Accolite interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

Software Engineer

Accolite
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5 rounds | 15 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
My journey from being a beginner to securing a job interview at an IT company as a fresher has been a challenging yet rewarding experience. It all began with a passion for technology and a realization that I needed a solid foundation. I started by immersing myself in the basics of programming and computer science, learning languages like C and Java. I didn't just stick to textbooks; I actively worked on personal projects to apply what I learned. To complement my technical skills, I explored data structures, algorithms, and software design principles. I engaged in coding competitions and collaborated on open-source projects to sharpen my problem-solving abilities. Internships played a pivotal role, providing hands-on experience and a glimpse into the real-world IT landscape. I faced challenges along the way, but I never gave up. I adapted to new technologies and remained committed to learning. As I prepare for this job interview, I reflect on my journey with gratitude for the lessons learned and the growth achieved.
Application story
I came across Accolite's She Codes off-campus drive for software engineer hiring on a job portal. The drive was designed to encourage female candidates to apply for software engineering roles. I applied for the position by submitting my resume and filling out the online application form on Accolite's careers page. This typically involves providing personal information, educational details, and sometimes answering specific questions related to the role.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I came across Accolite's She Codes off-campus drive for software engineer hiring on a job portal. The drive was designed to encourage female candidates to apply for software engineering roles. I applied for the position by submitting my resume and filling out the online application form on Accolite's careers page. This typically involves providing personal information, educational details, and sometimes answering specific questions related to the role. In my job interview for the Software Engineer position at Accolite, I was ultimately selected for the role, and I believe several key factors contributed to my success. Firstly, my educational background in computer science, which included coursework in relevant programming languages and data structures, prepared me well for the technical aspects of the interview. Additionally, during the interview, I made sure to effectively communicate my passion for technology and my eagerness to learn and grow within the company. I also demonstrated strong teamwork and communication skills, which were tested through behavioral interview questions. Overall, my selection can be attributed to a combination of my technical knowledge, practical experience, and my ability to convey my enthusiasm for the role and the company effectively. On the other hand, I have faced instances of rejection in the past. One notable rejection taught me valuable lessons. I had applied for a similar developer role, but I failed to prepare adequately for the technical interview, and my responses to behavioral questions lacked depth and relevance to the role. The experience taught me the importance of thorough interview preparation, not just in terms of technical skills but also in terms of understanding the company's values and culture. It also highlighted the need for clear and concise communication during interviews, ensuring that my answers directly addressed the skills and qualities the company was seeking in a candidate. As a result of this rejection, I developed a structured approach to interview preparation, which has since significantly improved my performance in subsequent interviews.
Preparation
Duration: 6 months
Topics: Data Structures, Algorithms, JAVA, OOPS, DBMS, SQL, Operating System, Computer Networks
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Practice coding on coding platforms. These platforms often have coding challenges and competitions that can improve problem-solving skills. 

Tip 2: Prepare for common interview questions and practice your answers. 

Tip 3: Keep up with the latest industry trends and technologies by reading blogs, books, and following tech news websites. 

Tip 4: In addition to technical skills, emphasize your soft skills in interviews. IT companies value communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and adaptability.

Application process
Where: Company Website
Eligibility: 60% throughout
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: Use a clean and professional format with clear headings, bullet points, and an easy-to-read font. 

Tip 2: Keep the resume to one page in length. 

Tip 3: List your educational qualifications in reverse chronological order (most recent first). 

Tip 4: Create a dedicated section for technical skills. Include programming languages, software tools, and technologies in which you're proficient. 

Tip 5: Highlight any relevant projects, internships, or personal coding projects you've worked on. Mention the technologies used, your role, and the outcomes or results achieved.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration90 minutes
Interview date6 Feb 2023
Coding problem5

This round was conducted on Accolite’s own portal, Eduthrill, and the test started at 9:00 AM (login window was given from 09:00 - 09:15 AM). The test duration was 90 minutes with camera and web proctoring. There were 30 MCQ questions and 1 coding question to complete. The MCQs were mainly based on CS fundamentals and were of easy to moderate difficulty. The coding question was based on Graphs, and I was able to solve it. There were 5 test cases, and we also had to write a few unit tests. You could only code in the language you opted for (I opted for Java). I could solve all the MCQs and the coding question in around 45 minutes.

1. Max Path Value

Moderate
15m average time
85% success
0/80
Asked in companies
FlipkartAccolite

You are given a directed graph with ‘N’ nodes and ‘M’ edges. Each node has a lowercase letter assigned to it. For any path, the path’s value is defined as the maximum frequency of a letter on the path. You are supposed to find the maximum value of a path. If the maximum value can be infinitely large then return -1.

Example:
If some path has the letters “xyxxxyzz” then the value of this path will be 4 as the maximum frequency of any letter(‘x’) is 4.
Try solving now

2. MCQs

1-The ability to query data, as well as insert, delete, and alter tuples, is offered by ..........................
i TCL (Transaction Control Language)
ii DCL (Data Control Language)
iii DDL (Data Definition Langauge)
iv DML (Data Manipulation Langauge)

Problem approach

Ans: DML

3. MCQs

2-Which command is used to remove a relation from an SQL?
i Drop table
ii Delete
iii Purge
iv Remove

Problem approach

Ans: Drop Table

4. MCQs

1 -Banker's algorithm is used?

i-To prevent deadlock
ii-To deadlock recovery
iii-To solve the deadlock
iv-None of these

Problem approach

Ans : To prevent deadlock

5. MCQs

2- What type of scheduling is round-robin scheduling?

i-Linear data scheduling
ii-Non-linear data scheduling
iii-Preemptive scheduling
iv-Non-preemptive scheduling

02
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration70 minutes
Interview date7 Feb 2023
Coding problem3

Technical Round-1:

 The interview started with the interviewer introducing himself and asking me to give a brief self-introduction and then directly diving into coding. The round was mainly based on coding and went for around 70 minutes. Three coding questions were asked. I was easily able to solve these questions and discussed both the naive and optimized approaches. Then, he asked me some theory-based questions.

