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

SDE - Intern

Acko
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4 rounds | 10 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 6 months
Topics: Data Structures, Algorithms, Puzzles, Project, Mock Interviews
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Must know the standard algorithms (eg: searching, sorting)
Tip 2 : Practise mock interviews with your friends

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 7 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : Project with the deployed link and Github link
Tip 2 : Don't put information which is not relevant to the job profile

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Test
Duration90 minutes
Interview date12 Sep 2020
Coding problem3

The online round had 2 coding questions and one question of a regular expression.

1. Two Sum

Easy
10m average time
90% success
0/40
Asked in companies
OptumFacebookAmazon

You are given an array of integers 'ARR' of length 'N' and an integer Target. Your task is to return all pairs of elements such that they add up to Target.

Note:

We cannot use the element at a given index twice.

Follow Up:

Try to do this problem in O(N) time complexity. 
Try solving now

2. Increasing Subsegment

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

Gary has a sequence 'ARR', consisting of 'N' integers.

We'll call a sequence ARR[i],  ARR[i+1], ..., ARR[j] where 1  ≤  i  ≤  j  ≤  N a subsegment of the sequence ARR. The value (j - i + 1) denotes the length of the subsegment.

Your task is to find the longest subsegment of ARR, such that it is possible to change at most one number (change one number to any integer you want) from the subsegment to make the subsegment strictly increasing.

You need to return the length of the maximum subsegment that you can find by changing only one integer in the given sequence.

Try solving now

3. Regular Expression

Regular Expression question: Write a regular expression that returns true if the first character of the string is the same as the last character. 

Note: The string was made from only 2 characters (a and b)

Problem approach

Tip 1 : You just need to write the regex

02
Round
Easy
Video Call
Duration60 minutes
Interview date13 Feb 2021
Coding problem3

First 10 minutes started with the Introduction. Then he asked about my projects. He seemed interested in my projects and asked a lot of questions about them. He asked questions related to Node Js, React Js, Mongo DB, AWS as all these were mentioned in my Resume. Around 25 minutes was completed explaining each and everything.

Then he started with the coding questions. I was allowed to share my screen and use any of my favourite text editors. I chose ‘VS Code’.

I was able to solve 2 coding questions very easily. I got stuck in the puzzle as I didn’t solve any puzzles before. I was able to come up with different approaches, but they weren’t the most optimal. He tried giving me a lot of hints but still wasn’t able to solve it. I had a positive can-do attitude throughout, and I was really close to solving it.

Feedback: He told me I performed well and asked if I had any questions for him. I asked for the solution to the puzzle. He explained to me the solution and I told him that I will practice puzzles.

Around 5-6 students got selected for 2nd Interview.

1. Move Zeros To Left

Easy
10m average time
90% success
0/40
Asked in companies
AdobeTech MahindraDell Technologies

You are given an array 'ARR' of integers. Your task is to modify the array so that all the array elements having zero values get pushed to the left and all the array elements having non-zero value come after them while maintaining their relative order.

For example :
Consider the array { 1, 1, 0, 2, 0 }. 
For the given array the modified array should be {0,0,1,1,2} . 
Arrays { 0, 0, 1, 2, 1 } and  { 0, 0, 2, 1, 1 } are not the correctly reorganized array even if they have all the zero values pushed to the left as in both the arrays the relative order of non-zero elements is not maintained.
Follow Up :
Can you solve the problem in linear time, and constant space?
Try solving now

2. Maximum sum of pairs with specific difference

Moderate
20m average time
80% success
0/80
Asked in companies
AmazonAmerican ExpressAcko

You are given an array of integers and a number ‘K’. You can pair two elements in the array 'ARR' if the absolute difference between them is strictly less than ‘K’. Your task is to find the maximum possible sum of disjoint pairs among all the pairs of numbers you can obtain.

The sum of a pair is the sum of the elements in the pair.

For Example:
Input: ARR[] = {3, 5, 10, 15, 17, 12, 9}, K = 4
Output: 62

Then disjoint pairs with the absolute difference less than K are 
(3, 5), (10, 12), (15, 17)  
So maximum sum which we can get is 3 + 5 + 12 + 10 + 15 + 17 = 62
Note:
Note that an alternate way to form disjoint pairs is, (3, 5), (9, 12), (15, 17), but this pairing produces a lesser sum.
Try solving now

3. Puzzle

There are 25 horses among which you need to find out the fastest 3 horses. You can conduct race among at most 5 to find out their relative speed. At no point, you can find out the actual speed of the horse in a race. Find out how many races are required to get the top 3 horses. (GFG Link:https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/puzzle-9-find-the-fastest-3-horses/)

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Do solve top 50 puzzle problems in GFG
Tip 2 : Try to discuss different approaches with the interviewer

03
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration35 minutes
Interview date15 Feb 2021
Coding problem1

It started with a brief Introduction and in-depth discussions on projects. He also asked me a lot of questions about my previous internship. He asked me some behavioural questions as well.

I was able to solve the question, and he did not ask me any other questions. This round was really short for me and was finished in around 35 minutes, well before time. I asked about my feedback, and he told me that the ‘HR’ will get back to me. I thought he was not satisfied with my answers and I will be rejected though I gave very good answers to every question.

3 students got selected for the next round. I think he was satisfied and did not want to waste more time asking questions.

1. Evaluate the Polynomial

Easy
20m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
IBMAckoMicrosoft

You are given two arrays of coefficients and degrees of a polynomial expression. You need to simplify the polynomial in general form by evaluating and simplifying the expression.

For Example:
If the given polynomial equation is “5x ^ 3 + 2x ^ 3 + 6x ^ 4 + 2”. There are two terms of exponent or degree 3 and they are 5x ^ 3 and 2x ^ 3. Both these terms will get added and form 7x ^ 3, so the given polynomial will be simplified as 7x ^ 3 + 6x ^ 4 + 2. Now by arranging the expression in the decreasing order of the degrees, we will have 6x ^ 4 + 7x ^ 3 + 2 and hence the result.
Try solving now
04
Round
Medium
HR Round
Duration60 minutes
Interview date17 Feb 2021
Coding problem3

It started with an introduction and discussion on projects. He seemed very curious about my project and went ahead to cross-question every functionality. We discussed everything and how the code works. He asked me a lot of questions on ‘Socket’ as my project mentioned it.

HR-related questions such as:
Why do you want to join the company?
Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?
What are your strengths and weakness?

1. Scoping and Hoisting.

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Must have knowledge of javascript to answer this

2. Explain in brief about async-await

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Started with callbacks then promises and finally async-await

3. Scenario-based networking question: Suppose you are working on ‘WhatsApp’, sometimes the message gets lost. Explain how would you detect this and check this in terms of networking

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Must know about various method to find an error in networking (eg: Simple Parity check,

Here's your problem of the day

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

Skill covered: Programming

How do you create a function in JavaScript?

Choose another skill to practice
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