involves finding the shortest transformation sequence from one word to another by changing one letter at a time.
• Use breadth-first search to find the shortest transformation sequence.

• Create a graph where each word is a node and edges connect words that differ by one letter.

• Keep track of visited words to avoid revisiting them.

• Return -1 if no transformation sequence is possible.
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Round duration - 50 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. 
Number of Islands Problem Statement
You are provided with a 2-dimensional matrix having N rows and M columns, containing only 1s (land) and 0s (water). Your goal is to determine the number of islands in t...read more
Ans. 
Count the number of islands in a 2D matrix of 1s and 0s.
• Use Depth First Search (DFS) or Breadth First Search (BFS) to traverse the matrix and identify connected groups of 1s.

• Maintain a visited array to keep track of visited cells to avoid redundant traversal.

• Increment the island count whenever a new island is encountered.

• Consider all eight possible directions for connectivity between cells.

• Handle edge cases like out of
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Round duration - 50 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. 
Rotting Oranges Problem Statement
You are given a grid containing oranges where each cell of the grid can contain one of the three integer values:
• 0 - representing an empty cell
• 1 - representing a fre...read more
Ans. 
Find the minimum time required to rot all fresh oranges in a grid.
• Use Breadth First Search (BFS) to simulate the rotting process

• Track the time taken to rot all oranges and return it

• If any fresh oranges remain after simulation, return -1

• Handle edge cases like empty grid or no fresh oranges
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Round duration - 90 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Q1. How would you design a system like Splitwise?
Ans. 
Splitwise is a system for managing shared expenses among groups of people.
• 1. Allow users to create groups and add members to track shared expenses.

• 2. Implement features for adding expenses, specifying who paid and who owes.

• 3. Calculate balances for each member and settle debts efficiently.

• 4. Provide notifications and reminders for pending payments.

• 5. Ensure security and privacy of user data.

• 6. Implement features like e...read more
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Round duration - 90 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

There were
1. 25 C++/Java/Shell based MCQs
2. 2 SQL based questions - you are expected to write sql query based on the problem statement
3. Create React App - Todo App

Deadline was 7 days

Q1. Given an employee table and a department table, how would you output the person with the maximum earnings from each department?
Ans. 
Output the person with the maximum earnings from each department
• Join the employee and department tables on department ID

• Group by department ID and find the max earnings for each department

• Join the result with the employee table to get the person with max earnings
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

It was in afternoon 2PM. Interviewer was polite and helpful. He was trying me to push me more. At the end of the interview, he even gave me the good feedback

Q1. 
Minimum Cost to Reduce Array
Given an array ARR of size N containing positive integers, the task is to reduce the size of the array to 1 by performing a specific operation multiple times. In one operation...read more
Ans. 
Find the minimum cost to reduce an array to one element by merging adjacent elements.
• Iterate through the array and merge adjacent elements with the smallest sum each time.

• Keep track of the total cost as you merge elements.

• Repeat the merging process until only one element remains in the array.
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Round duration - 60 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

It was in the noon 2.30PM. Interviewer was the team lead. Interviewer was polite and helpful

Round duration - 30 Minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

Interviewer was the Division Manager. Was just scratching the surface in all domain like behavioural, tech questions, situational questions