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

Software Engineer

Fastenal
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3 rounds | 8 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
I am a electrical engineering undergraduate . I have done almost 500 ques on gfg and leetcode at time of my placement session and for core subjects referred to gate smashers youtube channel for OS and DBMS . and for oops used javatpoint
Application story
Fastenal came of our campus NIT- Allahabad for their drive. There was a offline test followed by offline interviews
Why selected/rejected for the role?
My both interview went fine. But i could have been better like i could have started from brute force and then moved on to better solution instead of directly hopping on solution.
Preparation
Duration: 8-9 months
Topics: Data structures and algorithmOSDBMSOOPS(c++)nodejs, js basis for project
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Have good grasp on DSA . Solve many questions 
Tip 2 : Prepare your project well
Tip 3 : Don't neglect core subjects like OS,DBMS,OOPS

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: every branch was allowed , above 7 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: Have at least 2 projects on resume
Tip 2: Mention coding achievments if any

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration150 mins
Interview date24 Aug 2022
Coding problem2

1. Shortest Palindrome

Moderate
24m average time
75% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Goldman SachsDunzoNsquare

You are given a string ‘STR’. Your task is to find the shortest palindrome that can be formed by adding characters in front of ‘STR’.

For example:
You are given ‘STR’ = “aabcd”. Then our answer will be “dcbaabcd”. We can form a palindrome by adding ‘d’, ‘c’, and ‘b’ in front of ‘STR’.
Problem approach

brute force ran only some test cases

Try solving now

2. Intersection of Two Linked Lists

Easy
25m average time
73% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Hewlett Packard EnterpriseSamsungIntuit

You are given two Singly Linked Lists of integers, which may have an intersection point.

Your task is to return the first intersection node. If there is no intersection, return NULL.


Example:-
The Linked Lists, where a1, a2, c1, c2, c3 is the first linked list and b1, b2, b3, c1, c2, c3 is the second linked list, merging at node c1.

alt.txt

Problem approach

standard question

Try solving now
02
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration40 mins
Interview date25 Feb 2023
Coding problem2

there were two rounds in total

1. House Robber

Moderate
26m average time
0/80
Asked in companies
SamsungAmazonQuikr

A thief wants to loot houses. He knows the amount of money in each house. He cannot loot two consecutive houses. Find the maximum amount of money he can loot.

Problem approach

Went from brute force then suggested a better approach and coded it

Try solving now

2. First non repeating character

Easy
15m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
HCL TechnologiesWells FargoAmazon

Ninja is now bored with numbers and is now playing with characters but hates when he gets repeated characters. Ninja is provided a string, and he wants to return the first unique character in the string.The string will contain characters only from the English alphabet set, i.e., ('A' - 'Z') and ('a' - 'z'). If there is no non-repeating character, print the first character of the string. If there is no non-repeating character, return the first character of the string.

Problem approach

used a map to store the occureneces of character and when iterating through string checking if it is present or not.

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration40 mins
Interview date25 Feb 2023
Coding problem4

1. Project based Questions

Discussion on my project and my contribution in it

2. DBMS Questions

Why MongoDB is used , SQL vs NoSQL database , cases where which is preferred

3. Technical Question

Out of the features i mentioned he ask how i implemented search feature( it was using mongodb regex exp and reacts hooks to fetch update the search item)

4. HR Questions

Some HR ques like why fastenal , what are your career aspirations

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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