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

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AIOrdinate
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3 rounds | 6 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
My journey began with building a strong foundation in core subjects like DSA, OOP, and DBMS. I focused on understanding concepts clearly and practiced regularly to improve my problem-solving skills. As I developed an interest in Machine Learning, I started working on real-world projects, which helped me gain practical knowledge and confidence in applying concepts. I made sure my resume reflected only those projects that I could explain in depth. Along with technical preparation, I worked on improving my communication and focused on clearly explaining my thought process during interviews. Consistency, strong fundamentals, and practical project experience played a key role in helping me crack the interview.
Application story
I applied for the role through the on-campus placement process at our college. The company opened multiple roles, and I applied for the Machine Learning–focused position. The shortlisting was done purely based on resumes, so having relevant projects and skills played a key role in getting selected. After getting shortlisted, the interview process was conducted online. The entire process consisted of multiple technical rounds focusing on fundamentals, problem-solving, and project discussions, followed by a final discussion round. The process was smooth and well-structured, and each round evaluated different aspects of my skills and understanding. Overall, the journey from application to the final interview was streamlined and emphasized the importance of a strong resume and clear conceptual knowledge.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I was not selected for this role mainly because I wasn’t fully prepared for the case-based and real-world problem-solving questions in the final stage. While my fundamentals and project understanding were strong, I lacked sufficient practice in applying those concepts to business scenarios. This experience made me realize the importance of not just knowing concepts but also being able to think practically and handle open-ended problems. It was a valuable learning experience, and I am now focusing more on improving my analytical thinking and real-world application skills.
Preparation
Duration: 1 Month
Topics: Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA), Object-Oriented Programming (OOPS), Database Management Systems (DBMS), Machine Learning, Deep Learning, SQL, Python
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Build strong fundamentals in DSA, OOP, and DBMS instead of just memorizing concepts.

Tip 2: Work on real-world ML/DL projects and be ready to explain them in depth.

Tip 3: Practice clear communication and explain your thought process during interviews.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: An AI/ML background (projects) and a GPA of 6.5 or above. (Salary Package: 7 to 12 LPA(performance basis) and 3lakh after 24month)
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: Include only those projects and skills that you can confidently explain in depth.

Tip 2: Tailor your resume according to the role (ML/Dev) and highlight relevant experience.

Tip 3: Keep your resume concise, well-structured, and impact-focused.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Video Call
Duration30 minutes
Interview date29 Oct 2025
Coding problem2

1. Move Zeroes To End

Moderate
30m average time
70% success
0/80
Asked in companies
SAP LabsThought WorksFacebook

Given an unsorted array of integers, you have to move the array elements in a way such that all the zeroes are transferred to the end, and all the non-zero elements are moved to the front. The non-zero elements must be ordered in their order of appearance.

For example, if the input array is: [0, 1, -2, 3, 4, 0, 5, -27, 9, 0], then the output array must be:

[1, -2, 3, 4, 5, -27, 9, 0, 0, 0].

Expected Complexity: Try doing it in O(n) time complexity and O(1) space complexity. Here, ‘n’ is the size of the array.

Problem approach

Step 1: I first understood the problem requirement clearly — to move all zeroes to the end while maintaining the order of non-zero elements.

Step 2: I initially thought of using an extra array to store non-zero elements and then appending zeroes at the end, but realized it uses extra space.

Step 3: Then I optimized it using a two-pointer approach, where one pointer tracks the position to place the next non-zero element.

Step 4: I iterated through the array, and whenever I found a non-zero element, I swapped it with the element at the pointer and incremented the pointer.

Step 5: This ensured all non-zero elements stayed in order and all zeroes were pushed to the end in-place, which satisfied the interviewer.

Try solving now

2. OOP Concepts

  • What is polymorphism?
  • What are the types of polymorphism?
  • What is the difference between deep copy and shallow copy? (Learn)
  • How does garbage collection work in Python?
Problem approach

Step 1: I started by clearly explaining the core concepts like polymorphism and its types with simple examples.

Step 2: For questions like deep copy vs shallow copy, I first defined both and then explained the difference using practical scenarios.

Step 3: In topics like garbage collection in Python, I explained how memory management works along with reference counting.

Step 4: Whenever the interviewer asked follow-up questions, I focused on answering step-by-step instead of jumping directly to conclusions.

Step 5: I made sure to relate concepts with real-world examples, which helped in making my answers more clear and understandable.

02
Round
Easy
Video Call
Duration30 minutes
Interview date1 Nov 2025
Coding problem3

1. Reduce Array

Moderate
25m average time
65% success
0/80
Asked in companies
AmazonIntuitAIOrdinate

Ninja was solving questions on the array where he came across a question in which Ninja has an array ‘ARR’ of ‘N’ integers in which he has to perform the following operations to get the result.

