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

SDE - Intern

IBM
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3 rounds | 5 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
I was very glad when I came to know that I had cracked the opportunity at IBM as an Intern/Project Trainee. To achieve this, I went through two rounds after my resume was shortlisted: a coding round and a technical interview. The experience of both rounds was amazing. In the coding round, there was a question of medium to high difficulty level with multiple test cases. After successfully clearing the coding round, I received a call to schedule the interview. The focus of the interview was primarily on assessing my skills and solving some medium-level questions within the given timeframe. After this round, I received a call informing me that I had cleared the interview and asking when I would like to join. Now, it has been more than five months working with IBM, and I still enjoy coming to the office daily and working with my colleagues.
Application story
It was a pretty smooth experience. I just needed to apply with all the required information, and upon getting my resume shortlisted, I received a call for the further process.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I possess all the qualities required for the job role and performed exceptionally well in both the coding and interview rounds.
Preparation
Duration: 2 Months
Topics: Data Structures, Dynamic Programming, OOPS, Pointers, Algorithms, Time Complexity
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Consistently solve DSA problems.

Tip 2: Try to solve problems with the best time complexity.

Application process
Where: Other
Eligibility: No Active Backlog
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: Mention your projects and explain them briefly.
Tip 2: Mention your skills with star ratings.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Online Coding Test
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date11 Jun 2022
Coding problem2

The timing was given after asking me about the time I would be available.

1. Jump Game

Moderate
15m average time
85% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Deutsche BankGoldman SachsAmazon

You have been given an array 'ARR' of ‘N’ integers. You have to return the minimum number of jumps needed to reach the last index of the array i.e ‘N - 1’.


From index ‘i’, we can jump to an index ‘i + k’ such that 1<= ‘k’ <= ARR[i] .


'ARR[i]' represents the maximum distance you can jump from the current index.


If it is not possible to reach the last index, return -1.


Note:
Consider 0-based indexing.
Example:
Consider the array 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 
We can Jump from index 0 to index 1
Then we jump from index 1 to index 2
Then finally make a jump of 3 to reach index N-1

There is also another path where
We can Jump from index 0 to index 1
Then we jump from index 1 to index 3
Then finally make a jump of 2 to reach index N-1

So multiple paths may exist but we need to return the minimum number of jumps in a path to end which here is 3.
Try solving now

2. Pascal's Triangle

Easy
20m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
GrabIBMInca Infotech Technologies Private Limited

You are given an integer N. Your task is to return a 2-D ArrayList containing the pascal’s triangle till the row N.

A Pascal's triangle is a triangular array constructed by summing adjacent elements in preceding rows. Pascal's triangle contains the values of the binomial coefficient. For example in the figure below.

For example, given integer N= 4 then you have to print.

1  
1 1 
1 2 1 
1 3 3 1

Here for the third row, you will see that the second element is the summation of the above two-row elements i.e. 2=1+1, and similarly for row three 3 = 1+2 and 3 = 1+2.
Try solving now
02
Round
Hard
Video Call
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date21 Jun 2022
Coding problem2

It was an interactive round where the interviewer asked me why I had taken a particular approach in the coding round. After that, I was asked about some projects and experience. Following this, I was given some DSA questions to solve.

1. NINJA ATTACK

Moderate
35m average time
65% success
0/80
Asked in company
IBM

Ninja has built his team of ninjas to fight with the enemies in his city. Ninja made a plan of attacking all his enemies. In his team, every ninja has his own range of hitting and they had secretly got the hitting range of their enemies as well. So Ninja allowed some swaps between his ninjas so that they can minimize the hamming distance that is the number of positions where the hitting range of enemies and ninjas are different.

Your task is to write a code that can minimize the hamming distance. You are being provided with two arrays ‘ninja’ and ‘enemies’ both of the same size and an array ‘allowedSwaps’ where each allowedSwaps[i] = [ ai, bi ] indicates that you are allowed to swap the elements at index ai and index bi.

The Hamming distance of two arrays of the same length, ninja, and enemies, is the number of positions where the elements are different.

Example :

Consider the case ‘ninja’array is [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ], ‘enemies’array is [ 2, 1, 4, 5 ] and ‘allowedSwaps’ are  = [ [ 0, 1 ], [ 2, 3 ] ] so after swapping in best manner according to ‘allowedSwaps’ our ‘ninja’ array becomes [ 2, 1, 4, 3 ]. So minimum Hamming distance is ‘1’ as now there is only one different element as compared to ‘ninja’ and ‘enemies’ array index.
Note :
1. You are allowed to do as many swap operations on the ‘ninja’ array as you want but according to the ‘allowedSwap’ array.
2. You are not required to print anything explicitly. It has already been taken care of. Just implement the function.
Try solving now

2. Quick Sort

Moderate
10m average time
90% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Samsung R&D InstituteLenskart.comSamsung

You are given an array of integers. You need to sort the array in ascending order using quick sort.

Quick sort is a divide and conquer algorithm in which we choose a pivot point and partition the array into two parts i.e, left and right. The left part contains the numbers smaller than the pivot element and the right part contains the numbers larger than the pivot element. Then we recursively sort the left and right parts of the array.

Example:

Let the array = [ 4, 2, 1, 5, 3 ]
Let pivot to be the rightmost number.

example

After the 1st level partitioning the array will be { 2, 1, 3, 4, 5 } as 3 was the pivot. After 2nd level partitioning the array will be { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 } as 1 was the pivot for the left part and 5 was the pivot for the right part. Now our array is sorted and there is no need to divide it again.

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
HR Round
Duration20 Minutes
Interview date23 Jun 2022
Coding problem1

A feasible time was provided for this round, basically just to inform you that I have been selected and need to complete a mandatory English-based online test on their portal.

1. Basic HR Questions

Tell me about yourself.
Why do you want to work for our company?
What are your greatest 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

How do you remove whitespace from the start of a string?

Choose another skill to practice
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