Samsung interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview
SDE - Intern
Samsung
3 rounds | 5 Coding
problems
Selected Interview preparation journey
Preparation
Duration: 3 months
Topics: Data Structures and Algorithms, Object-Oriented Programming, Operating Systems, Competitive Programming, Computer Networks
Tip 1 : Competitive programming plays a major role when you are appearing for coding rounds as a fresher. In the coding rounds, you won't get direct problems copied from Geeksforgeeks or Leetcode. You would be required to use your logical thinking to go ahead in the process. This is where competitive programming helps.
Tip 2 : Coding rounds are all about Coding + Timing. Most people fail to excel due to the pressure of a timer ticking on your head. So, instead of just solving problems, try to participate in timed contests. This will help you be used to the pressure of the timer.
Tip 3 : Many big companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and even Google expect you to be good at standard problems. So, once you are done with coding round by your logical skills and competitive programming, you must be well versed with some standard problems in order to excel.
Tip 4 : Patience is the key to success. The internships and placements are a little luck-based. You may fail despite being an amazing programmer due to the pressure of situations. It's important to give yourself time, stay calm, and learn from your mistakes.
Tip 5 : Do at least 1 good project for internship and 2 good projects for placement interviews.
Tip 6 : Your practice is not defined by the number of problems you solve. It is defined by how you solve the problem. Memorizing 500 problems may not get you a job. But understanding the concept and DSA behind 200 problems may make you excel and help you get a job at Google.
Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 7+ CGPA
Tip 1 : Make it short, crisp, and simple. It is always good to have a 1 pager resume.
Tip 2 : Resume must comprise of the following: Educational Qualifications, Technical skills, Projects, Work experience (if any), Achievements. Other than this, you may include some extra co-curricular achievements.
Tip 3 : Keep a balance in your resume. A resume having 6-7 projects and no DSA skills are not good. Similarly, a resume full of competitive programming achievements is not good. A resume must have both in a balanced way. 3-4 projects is more than sufficient.
Interview rounds
01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration180 minutes
Interview date2 Aug 2019
Coding problem2
The round had 3 problems to solve. There were multiple sets and each candidate had a different set of problems to solve.
- Timing: Afternoon (2pm - 5 pm)
- Environment: In a college environment with invigilators present to avoid any bad practices.
1. Find Path
Hard
10m average time
90% success
0/120
Asked in companies
You are given a tree with 'N' nodes with 'N' - 1 distinct edge. You are also given two nodes 'N1' and 'N2'. You have to find and print the shortest path between 'N1' and 'N2'.
A tree data structure is a nonlinear hierarchical data structure that consists of nodes connected by edges.
Note
1. There is no cycle present in a tree.
2. All values in the tree are unique.
3. Both nodes will always exist in the tree.
Problem approach
Step 1: Find the LCA of the two given nodes A and B.
Step 2: Find the path from LCA to node A.
Step 3: Find the path from LCA to node B.
Step 4: Use the step 2 and 3 to compute the final answer.
2. Count Leaf Nodes
Easy
10m average time
90% success
0/40
Asked in companies
You are given a Binary tree. You have to count and return the number of leaf nodes present in it.
A binary tree is a tree data structure in which each node has at most two children, which are referred to as the left child and the right child
A node is a leaf node if both left and right child nodes of it are NULL.
Problem approach
I solved the problem using a recursive approach.
Step 1: Traversed the tree using recursion.
Step 2: If the node is not null, checked whether the node is a leaf node or not.
Step 3: Kept the count of leave nodes.
02
Round
Medium
Coding Test - Pen and paper
Duration60 minutes
Interview date12 Aug 2019
Coding problem1
It was a pen and a paper round. We were required to solve a problem with pen and paper. Also, we were not allowed to use an inbuilt data structure and algorithm.
1. Shortest Path in a Binary Maze
Moderate
30m average time
75% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Given a maze in the form of a binary rectangular matrix of size M*N, where each element can either be 0 or 1, the task is to find the length of the shortest path in a maze from a given source cell to a destination cell.
The path can only be created out of a cell if its value is 1 and at any given moment, we can only move one step in one of the four directions. The valid moves are:
Up: (x, y) -> (x - 1, y)
Left: (x, y) -> (x, y - 1)
Down: (x, y) -> (x + 1, y)
Right: (x, y) -> (x, y + 1)
If there is no path from a given source cell to a destination cell, return -1.
For example :
consider the binary matrix below. If source = (0, 0) and destination = (3, 4), the shortest path from source to destination has length 11.
Problem approach
I solved the problem using a BFS approach to find the shortest path from source to destination, with each node (i, j) having 4 edges at most (i-1, j), (i+1, j), (i, j-1), and (i, j+1).
03
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration20 minutes
Interview date12 Aug 2019
Coding problem2
It was the first and only face to face interview. The round was majorly about Data structures and algorithms. Some people were also asked some standard puzzles.
1. Power of Two
Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
You have been given an integer 'N'.
Your task is to return true if it is a power of two. Otherwise, return false.
An integer 'N' is a power of two, if it can be expressed as 2 ^ 'K' where 'K' is an integer.
For example:
'N' = 4,
4 can be represented as 2^2. So, 4 is the power of two, and hence true is our answer.
Problem approach
I used the properties of bitwise and operator to solve the problem in O(1) time complexity.
2. Reverse the String
Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
You are given a string 'STR'. The string contains [a-z] [A-Z] [0-9] [special characters]. You have to find the reverse of the string.
For example:
If the given string is: STR = "abcde". You have to print the string "edcba".
follow up:
Try to solve the problem in O(1) space complexity.
Problem approach
1. Reverse the entire string.
2. Reverse each and every word from the beginning.
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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