Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
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3 rounds | 6 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
Going into this, I knew there would be several rounds, one of them being aptitude, so I prepared by allocating 1–2 hours daily to it. I first learned the concepts from YouTube videos and then solved previously asked questions on the same topics. This helped me perform well in the aptitude round. Alongside this, I kept solving a couple of problem-solving questions daily on topics like strings and arrays. I had to prepare a lot for the interview, and for that, I took help from my friends. I did bi-weekly mock interviews, which helped me answer the questions confidently.
Application story
I applied through TCS's website for their National Qualifier Test. The application process was straightforward, and I received timely notifications via email for each step of the hiring process.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I think the reason I was able to do well in all the rounds is that I researched thoroughly beforehand. I looked up past experiences of other candidates to find out what was actually being asked in the tests and interviews. This helped me focus on what was most likely to appear in the selection process. I also took small, focused steps and concentrated on one round at a time. For example, when I was preparing for the technical test round, I gave it my full attention and didn’t start preparing for the interview until after it was done.
Preparation
Duration: 2 Months
Topics: DATA STRUCTURES: Arrays, Strings, Linked Lists, Stacks & Queues (including circular, priority queues), Hashing & Hash Maps, ALGORITHMS: Searching & Sorting (Binary Search, Merge Sort, Quick Sort), Recursion & Backtracking (e.g., N-Queens, Sudoku Solver), Greedy Algorithms, Divide and Conquer, Sliding Window, Two Pointers, DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING: Classic Problems: Knapsack, Longest Common Subsequence, LIS, OOPS Core Concepts: Abstraction, Encapsulation, Inheritance, Polymorphism, Database Management Systems (DBMS): SQL Queries (JOINs, GROUP BY, Subqueries), Normalization (1NF, 2NF, 3NF), Transactions and ACID Properties.
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Focusing on basic-level aptitude and topics like strings and arrays for the technical test round is enough to get shortlisted for the Prime role.

Tip 2: Prepare your projects and work experience well, as they are very impactful during the interview.

Tip 3: Don’t mention technologies you’re not confident with in your resume.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: Criteria 1: Should not have any active backlogs at the time of the interview. Criteria 2: The gap period should not be more than 2 years. (Salary Package: 7 LPA)
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: You should have basic knowledge of all the technologies mentioned in your resume; otherwise, don’t include them.

Tip 2: The focus of the resume should be on your projects and work experience.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration190 minutes
Interview date23 May 2024
Coding problem2

This round was divided into two parts.
The first was a 75-minute aptitude section that included numerical ability, verbal ability, and logical reasoning. The questions were of moderate difficulty and covered a wide range of aptitude topics.

After that, there was a 25-minute advanced quantitative and reasoning section. The questions in this part were a bit trickier and required quicker thinking — a level up from the previous aptitude section.

Finally, there was a 90-minute coding round where I had to solve two programming questions, both based on hashmaps.

1. Majority Element

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Info Edge India (Naukri.com)AmazonThought Works

You have been given an array/list 'ARR' consisting of 'N' integers. Your task is to find the majority element in the array. If there is no majority element present, print -1.

Note:
A majority element is an element that occurs more than floor('N' / 2) times in the array.
Problem approach
  1. Create an empty map to store each number and how many times it appears.
  2. Go through each number in the array:
  3. If the number is already in the map, increase its count by 1.
  4. If it's not in the map, add it with a count of 1.
  5. After updating the count:
  6. If the count of any number becomes more than n/2, return that number immediately — it’s the majority.
  7. If no number has a count greater than n/2 (though the problem states one always will), return -1.
Try solving now

2. Anagram Pairs

Moderate
30m average time
60% success
0/80
Asked in companies
JP MorganNearbuyTata Consultancy Services (TCS)

You are given two strings 'str1' and 'str1'.


You have to tell whether these strings form an anagram pair or not.


The strings form an anagram pair if the letters of one string can be rearranged to form another string.

Pre-requisites:

Anagrams are defined as words or names that can be formed by rearranging the letters of another word. Such as "spar" can be formed by rearranging letters of "rasp". Hence, "spar" and "rasp" are anagrams. 

Other examples include:

'triangle' and 'integral'
'listen' and 'silent'
Note:
Since it is a binary problem, there is no partial marking. Marks will only be awarded if you get all the test cases correct. 
Problem approach
  1. You can solve this by counting the frequency of each character in both strings.
  2. Use a hash map or a fixed-size array of 26 elements for lowercase English letters.
  3. If the frequency count for all characters matches in both strings, then they are anagrams.
Try solving now
02
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration40 minutes
Interview date18 Jun 2024
Coding problem3

1. Fundamental CS Questions

  1. Introduce yourself.
  2. What did you learn during your internship?
  3. Draw a balanced binary tree. Then he gave a case where I had to determine whether it was a balanced binary tree or not.
  4. DFS vs BFS. (Learn)
  5. Difference between Selection Sort and Bubble Sort.
  6. Selection Sort: Step-by-step approach with an example on paper.
  7. Method Overloading vs Method Overriding. (Learn)
  8. What is the cloud? Where is the data stored, and how is it stored? (Learn)
  9. How is the backup of stored data done?
  10. Horizontal Scaling vs Vertical Scaling in Cloud. (Learn)
  11. Agile in AI.
  12. Waterfall Model in Software Engineering and Its Drawbacks. (Learn)
  13. What is encryption and decryption? State a real-world example.
  14. What is the output of the encryption stage? He gave a hint: “text-based output.”
    Ans: Cipher text.   
  15. Asked some questions related to my publication.

2. Tree Traversals

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Wells FargoCognizantBig Basket

You have been given a Binary Tree of 'N'

nodes, where the nodes have integer values.


Your task is to return the ln-Order, Pre-Order, and Post-Order traversals of the given binary tree.


For example :
For the given binary tree:

Binary - Tree1

The Inorder traversal will be [5, 3, 2, 1, 7, 4, 6].
The Preorder traversal will be [1, 3, 5, 2, 4, 7, 6].
The Postorder traversal will be [5, 2, 3, 7, 6, 4, 1].
Try solving now

3. Check If The String Is A Palindrome

Easy
10m average time
90% success
0/40
Asked in companies
SamsungSterlite Technologies LimitedGrab

You are given a string 'S'. Your task is to check whether the string is palindrome or not. For checking palindrome, consider alphabets and numbers only and ignore the symbols and whitespaces.

Note :

String 'S' is NOT case sensitive.

Example :

Let S = “c1 O$d@eeD o1c”.
If we ignore the special characters, whitespaces and convert all uppercase letters to lowercase, we get S = “c1odeedo1c”, which is a palindrome. Hence, the given string is also a palindrome.
Problem approach

Step 1: Use a Stack to reverse the first half of the cleaned string.

Step 2: Then compare it with the second half.

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
HR Round
Duration10 minutes
Interview date18 Jun 2024
Coding problem1

1. HR questions

  • Why do you want to join TCS?
  • What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Here's your problem of the day

Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company

Skill covered: Programming

To make an AI less repetitive in a long paragraph, you should increase:

Choose another skill to practice
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