1. First non repeating character

Easy
15m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
HCL TechnologiesGoogleInfosys

Ninja is now bored with numbers and is now playing with characters but hates when he gets repeated characters. Ninja is provided a string, and he wants to return the first unique character in the string.The string will contain characters only from the English alphabet set, i.e., ('A' - 'Z') and ('a' - 'z'). If there is no non-repeating character, print the first character of the string. If there is no non-repeating character, return the first character of the string.

Try solving now

2. Rotate array

Easy
25m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Deutsche BankIBMSalesforce

Given an array 'arr' with 'n' elements, the task is to rotate the array to the left by 'k' steps, where 'k' is non-negative.


Example:
'arr '= [1,2,3,4,5]
'k' = 1  rotated array = [2,3,4,5,1]
'k' = 2  rotated array = [3,4,5,1,2]
'k' = 3  rotated array = [4,5,1,2,3] and so on.
Problem approach

Follow the steps below to solve the given problem. 

1. Initialize a temporary array(temp[n]) of length same as the original array
2. Initialize an integer(k) to keep a track of the current index
3. Store the elements from the position d to n-1 in the temporary array
4. Now, store 0 to d-1 elements of the original array in the temporary array
5. Lastly, copy back the temporary array to the original array

Try solving now

3. Maximum of All Subarrays of Size K

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
SprinklrFlipkartMicrosoft

You are given an array “A” of N integers. Your task is to find the maximum element in all K sized contiguous subarrays from left to right.

For Example:
If A = [3, 2, 3], and K = 2.
Then max of [3, 2] = 3 and max of [2, 3] = 3
So, the answer will be [3, 3]

If A = [3, 2, 3, 5, 1, 7] and K = 3.
Then max of [3, 2, 3] = 3 
Then max of [2, 3, 5] = 5 
Then max of [3, 5, 1] = 5 
Then max of [5, 1, 7] = 7 
So  the answer will be [3, 5, 5, 7]
Follow Up :
Can you solve the problem in O(N) time complexity and O(K) space complexity?
Problem approach

Follow the given steps to solve the problem:

1. Create a nested loop, the outer loop from starting index to N – Kth elements. The inner loop will run for K iterations.
2. Create a variable to store the maximum of K elements traversed by the inner loop.
3. Find the maximum of K elements traversed by the inner loop.
4. Print the maximum element in every iteration of the outer loop

Try solving now
03
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration80 minutes
Interview date8 Feb 2023
Coding problem3

Technical Round-2: 

This round was mainly based on CS fundamentals. It started at 1:00 PM and was a very exhaustive round, lasting between 70–80 minutes. The interviewer started with my introduction and then asked me the following questions.

1. Java Questions

Implement your own java string inbuilt method "split()".

Problem approach

To implement the split method in Java, I followed these steps:

  1. Created a method that takes a string and a delimiter (the character or sequence by which you want to split the string) as input parameters.
  2. Inside the method, initialized variables to keep track of the start and end positions while iterating through the input string.
  3. Used a loop to iterate through each character in the input string.
  4. At each iteration, checked if the current character matches the delimiter.
  5. If the delimiter is found, extracted the substring from the start position to the current position (excluding the delimiter). Added this substring to a collection (e.g., an ArrayList).
  6. Updated the start position to the next character after the delimiter.
  7. Continued the loop until I reached the end of the input string.
  8. After the loop ended, added the remaining part of the string.
  9. Converted the collection of substrings to an array.
  10. Returned the array of substrings.

The key is to maintain the start and end positions while iterating through the string and identifying the delimiter to split the string correctly.

2. Theory Questions

What is the use of the Static keyword? (Learn)
Can we create an object of static class? (Learn)

3. DBMS

Q1. What is normalization, and why is it essential? (Learn)
Q2. Explain the purpose of indexing in a database. (Learn)
Q3. Explain the ACID properties. (Learn)

04
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration60 minutes
Interview date9 Feb 2023
Coding problem3

Technical Round-3:

This round was completely project-based. The interviewer started with my introduction and then moved on to my projects. First, he asked me to explain the technologies I have worked on and all the projects I mentioned in my resume. Then, he asked me to open the source code of one of my projects (chosen by the interviewer). After that, I explained all the functionalities of the project via code. He then asked me to make some changes to the code. The interviewer was very friendly when I started making changes to the project; when I got a little stuck, he helped me, and I successfully made the changes he requested. He ended this round by asking some basic Git commands. This round lasted about 60 minutes.

1. Git Questions

How do you delete a branch in Git? (Learn)

What is the purpose of the git clone command? (Learn)

2. Project Questions

Explain your project and tell me the technologies you have used in your projects.

3. Project Related Questions

Explain the functionality of project via source code.

05
Round
Medium
HR Round
Duration45 minutes
Interview date9 Feb 2023
Coding problem1

After 4 hours of the technical interview round-3, I got a call from Accolite informing me that I had cleared the 3rd round and that my HR round was being scheduled for the evening on the same day. This round was held on the same platform, Google Meet, and it started at 5:30 P.M. and went for around 45 minutes.

He further explained to me about Accolite Digital, telling me about different working locations, salary breakup, etc.

1. Basic HR Questions

Tell me about yourself.
What do you know about Accolite?
What are your strengths & weaknesses?
What will you do if your team is not able to perform well / below your expectations?

Here's your problem of the day

Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company

Skill covered: Programming

Which operator is used for exponentiation in Python?

Choose another skill to practice
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