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

SDE - 1

Acko
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3 rounds | 7 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
From 1st semester onward i started doing CP from basics as i was very new to coding world and due to good coding culture i get early exposer of CP and from 2nd sem i started doing web development. My 4th sem totally gone in DSA from interviewbit and 5th and 6th as well i did DSA from interviewbit and leetcode.
Application story
This company visit our campus that's why every student is eligible to give Online assessment(Codign round) test, and after this round all those who qualify will be eligible for interviews.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I was selected for the role because my first approach was also very basic and when the interviewer asked me to optimize it I was always able to give an optimized solution and in this way, he was impressed with my explanation.
Preparation
Duration: 5 Months
Topics: Dynamic programming, Graph, Tree, OOPS, DBMS, Operating system, Computer network, DSA
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Focus on the concept not on the number of questions
Tip 2: Must do Development even a simple html, css, and javascript project can work.
Tip 3: Must do the most asked and most liked questions.
Tip 4: First Solve the question by yourself then jump for other's solutions

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

Tip 1: Must know everything in the resume(don't put false things)
Tip 2: Not more than 1 page

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration60 mins
Interview date13 Sep 2022
Coding problem2

Timming was around 2 PM
I was alone in the room
Interviewer was very supportive and humble

1. Delete Node In A Linked List

Easy
15m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
AdobeCIS - Cyber InfrastructureDell Technologies

You are given a Singly Linked List of integers and a reference to the node to be deleted. Every node of the Linked List has a unique value written on it. Your task is to delete that node from the linked list.

A singly linked list is a linear data structure in which we can traverse only in one direction i.e. from Head to Tail. It consists of several nodes where each node contains some data and a reference to the next node.

Note:

• The reference to the head of the linked list is not given.
• The node to be deleted is not a tail node.
• The value of each node in the Linked List is unique.
• It is guaranteed that the node to be deleted is present in the linked list.

A sample Linked List-

singly_linkedlist

Problem approach

Copy data of the next node to the current node
It's clear that The task question is wrong. You cannot delete the node.
Basically, instead of ONLY deleting the provided node we are not just doing it but CORRUPT the next node. It's a bad question wording (without clarification about options) and a bad solution. In my opinion, the correct answer for the interview is: "You CANNOT do this by having the node reference only. BUT we can make very similar operation by corrupting the next node. Although it's possible I don't recommend this solution for production applications.

Try solving now

2. Find All Triplets With Zero Sum

Moderate
30m average time
50% success
0/80
Asked in companies
FacebookMicrosoftGoogle

You are given an array Arr consisting of n integers, you need to find all the distinct triplets present in the array which adds up to zero.

An array is said to have a triplet {arr[i], arr[j], arr[k]} with 0 sum if there exists three indices i, j and k such that i!=j, j!=k and i!=k and arr[i] + arr[j] + arr[k] = 0.

Note :
1. You can return the list of values in any order. For example, if a valid triplet is {1, 2, -3}, then (2, -3, 1), (-3, 2, 1) etc is also valid triplet. Also, the ordering of different triplets can be random i.e if there are more than one valid triplets, you can return them in any order.
2. The elements in the array need not be distinct.
3. If no such triplet is present in the array, then return an empty list, and the output printed for such a test case will be "-1".
Problem approach

Sort the array
loop with 3 pointers - current(i) , left , right - calculate the sum
sum > 0. move right pointer closer
sum < 0. move left pointer away
sum = 0. add all 3 pointer's value to set
Here set is used to remove duplicate entry of values
Time Complexity 0(nlogn)-sorting + 0(n*n) ~~ O(n^2)
Space complexity - 0(n)

Try solving now
02
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration70 mins
Interview date14 Sep 2022
Coding problem2

First Interviewer asked me to introduce myself and then he started asking question-related about my project and discuss around 15 min and then he started asking about the DSA question. He asked me 2 DSA questions.

1. Delete a Node from Linked List

Moderate
40m average time
67% success
0/80
Asked in companies
QualcommZomatoGoldman Sachs

You have been given a linked list of integers. Your task is to write a function that deletes a node from a given position, 'POS'.

Note :
Assume that the Indexing for the linked list always starts from 0.

If the position is greater than or equal to the length of the linked list, you should return the same linked list without any change.
Illustration :
The following images depict how the deletion has been performed.

Image-I :

Alt txt

Image-II :

Alt txt

Problem approach

Copy nexts value to current node
delete the node

Try solving now

2. Min Jumps

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Tata 1mgIBMAmerican Express

You live in a Ninja town which is in the form of a N * M grid. In this town, people travel from one place to another by jumping over the buildings which are present in each cell of the grid. It is Christmas eve, and Santa wants to give gifts and chocolates to the kids who live in the building which is present at the cell (N - 1, M - 1). Initially, Santa is present on cell (0, 0). Since Santa is in a hurry, help him find a path from starting point to the endpoint with the least amount of time.

The Santa may go only from one building to any of its adjacent buildings which is present either to the right or to the bottom or bottom right cell i.e. if the current position is (x, y), he may go to (x + 1, y + 1) or (x + 1, y) or (x, y + 1) given that the new coordinates are in the grid. The time taken to reach from one building to another is equal to the absolute difference between the heights of buildings.

Note:

1. The heights of the buildings are positive.
2. Santa starts from the cell (0, 0) and he has to reach the building (N - 1, M - 1).
3. Santa cannot leave the grid at any point of time.
Problem approach

The trick to this question is, we just need to check if there is a path from any previous indexes to current index.
So we will start from the last index and see if there is a path from any of the previous indexes. If yes, then we will check if there is path from previous indexes to this index ( which has a path to last index) and so on.
If we found that for an index , there is a path from 0,
we will return True
Else its false

Try solving now
03
Round
Medium
HR Round
Duration25 mins
Interview date15 Sep 2022
Coding problem3

Timing was around 10AM.
I was alone in the room.
Interviewer was very humble and generous.

1. Basic Hr Question

Tell me about yourself?

Problem approach

Tip 1) Do not ask the interviewer what he wants to know about you. You may be asking genuinely, but that just 
sounds rude.
Tip 2) Do not speak what is already there in the resume. The interviewer wants to know what they have not 
seen on the resume. And do not speak about anything personal.
Tip 3) Introduce yourself by including certain adjectives like problem-solving, innovation and tech-savvy, 
creative, quick learner, etc. that best describe you in your professional life to boost your chances.

2. Basic Hr Question

Why do you want to join Acko rather than big Tech MNCs

Problem approach

Tip 1:Always show them you are only focused on learning.
Tip 2:Also make them feel that you will stay longer in their company

3. Basic Hr Question

What are your hobbies?

Problem approach

My hobbies are dancing, Internet surfing, playing Chess, listening to music, watching the news channel. In my spare time, I like to read news on my phone and traveling to my hometown. Thank you for giving this opportunity to introduce myself.

Here's your problem of the day

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

Skill covered: Programming

Which SQL keyword removes duplicate records from a result set?

Choose another skill to practice
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