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

SDE - 1

Provakil

2 rounds | 2 Coding problems

Anonymous

Fresher | Aug 2025

Rejected

Interview preparation journey

Application story

Provakil visited our campus and contacted the RGUKT, Basar placement cell for recruitment. Through them, we received a notice regarding the Software Development Engineer role. After seeing the notice, I applied for the position and appeared for the company’s assessment test, which included aptitude, Python, SQL, and DBMS. I successfully cleared the test and advanced to first technical interview round, where I solved dynamic programming problems. Although I couldn’t fully optimize one of the given problems, the experience greatly enhanced my technical understanding and interview preparation skills.

Why selected/rejected for the role?

I got rejected in the first technical round of the Provakil campus drive. During this round, I was given two programming problems to solve. I successfully solved the first one, but I couldn’t fully optimize the second one within the given time. Since optimization and efficiency were key evaluation criteria, this affected my overall performance, leading to my rejection.

Preparation

Duration: 3 months

Topics: SQL, JavaScript, Java, Data Structures, MERN stack , DBMS, Aptitude, Python

Tip

Tip 1: Practice at least 250 coding questions on online coding platforms.
Tip 2: Work on at least 2–3 full-stack or domain-based projects to strengthen practical knowledge.
Tip 3: Revise core concepts of Data Structures, DBMS, and OOPs regularly and attempt mock interviews.

Application process

Where: Campus

Eligibility: No active backlogs, Above 7 CGPA, (Salary Package: 5 LPA)

Resume tip

Tip 1: Highlight strong programming skills in Python, SQL, and DBMS, as they are key areas tested by Provakil.
Tip 2: Include projects or internships that demonstrate problem-solving, backend development, or database management experience.

Interview rounds

Round

Medium

Online Coding Interview

Duration40 minutes

Interview date19 Aug 2025

Coding problem0

The online assessment consisted of 100 MCQs covering Aptitude, Python Programming, DBMS, and DSA.

Round

Medium

Video Call

Duration50 minutes

Interview date19 Aug 2025

Coding problem2

This round lasted for about 50 minutes. It mainly focused on Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) and DBMS concepts. The interviewer asked problem-solving questions related to dynamic programming and a few conceptual questions from DBMS. The round aimed to assess logical thinking, coding ability, and understanding of core computer science fundamentals.

1. Subsequences of String

Moderate

15m average time

85% success

0/80

Asked in companies

You are given a string 'STR' containing lowercase English letters from a to z inclusive. Your task is to find all non-empty possible subsequences of 'STR'.

A Subsequence of a string is the one which is generated by deleting 0 or more letters from the string and keeping the rest of the letters in the same order.

Problem approach

The algorithm to find all subsequences of a string works using binary representation. For a string of length n, there are 2ⁿ possible subsequences. Each subsequence can be represented by a binary number, where each bit tells whether to include (1) or skip (0) a character. We go through all numbers from 0 to 2ⁿ − 1. For each number, we check its bits — if a bit is 1, we add that character to the subsequence; if it’s 0, we skip it. After checking all bits, the collected characters form one subsequence, which we then print.

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2. Convert Prefix to Postfix

Moderate

20m average time

90% success

0/80

Asked in company

You are given a string ‘s’ of size ’n’, representing the prefix form of a valid mathematical expression.

Your task is to find out its corresponding postfix expression.

The expected time and space complexity is O(n) and O(n), where ‘n’ is the size of the string ‘s’.

Note:

The only operators used in the expressions are ‘+’, ‘-’, ‘*’, ‘/’.

Example:

Input: ‘n’ = 5, ‘s’ = “/A+BC”

Output: ABC+/

Explanation: For ‘s’ = “/A+BC”, the correct postfix expression is “ABC+/”.

Problem approach

To convert a prefix expression to postfix, scan the prefix string from right to left. Keep a stack to store operands. Whenever you see an operand, push it onto the stack. When you see an operator, pop the top two operands from the stack, combine them in the order operand1 + operand2 + operator (this forms the postfix of that subexpression), and push this combined string back onto the stack. Continue this until the entire prefix expression is processed. In the end, the stack will contain exactly one element, which is the final postfix expression.

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