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

SDE - Intern

Caterpillar Inc
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4 rounds | 16 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
Smooth placement round experience with well-constructed questions and coding challenges. Please ensure to practice all the essential coding questions. This will help you effectively address the questions asked during the placement process.
Application story
It was on campus placements and we had different rounds. All the final-year students had a chance to attend the first round. They tested all our basics on data structures and OOP concepts.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I did not get selected for this role because of some flaws on my side. Like I got a bit scared during the coding round and messed up, I did not tell them the solutions with less time complexity, instead told them the harder way also this was my first face-to-face interview, got a bit scared but went till the last round.
Preparation
Duration: 5-6 Months
Topics: Data Structures, Aptitude, OOPS, Machine Learning, Statistics, Competitive Programming
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Go through the questions in Striver's sheet for coding. 

Tip 2: Be patient and calm. This process is time and energy-consuming, but I'm sure you can get through it.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: No criteria
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: Your projects should be related to the current emerging topics. 
Tip 2: Be prepared with the areas of interest that you put in your resume.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration45 minutes
Interview date5 Aug 2022
Coding problem8

Aptitude, Data Structures, SQL

1. How Many Times Older: A Father-Son Age Conundrum

The father is three times older than his son Rohit. After 8 years, he will be two and a half times Rohit's age. After another 8 years, how many times will he be Rohit's age?

Problem approach

Let Rohit's present age be x years.
Then, the father's present age
=(x+3x)years
=4xyears
(4x+8)=52(x+8)
⇒8x+16=5x+40
⇒3x=24
⇒x=8
Hence, required times=4x+16x+16 
=4824
=2

2. Range of Values for int Datatype in C

What is the range of values that can be stored by int datatype in C? (Link)

3. What will be the output of the following code snippet?

#include 
int main() {
int a = 3, b = 5;
int t = a;
a = b;
b = t;
printf("%d %d", a, b);
return 0;
}

4. Give the output

Integer p, q, r
Set p = 0, q = 4, r = 3
If(p || r)
If(p && r)
p = p &r
End If
p = pr
End If
Print p + q + r

5. Quantitative

From 2004 to 2005, the sales of pens decreased by 80%. If the sales in 2006 were the same as in 2004, how much percentage of the sales increased from 2005 to 2006?

6. What will be the output of the following code snippet?

class Name: 
def __init__(javatpoint): 
javajavatpoint = java 
name1=Name("ABC") 
name2=name1

Options :
1. It will throw the error as multiple references to the same object is not possible
2. id(name1) and id(name2) will have same value
3. Both name1 and name2 will have reference to two different objects of class Name
4. All of the above

7. Pointer Notation

How is the 2nd element in an array accessed based on pointer notation? (Link)

Problem approach

ANS : *(a+2)

8. Insertion and Deletion

Which data structures allow insertion and deletion from both ends? (Link)

Problem approach

ANS :Deque

02
Round
Medium
Online Coding Test
Duration1 hour 30 minutes
Interview date8 Aug 2022
Coding problem4

Even if you cannot pass all test cases make sure your code compiles completely, they also give partial scores based on implementation logic. This was also in Amcat so time is of the essence.

1. Maximum Distance Between Repeated Elements

Easy
19m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Emevest TechnologiesCaterpillar Inc

Given an array with repeated elements, the task is to find the maximum distance between two occurrences of an element.

Problem approach

Use hashing to traverse the input array and store the first occurrence in a hash map. For every Next occurrence, the difference and the first index should be stored. If the difference is more than the result so far, then update the result.

Try solving now

2. Find Extra Character in String

Moderate
0/80
Asked in companies
UberCaterpillar Inc

Given two strings find the extra character in the first string.

Problem approach

TIP: even if you cannot pass all test cases make sure your code compiles completely, they also give partial scores based on implementation logic. This was also in Amcat so time is of the essence.

Try solving now

3. SQL

Write a query to extract the username(characters before @ symbol) from the Email_ID column.

Problem approach

ANS :SELECT SUBSTR(Email_ID, 1, INSTR(Email_ID, '@') - 1) FROM STUDENT;

4. Remove Nth Node from End of Linked List

Moderate
15m average time
95% success
0/80
Asked in companies
WalmartWells FargoChegg Inc.

Given the head of a linked list, remove the nth node from the end of the list and return its head.

Problem approach

Take two dummy nodes, whoever’s next will be pointing to the head.
Take another node to store the head, initially, it's a dummy node(start), and the next node will be pointing to the head. The reason why we are using this extra dummy node is that there is an edge case. If the node is equal to the length of the LinkedList, then this slow will point to slow’s next→ next. And we can say our dummy start node will be broken and will be connected to the slow next→ next.

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
Group Discussion
Duration2 hours
Interview date11 Aug 2022
Coding problem0

It was an easy group discussion with the buzzing topics. We were divided into groups and each group had 8 people and 2 judges to mark us.

04
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration1 hour
Interview date22 Aug 2022
Coding problem4

The physical interview was mostly based on resumes and it well as the interviewers were fun and chill, They also created a peaceful environment.

1. Finding Top 3 Maximum Numbers in a List with Single Iteration

Easy
10m average time
90% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Morgan StanleyAmazonD.E.Shaw

Given a list, find 3 maximum numbers by iterating the list only once.

Try solving now

2. Summing Departmental Salaries

Find the sum of salaries department-wise and fetch them only if their sum is above a particular amount (use having).

3. Resume based Questions

What do u know about sci-kit-learn?
Explain TF-IDF.
What is Gradient Boost and how does it boost the weak learners?

4. HR Questions

What is COVID’s impact on you?
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
What was the one project that you did and you were proud of?

Here's your problem of the day

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

Skill covered: Programming

What is recursion?

Choose another skill to practice
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