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

SDE - 1

Samsung
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3 rounds | 5 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
I started coding in 2nd semester itself, I chose Java as my first language. Then after I got a good grip over DSA I started exploring web development and kept doing leetcode side by side
Application story
So Samsung came to my campus in mid november, they had a criteria of 7 CGPA and above. First round was coding test which had 3 questions easy - medium level. After that they had 2 interviews
Why selected/rejected for the role?
They had 2 interviews after which 16 students were selected for the job, I was one of them. Overall the interviews were pretty straight forward anybody who prepared well from the start could have cracked it.
Preparation
Duration: 6 months
Topics: Data Structures, OS, DMBS, Operating Systems, Computer Networks, LLD
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 :Start giving contests on platforms like codeforces, leetcode etc as soon as you get a basic understanding of DSA
Tip 2 : Keep studying CS fundamentals from the start itself
Tip 3 :Try doing Low Level Design problems as well

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 7 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1:Maintain a good cgpa 
Tip 2:Have atleast 3 projects in your resume

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration90 minutes
Interview date18 Nov 2021
Coding problem3

The test was in the evening in online mode, It had 3 questions of easy to medium type and 5 MCQs

1. Largest Distance Between Two Nodes In A Tree

Moderate
15m average time
85% success
0/80
Asked in companies
SamsungInnovaccerMicrosoft

You are given an arbitrary unweighted rooted tree which consists of N nodes, 0 to N - 1. Your task is to find the largest distance between two nodes in the tree.

The distance between two nodes is the number of edges in a path between the nodes (there will always be a unique path between any pair of nodes since it is a tree).

Note :
Use zero-based indexing for the nodes.

The tree is always rooted at 0.
Problem approach

Simple BFS worked

Try solving now

2. Middle Of Linked List

Easy
20m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
SamsungGoldman SachsOracle

Given a singly linked list of 'N' nodes. The objective is to determine the middle node of a singly linked list. However, if the list has an even number of nodes, we return the second middle node.

Note:
1. If the list is empty, the function immediately returns None because there is no middle node to find.
2. If the list has only one node, then the only node in the list is trivially the middle node, and the function returns that node.
Try solving now

3. Rat In A Maze

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Samsung R&D InstituteDeutsche BankMakeMyTrip

You are given a starting position for a rat which is stuck in a maze at an initial point (0, 0) (the maze can be thought of as a 2-dimensional plane). The maze would be given in the form of a square matrix of order 'N' * 'N' where the cells with value 0 represent the maze’s blocked locations while value 1 is the open/available path that the rat can take to reach its destination. The rat's destination is at ('N' - 1, 'N' - 1). Your task is to find all the possible paths that the rat can take to reach from source to destination in the maze. The possible directions that it can take to move in the maze are 'U'(up) i.e. (x, y - 1) , 'D'(down) i.e. (x, y + 1) , 'L' (left) i.e. (x - 1, y), 'R' (right) i.e. (x + 1, y).

Note:
Here, sorted paths mean that the expected output should be in alphabetical order.
For Example:
Given a square matrix of size 4*4 (i.e. here 'N' = 4):
1 0 0 0
1 1 0 0
1 1 0 0
0 1 1 1 
Expected Output:
DDRDRR DRDDRR 
i.e. Path-1: DDRDRR and Path-2: DRDDRR

The rat can reach the destination at (3, 3) from (0, 0) by two paths, i.e. DRDDRR and DDRDRR when printed in sorted order, we get DDRDRR DRDDRR.
Try solving now
02
Round
Medium
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date23 Nov 2021
Coding problem1

Introduction in detail including all the details about project ,courses in b-tech semester and hobbies 
As my projects are related to machine learning and Natural Language processing ,and the interviewer is also working on same tech stack so he was quite interested in the project implementation 
Asked briefly through my pervious Internship details and work
And then Given a dsa problem and asked in which language your comfortable and given a question to solve

1. Square Root of a number

Easy
15m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
SamsungAmazonMicrosoft

You are given a positive integer ‘n’.


Your task is to find and return its square root. If ‘n’ is not a perfect square, then return the floor value of sqrt(n).


Example:
Input: ‘n’ = 7

Output: 2

Explanation:
The square root of the number 7 lies between 2 and 3, so the floor value is 2.


Problem approach

So he asked me to explain all approaches from brute force to the optimal solution, which he was expecting me to do in O(logn), and use different methods for each implementations(different methods in same code).

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date23 Nov 2021
Coding problem1

It had basic DSA and some HR questions

1. N Queens

Hard
55m average time
35% success
0/120
Asked in companies
AmazonAdobeIntuit

You are given an integer 'N'. For a given 'N' x 'N' chessboard, find a way to place 'N' queens such that no queen can attack any other queen on the chessboard.

A queen can be killed when it lies in the same row, or same column, or the same diagonal of any of the other queens. You have to print all such configurations.

Problem approach

I solved it using backtracking

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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