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

SDE - 1

Cognizant
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3 rounds | 9 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
It was a smooth experience for me, there were basically 3 rounds ( online test, technical interview and HR interview) then after that the process was completed
Application story
I applied to it through campus placement then I gave coding test and after clearing it, I gave interview.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I got selected for this role because I performed good in coding test and I was pretty confident in coding. I gave all the answers to the interview and said no to the topics I wasn't aware of.
Preparation
Duration: 3 months
Topics: OOPS, DBMS, Computer Networks, System Design, Operating systems, Dynamic Programming , Data Structures :- Trees and Graphs
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Edit your resume with respective to the role and company, it works a lot of time
Tip 2: Be Confident even if you are not sure about the thing you are facing, they will see how you react to the situation you are not sure of.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 7.0 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 - Initially spend some time on DSA
Tip 2 - Do at least 2 projects with a prime focus on knowing every detail and the tech stack.
Tip 3 - Participate in coding challenges on coding platforms.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration90 minutes
Interview date1 Oct 2022
Coding problem4

1. Check If The String Is A Palindrome

Easy
10m average time
90% success
0/40
Asked in companies
SamsungSterlite Technologies LimitedGrab

You are given a string 'S'. Your task is to check whether the string is palindrome or not. For checking palindrome, consider alphabets and numbers only and ignore the symbols and whitespaces.

Note :

String 'S' is NOT case sensitive.

Example :

Let S = “c1 O$d@eeD o1c”.
If we ignore the special characters, whitespaces and convert all uppercase letters to lowercase, we get S = “c1odeedo1c”, which is a palindrome. Hence, the given string is also a palindrome.
Problem approach

int s = 0;
int e = len-1;
while(s < e){
if(str[s] != str[e]) return false;
s++;
e--;
}
return true;

Try solving now

2. Remove Duplicates

Easy
15m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
CIS - Cyber InfrastructureTata Consultancy Services (TCS)PayPal

Ninja is playing with numbers but hates when he gets duplicate numbers. Ninja is provided an array, and he wants to remove all duplicate elements and return the array, but he has to maintain the order in which the elements were supplied to him.

Problem approach

import java.util.*;

class GFG {

static void removeDuplicate(char str[], int n)
{
// Create a set using String characters
// excluding '\0'
HashSet s = new LinkedHashSet<>(n - 1);
// HashSet doesn't allow repetition of elements
for (char x : str)
s.add(x);

// Print content of the set
for (char x : s)
System.out.print(x);
}

// Driver code
public static void main(String[] args)
{
char str[] = "geeksforgeeks".toCharArray();
int n = str.length;

removeDuplicate(str, n);
}
}

Try solving now

3. Puzzle

How much time will it take for an amount of Rs. 450 to yield Rs. 81 as interest at 4.5% per annum of simple interest?

Problem approach

4 years

4. Predict the output

void solve() {
  int a[] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
  int sum = 0;
  for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
      if(i % 2 == 0) {
          sum += a[i];
      }
  }
  cout << sum << endl;
}

Problem approach

Ans:- 9

02
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration45 minutes
Interview date2 Dec 2022
Coding problem4

The second round was the Technical Interview. It was conducted on Superset platform

1. Data Structure Question

What is Linked List and Its types? (Learn)

2. Cycle Detection in a Singly Linked List

Moderate
15m average time
80% success
0/80
Asked in companies
InformaticaUrban Company (UrbanClap)PhonePe

You are given a Singly Linked List of integers. Return true if it has a cycle, else return false.


A cycle occurs when a node's next points back to a previous node in the list.


Example:
In the given linked list, there is a cycle, hence we return true.

Sample Example 1

Try solving now

3. Technical Question

Explain Software Development life cycle. (Learn)

4. SQL Question

Family Structure. (Practice)

03
Round
Easy
HR Round
Duration15 minutes
Interview date15 Dec 2022
Coding problem1

Basic Hr questions were asked.

1. Basic HR Questions

Introduce yourself.
Where do you see yourself after 5 years?
Strengths and weaknesses.

Here's your problem of the day

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

Skill covered: Programming

To make an AI less repetitive in a long paragraph, you should increase:

Choose another skill to practice
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