Glass door limits the no. of characters i use.so im gonna get straight to business!
Interview day:
Interview 1:
Initially scheduled for three interviews, first beginning at 10.30 AM 21st Feb, 2011.
My interviewer decided not to show up for the day so i spent about 45 mins waiting in the lobby .At 11.15 this other guy working on the same team as the guy who was initially supposed to interview me came and took me to his office.,.. We generally started interviewing here and he asked some of my project related questions..No code here.
Interview 2:
My lunch interview was with this really young chap..we ate..taked generally..After lunch we walked back to his office... BAM! gives a marker pen in my hand... n acts as if he doesnt know me at all.. says How would you implement a program which would return a copy of a linked list given the head pointer of the original linked list.(Im giving away my questions coz i did not sign any NDA!).. talked it out quite a bit..developed logic from scratch, wrote pseudo-code, checked-double checked boundary conditions... got the logic approved.. said there are 2 ways to do it.iterative and recursive.. he asked which would you prefer when and why? I explained takin into consideration space, time, situation where the algo would actually be used and so on...he was happy with it.and then i coded it..done!. then he suggested another variant where every node of the linked list had a random pointer (in addition to the next pointer) which could randomly point to another node or be NULL..how would you duplicate such a linked list???? This was a little tricky...but doable..i got it right..everything went off fine.. he then takes me to the next interviewer.
Interview 3:
Again a young chap..asked a quick question about a past project. n then went straight to the white board... explaned in 3-4 sentences what BFS is.n then said..given a BST..how would you implement a variant of BFS wherein you print the first node... then the nodes in the next level from right to left.then the nodes in the next level from left to right..n the next from right to left and so on.. he asked me to give him data structures and the algo...quite tricky.neva saw this qs before.got stuck a lil..but he hinted me at very specific points...n i was quick to pick up on it.. i figured it out eventually..it can be done using 2 stacks.. I liked this question..then he says i have 15 mins left.n he throws another problem at me.asks me to strategize and code the following problem... usually in linked lists. whenever you create a node.you dynamically allocate some memory and attach a node..but what if you were given some preallocated amount of memory.. in an array..and each element of your array would have a pointer to a node of a linked list. how would you insert into an linked list in this case???..think about it..interesting question..I solved it.but dint have time to code it
Interview 4:
Really old chap..very very very experienced.. Principal Development Lead for UI in Windows 7... .he asks me about this one project i did in grad school..its was a computer vision project..i explained it on the white board..n in a way i was glad he asked that question since that was one of ma favourite projects and i did reall well in it...he liked what i said.,.. then he draws this on the board: algorithms--API--User experience.. n talks about how API's kinda join work going on in both ends.. n says there are jobs in all three fields..if given a choice..which would you prefer i said more towards the left side of the line.. n he made a note of it... then we again sat back and started talkin bout a lot of stuff..went of pretty ok.. n finally he asked me a design question.how would you implement a linked list class.. simple question..but im kinda weak in the my class design concepts having working mostly in c... but i took sum help from him and figured it out.. he was ok with it..after a while he said im done.for the day.
I get back to my room at the marriott.. heavily retrospecting... i felt i performed brilliantly through the day.. trust me guys..im not being conceited here... i really felt i did well.n i cudin think of a single place where i made a crucial mistake or anythin... i did take help in a couple of occasions.. but im guessing they don hold that against you.. 2 days later my recruiter calls and says that they usually give out rejects by email.but he called me to give the news coz my decision was a tough one to make n it was real close... which i din feel was a consolation at all... i asked him for one.jus one reason/hint wateva..off/on the record...i don care...but he said its company policy not to give out feedback..... was dead disappointed with it.... took me a while to get over it,,...
