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

SDE - 1

Compass Group
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3 rounds | 6 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 6 Months
Topics: Data Structures, CS Fundamentals, Projects, Resume
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Practice enough medium and hard-level questions from online platforms
Tip 2 : Work on your CS fundamentals really well.
Tip 3 : Prepare your projects thoroughly.

Application process
Where: Linkedin
Eligibility:
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : If you have DSA/CP achievements do mention them.
Tip 2 : Mention at least 2 good projects in your resume.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration45 minutes
Interview date15 Nov 2020
Coding problem2

It was a problem-solving round taken by a third-party interviewing company named Karat.

1. Word Search - l

Moderate
30m average time
60% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Morgan StanleyShareChatSprinklr

You are given a 2D board('N' rows and 'M' columns) of characters and a string 'word'.


Your task is to return true if the given word exists in the grid, else return false. The word can be constructed from letters of sequentially adjacent cells, where adjacent cells are horizontally or vertically neighboring.


Note:
The same letter cell should not be used more than once.
For Example:
For a given word “design” and the given 2D board 
[[q’, ‘v’, ‘m’, ‘h’],
 [‘d’, ‘e’, ‘s’, ‘i’],
 [‘d’, ‘g’, ‘f’, ‘g’],
 [‘e’, ‘c’, ‘p’, ‘n’]]

The word design can be formed by sequentially adjacent cells as shown by the highlighted color in the 2nd row and last column.

board

Problem approach

This was a straightforward DFS problem solved by maintaining a visited set.

Try solving now

2. Reverse A LL

Moderate
30m average time
65% success
0/80
Asked in companies
AdobeHCL TechnologiesMicrosoft

Ninjas is practicing problems on the linked list. He came across a problem in which he has given a linked list of ‘N’ nodes and two integers, ‘LOW’ and ‘HIGH’. He has to return the linked list ‘HEAD’ after reversing the nodes between ‘LOW’ and ‘HIGH’, including the nodes at positions ‘LOW’ and ‘HIGH’.

Problem approach

Take two pointers pointing to the first and the last node respectively. Traverse the linked list using both pointers in the alternate direction and swap the links of the nodes at each step.

Try solving now
02
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration45 minutes
Interview date17 Jun 2020
Coding problem1

It was a Problem Solving Round (DSA based)

1. Largest Island

Moderate
30m average time
90% success
0/80
Asked in companies
OYOAmazonIBM

You are given two integers 'n' and 'm', the dimensions of a grid. The coordinates are from (0, 0) to (n - 1, m - 1).


The grid can only have values 0 and 1.


The value is 0 if there is water and 1 if there is land.


An island is a group of ‘1’s such that every ‘1’ has at least another ‘1’ sharing a common edge.


You are given an array 'queries' of size 'q'.


Each element in 'queries' contains two integers 'x' and 'y', referring to the coordinates in the grid.


Initially, the grid is filled with 0, which means only water and no land.


At each query, the value of 'grid' at (x, y) becomes 1, which means it becomes land.


Find out, after each query, the number of islands in the grid.


Example :
Input: 'n' = 3, 'm' = 4
'queries' = [[1, 1], [1, 2], [2, 3]]

Output: [1, 1, 2]

Explanation:

Initially, the grid was:
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0

After query (1, 1):
0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 0 0
There is one island having land (1, 1).

After query (1, 2):
0 0 0 0
0 1 1 0
0 0 0 0
Since (1, 1) and (1, 2) share a common edge, they form one island. So there is one island having lands (1, 1) and (1, 2).

After query (2, 3):
0 0 0 0
0 1 1 0
0 0 0 1
Now there are two islands, one having lands (1, 1) and (1, 2), and another having land (2, 3).

So the number of islands after each query is [1, 1, 2].
Problem approach

DFS using visited set.

Try solving now
03
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration60 minutes
Interview date18 Jun 2022
Coding problem3

This round mainly revolved around Project and CS fundamentals and System design.

1. DBMS

Pros and cons of indexing in a database.

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Prepare CS fundamentals.
Tip 2 : Prepare short notes on each topic.

2. System Design

  • What is the difference between Write-back and write-through cache? Which one should be preferred?
Problem approach

Tip 1 : Read about caching and its implementation

3. System Design

Database design and SQL queries of Quora-based platform.

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Practice ER diagram.
Tip 2 : Practice SQL queries.

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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