1- In one successful operation, Ninja can remove two positive integers, ‘A’ and ‘B’, and insert their sum, i.e., ‘A’ + ‘B’ into the position of either ‘A’ or ‘B’.

2- To insert sum in the position of element ‘A’, the condition 2 * ’A’ >= ‘B’ should be satisfied. Similarly, to insert the sum in the position of element ‘B’, the condition 2 * ‘B’ >= A should be satisfied.

3- We will insert the sum at one position, and the value at the other position should be changed to -1.

4- The resultant array should contain only 1 positive element.

Your task is to find the count of distinct combinations possible for the array.

Note:
A combination is different if they lead to a different position of the element that remains positive at the end of all successful operations for that combination.
For example:
Let ‘ARR’ be: {2, 1}
Combination 1: 
Pick 2 and 1 and insert their sum at the position of 2: [3, -1]

Combination 2:
Pick 2 and 1 and insert their sum at the position of 1: [-1, 3]

So total combinations are 2.
Problem approach

Step 1: I first understood the problem — to scale all values of the array into the range [0, 1] using Min–Max Normalization.

Step 2: I identified that I need to find the minimum and maximum values in the array.

Step 3: I traversed the array once to compute the min and max.

Step 4: Then, I applied the normalization formula to each element: (value - min) / (max - min).

Step 5: I created a new array with the normalized values and explained the edge case when all elements are equal.

Step 6: Finally, I discussed the time complexity as O(n), which satisfied the interviewer.

Try solving now

2. CS Fundamentals

DBMS:

  • Explain ACID properties briefly with examples.
  • SQL Query: Find managers who have at least three employees reporting to them, ensuring only those managers are listed.
  • Serializability (deep dive):
    • Types of serializability
    • Conflicts in transactions
    • Precedence graph
    • Explained using a movie booking system
  • A strong understanding of both theoretical and practical database concepts is required.

OOP:

  • Follow-up questions on OOP concepts.
Problem approach

Tip 1: For ACID properties, always explain each property with a simple real-world example (like banking transactions) to make your answer clear and practical.

Tip 2: In SQL queries, first think of the logic in plain English (grouping, counting, filtering) and then convert it step-by-step into a query using GROUP BY and HAVING.

Tip 3: For serializability, focus on understanding concepts visually — practice drawing precedence graphs and identifying conflicts, as it makes explanations much easier.

Tip 4: While explaining DBMS concepts, try to relate them to real-world systems like booking platforms to show practical understanding.

Tip 5: In OOPS follow-ups, stay calm and build answers step-by-step from basics instead of rushing, and use small code or real-life examples when needed.

3. Project Discussion

  • Projects / Resume Discussion
  • In-depth discussion of ML/DL projects mentioned in the resume
  • Walkthrough of architecture, approach, and design decisions
Problem approach

Tip 1: Be ready to explain your project end-to-end — problem statement, dataset, preprocessing, model choice, and final results clearly.

Tip 2: Justify your design decisions (why this model, why this approach) and discuss trade-offs or alternatives to show deeper understanding.

Tip 3: Prepare for follow-up questions by understanding limitations, improvements, and how your project can be scaled to real-world scenarios.

03
Round
Hard
Video Call
Duration30 minutes
Interview date1 Nov 2025
Coding problem1

No DSA questions were asked.
This round was heavily focused on real-life, case-based problem-solving.
The interviewer selected one of my time-series forecasting projects and framed multiple scenario-based questions aligned with Big Billion Days use cases.

1. Case Questions

Key Case-Based Questions:

  • How do external factors such as price changes, promotional events, and holidays impact multivariate forecasting models?
  • Apart from sales, what other parameters determine the success of a marketing campaign?
  • How do you handle Twitter data for analysis?
    • Follow-up: Explain sentiment analysis.
  • How would you identify the top reviews using a recommender system based on cosine similarity stored in a database?
  • Why can’t cosine similarity be applied directly to raw text, and how do you vectorize text for similarity computation?

At the end of the interview, I was asked about my aspirations and long-term goals in this domain.

Problem approach

Tip 1: Scenario-based ML problem-solving is heavily tested, especially when applying models to real business use cases.
Tip 2: Practice applying ML concepts to real-world business scenarios (like sales forecasting, recommendations, or sentiment analysis) instead of focusing only on theory.
Tip 3: Structure your answers clearly—define the problem, list key factors, propose an approach, and explain how you would evaluate the solution.

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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