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
Hi I'm Vamshi, and I'm an SDE intern at IBM right now. It was difficult for me to overcome the barrier of solving a problem without first seeing the solution when I first started my B.Tech degree because I had no prior experience with coding or programming languages. At this point of time I decided to learn coding skills and I have followed several YouTube tutorials , but I could not gain much from it. At this point of time I took a python and DSA course from coding ninjas , really this helped me a lot in improving my skills. However, as time went on, I continued to practice DSA as much as I could. After my first year, I began to actually prepare for the DSA and learned the fundamentals of problem solving. Later, with practice, I was able to solve issues much more quickly, and I can honestly say that only the "DSA" helped me pass IBM.I applied for an off-campus pool drive, got past the coding tests, and then had an interview.
Application story
IBM held a pool drive for all the colleges in South India, and our college forwarded the URL to apply. Consequently, there were two coding rounds one is the hacker rank based which was an online round and the other is technical interview. Once you make it through these rounds, you are Selected
Why selected/rejected for the role?
They assessed my problem-solving abilities in the first two rounds of the interview process. I had a strong understanding of DSA and was interested in full stack development. I completed some excellent projects in this area that enabled me to demonstrate my abilities to the interviewers.
Preparation
Duration: 4 months
Topics: Python, Java, Data Structures, SQL, OOPS
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Solve lots of problems in different platforms that are available this helps you to improve your problem solving skills.
Tip 2 : Brush up on your technical skills, review the fundamental concepts and technologies before your interview.
Tip 3 : Demonstrate Confidence and Enthusiasm, and have a great knowledge on the projects you have done.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: Above 7 CGPA or 65% in Graduation.
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : Ensure that your resume is easy to read and understand. Use clear headings, bullet points, and concise sentences to present your information.
Tip 2 : Instead of simply listing your job responsibilities, focus on quantifiable achievements and results. Highlight specific accomplishments and their impact on the organization.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration60 minutes
Interview date15 Jun 2022
Coding problem2

There were just two coding questions, in which one is easy and other is medium and there were also 5 mcqs from Data structures.

1. Maximum Difference in Positions

Moderate
30m average time
70% success
0/80
Asked in companies
SamsungeBayIBM

There are ‘N’ students sitting in a row each having some marks that they have obtained in the previous examinations. You have to find the maximum difference in the position of two students such that the second student has marks greater or equal to the first student. Formerly, You have to find the maximum value of ‘j’ - ‘i’ such that ‘i’ < ‘j’ and arr[ i ] <= arr[ j ].

Note:

Return 0, if there are no such two students present.
Try solving now

2. Longest Palindromic Substring

Moderate
20m average time
80% success
0/80
Asked in companies
MathworksLivekeeping (An IndiaMART Company)Goldman Sachs

You are given a string 'str' of length 'N'.


Your task is to return the longest palindromic substring. If there are multiple strings, return any.


A substring is a contiguous segment of a string.


For example :
str = "ababc"

The longest palindromic substring of "ababc" is "aba", since "aba" is a palindrome and it is the longest substring of length 3 which is a palindrome. 

There is another palindromic substring of length 3 is "bab". Since starting index of "aba" is less than "bab", so "aba" is the answer.
Try solving now
02
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration90 Minutes
Interview date30 Jul 2022
Coding problem2

The exam was conducted in the afternoon in the exam center . It was really a good experience . The questions were challenging and interesting.

1. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

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

Given a string input of length n, find the length of the longest substring without repeating characters i.e return a substring that does not have any repeating characters.

Substring is the continuous sub-part of the string formed by removing zero or more characters from both ends.

Try solving now

2. K Largest Element

Moderate
10m average time
90% success
0/80
Asked in companies
AmazonWalmartPayPal

You are given an unsorted array containing ‘N’ integers. You need to find ‘K’ largest elements from the given array. Also, you need to return the elements in non-decreasing order.

Try solving now
03
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration20 Minutes
Interview date24 Aug 2022
Coding problem1

1. Left Rotations of An Array

Moderate
10m average time
90% success
0/80
Asked in companies
IBMThought WorksIBM

You are given an array consisting of 'N' elements and you need to perform 'Q' queries on the given array. Each query consists of an integer which tells the number of elements by which you need to left rotate the given array. For each query return the final array obtained after performing the left rotations.

Note:

Perform each query on the original array only i.e. every output should be according to the original order of elements.

Example:

Let the array be [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and the queries be {2, 4, 1}. For every query, we’ll perform the required number of left rotations on the array.

For the first query, rotate the given array to the left by 2 elements, so the resultant array is: [3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2].

For the second query, rotate the given array to the left by 4 elements, so the resultant array is: [5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4].

For the third query, rotate the given array to the left by 1 element, so the resultant array is: [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1].
Try solving now

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?

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