Software Engineer Societe Generale interview experience

Interview rounds

Round

Medium

Online Coding Interview

Duration90 minutes

Interview date25 Jul 2020

Coding problem3

The test start time validity was between 06:00 PM and 7:00 PM.
It was on the HirePro platform(link provided by company).
The test was proctored which means that we had to keep our Microphone and Web Cam on at all times and never exit the test window.

1. Spiral Matrix

Easy

15m average time

80% success

0/40

Asked in companies

You are given a 2-D array 'MATRIX' of dimensions N x M, of integers. You need to return the spiral path of the matrix.

Example Of Spiral Path:

Problem approach

Step 1 : I solved the problem using 4 for loops inside a while loop which ran till the matrix was filled.
Step 2 : Each of the for loops were for a particular direction starting from left to right, top to bottom, right to left and bottom to top.
Step 3 : I shifted the boundary of the loops after each traversal i.e incrementing top, decrementing right, decrementing bottom and incrementing left respectively.

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2. Decimal to Octal Conversion

Easy

15m average time

90% success

0/40

Asked in companies

You are given a decimal number as input. You need to convert this number into its equivalent in the octal number system. The octal number system is the number system with a base value = 8.

A number system with base value = n means that all numbers, when written in this number system, will be represented with only digits from 0 to n-1. For example, the Binary number system has a base value = 2, so any number, when written in the binary system, will be represented using the digits 0 and 1 only.

Note:

The binary number system requires 2 digits (0-1), the Ternary number system requires 3 digits (0-2), the Octal number system requires 8 digits (0-7), and the decimal number system requires 10 digits (0-9) to represent any numeric value.

Problem approach

Step 1 : To convert decimal to binary, I used a while loop running till number > 0 wherein I divided number by 2 and stored the remainder at the beginning of an output string (initialized as empty).
Step 2 : To convert binary to octal, I first created a map between binary number and its equivalent octal ('000' -> '0' , '001' -> '1' and so on)
Step 3 : Then, from the left extracted one by one substrings of length 3 and added its corresponding octal code to the result.

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3. Cube of Matrix

Easy

20m average time

80% success

0/40

Asked in companies

Given an M x N sized 2D array 'MATRIX', return the (i * i + j * j) value for elements in which the sum of cube of digits of the element is equal to the element itself. Here, 'i' is the row number from ‘0’ to ‘M-1’, and 'j' is the column number from ‘0’ to ‘N-1’.

Note:

If no such number is present, return -1.

Problem approach

Step 1 : Create a function which returns true/false depending on whether the sum of cube of digits of a number is equal to the number itself.
Step 2 : Create a for loop inside another for loop to traverse through the matrix.
Step 3 : Pass each element of the matrix to the function and print it if the function returns true.

Try solving now

Round

Medium

Video Call

Duration60 minutes

Interview date30 Jul 2020

Coding problem1

The round was from 11 am to 12 pm, 4 days after the online test.
It was held over a video call on Skype.
We were instructed to use https://slate.skillenza.com/ as the coderpad.
This was a Technical Round.
The interviewer started by asking me to introduce myself. He then asked me some questions regarding Java programming. He asked me what is the use and advantages of HashMaps and how a HashMap is implemented internally in Java. He also asked me some OOPS question. He gave me the following code to solve and ended the session by asking me the details of an Android application I had mentioned on my resume.

1. Common elements between array of strings

Moderate

35m average time

70% success

0/80

Asked in companies

Given two 1-dimensional arrays containing strings of lowercase alphabets, print the elements that are common in both the arrays i.e. the strings that are present in both the arrays.

Note:

An element of one array can be mapped only to one element of the array. For example :

Array 1 = {“ab”, “dc”, “ab”, “ab”}
Array 2 = {“dc”, “ab”, “ab”} 

The common elements for the above example will be “dc”, “ab”, and “ab”.

Problem approach

Step 1 : Traverse through the first array and store its contents in a hashmap. If key (string) appears for the first time set corresponding value (count) as 1, else increment count.
Step 2 : Traverse through the second array. If an element from this array (key/string) is present in the hashmap print it and decrement its value (count) by 1.
Step 3 : If value (count) becomes 0 after decrementing for any key (string) remove it from the hashmap.

Note : Be careful while taking string inputs after integer input because the nextInt() method doesn't read the newline character of your input, so when you issue the command nextLine(), the Scanner finds the newline character and gives you that as a line.

Try solving now

Round

Medium

Video Call

Duration30 minutes

Interview date30 Jul 2020

Coding problem0

The timing of this round was from 2 pm to 2:30 pm, two hours after the previous round.
It was held over a video call on Skype.
This was a Technical Round.
The interviewer started by asking me to introduce myself. He then proceeded to ask me in detail about each of the experiences and projects mentioned in my resume.

He asked my why I chose to make that particular project, how I collaborated with my teammates and how the development progressed.

He asked me about my hackathon experience and about my research article.

He asked me about the kind of challenges I faced during my internship and how I handled them. He also asked me whether I was more interested in managerial or technical stuff.

He ended by asking whether I had any questions and I inquired about the measures the company was taking to tackle the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Round

Medium

Video Call

Duration30 minutes

Interview date30 Jul 2020

Coding problem1

The timing of this round was from 3:45 pm to 4:15 pm, one hour after the previous round.
It was held over a video call on Skype.
This was a Managerial Round.
The interviewer started with questions from DBMS.

Then He ended by asking me some questions about my projects.

1. Theory Questions

He asked me what ACID properties are and how they're important with examples.

He asked me to write an SQL query using the replace keyword because I had mentioned MySQL in my resume.

He then asked me about the stages in product development and what would be the role of a person handling each stage.

He also asked me a System Design question on creating a login/authentication system for a website and how I would make it user friendly for all kinds of users.

Round

Easy

Telephonic

Duration15 minutes

Interview date30 Jul 2020

Coding problem1

The timing of this round was from 2 pm to 2:30 pm, two hours after the previous round.
It was held over a video call on Skype.
This was an HR Round.
The interviewer started by asking me to introduce myself. He asked my a few questions regarding the experiences mentioned on my resume.

1. HR Questions

He asked my what I knew about the company and why I wanted to join the company.

He asked me to rate myself on a scale of 1-5 on my Microsoft Office skills and a few technical skills.

He also asked me about the extra-curricular activities I was into in college.

He asked me how the entire interview process went and ended by asking me whether I was ready to shift to Bangalore/Chennai and if I was comfortable working in shifts.