The Tech Trek : My Placement Journey
Hi, there! This article is about how I navigated my way to a product based company amidst the recent recession (2022–24). I will be sharing my interview experiences and some learnings I made on the way.
Hope it helps!
Google — Rejection
- Role: SDE Intern [6 Months]
- How did I apply: Applied via referral, following which I was directly reached out for an interview.
- Online interview: 2 rounds (non-elementary)
Questions asked:
I do not remember the exact questions as they were in the form of a huge story. However, the underlying concepts were:- Graphs
- Stack
- Binary Search
- Two Pointer
- Maps [I was asked to design and implement a HashMap]
- Recursion
- Possible reason for rejection
My first interview went really well, I was able to provide optimized solutions for all three questions asked. In my second interview, I was given two questions, I answered the first one, but was unable to think of an optimized solution for the second question which could possibly be the reason for rejection.
Learning — This was my first ever interview experience, I realized that the questions resembled with LeetCode contest questions (as in not very straight forward problem statement). Needed to give more contests.
ZS Associates — Rejection followed by Selection
I am aware that “Rejection followed by Selection” sounds obnoxious, but wait. So, I applied to ZS Associates for the first time at the start of my third year via ZS Campus Beats. I was given the opportunity to interview after passing the team challenge, but I was turned down at the interview. The second time, I applied when ZS came on campus during placements, and this time I got selected.
- Role: Business Technology Solutions Associate
- How did I apply: ZS Campus Beats Challenge & On-Campus Recruitment
Combined questions asked in both interviews:
- SQL Theory + Queries
- Guesstimates
- Puzzles
- The test for on-campus was lengthy and included 2–3 online test rounds
I was in a tier three college and ZS was one of the highest-paying companies that came to my college, so I accepted the offer.
After making it through every round, my confidence was increased even though it was not the ideal role or package.
Amazon — Selected
- Role: SDE Intern [6 Months]
- How did I apply: Amazon WOW Program
- Offline interview
Questions asked:
- DP Coin change variation
- Operating System [almost all imp concepts like — Deadlock, Memory Management, Process Management[
- SQL [Queries + Theory]
- Major focus on personal projects
At the moment, I held an internship offer at Amazon and a full-time offer from ZS. My internship at Amazon was from January 2023 — June 2023. Towards the end of the internship, my manager conveyed that he is inclined to give a PPO. I was looking forward to the offer letter but ended up receiving this:
After my internship, I applied to a number of companies and contacted many HRs, but nobody was interested in hiring new employees (especially freshers) because of layoffs taking place at almost every company.
I joined ZS Associates in September 2023, as that was the only offer I had.
Advice: Even if you have an offer, I urge you to get a backup offer as well !!!
Since I wasn’t enthusiastic about the BTSA position at ZS, I continued to look for other options.
Now that I had some work experience, along with DSA and CS Fundamentals, I paid a lot of attention to HLD and LLD which helped me during further interviews and become a better engineer in general.
Salesforce — Selected
- Role: AMTS (Associate Member of Technical Staff)
- How did I apply: Applied via Referral
Process:
- Online Assessment [3 questions — Easy, Medium, Hard]
Online Elimination Interview 1: [ Depending on your performance, there were 1 or 2 technical rounds]
- Questions — Palindromic Strings Variation [Recursion + DP]
- Major focus on previous work experience at Amazon and personal projects — Based on HLD.
Managerial Round Interview 2:
- Previous work experience in detail
- Basic HR Questions
After about 3.5 months at ZS, I switched to Salesforce.
My favorite things about my time at Salesforce:
- They embrace inclusivity and diversity at best. [While I’ve always known these ideas are important, seeing them applied to every decision broadened my perspective]. Probably the most humble people I have ever met.
- Work-life balance
- Amazing manager and teammates
- Inspiring to see several female managers in higher positions
Drawbacks about my time at Salesforce:
- I was hired as “Future Force,” which is what they call new grads, and during the interview process, I was not informed which team I will be joining. Future force is placed in teams at random or according to their resumes (I’m not sure how teams are assigned). I was assigned to a testing-only team.
- Salesforce does not permit internal team switching unless you have been a member of that team for a full year.
- Since I was more interested in dev, personally I didn’t enjoy the quality of work.
Learning — Prior to my joining, I should have contacted HR and asked about my team and work. As my interview was as per industry SDE standard, I assumed I will be getting dev work.
I had relocated specifically to Bangalore for this position, so I wasn’t sure if I should keep looking for a way to switch because of the testing team or shift internally after an year because, in the end, Salesforce is a terrific place to be at [Amazing peers + good compensation]. But I started applying to other companies again.
Meanwhile after 3 months at Salesforce, a PPO from Amazon got rolled out (for the exact team where I interned). And I ended up joining Amazon.
Reasons for choosing Amazon -
- Great Quality of work
- Job based in my hometown
- Slightly better compensation than Salesforce.
This article mainly talks about my journey at a very high level. During the job hunt period I have probably applied to a thousand companies. I could hardly clear any Online Assessments in the start; and just when my grasp at DSA became stronger and i was able to solve online assessments, we were in the middle of recession and I started getting rejection even after solving all questions, leave alone the hopes of getting an interview.
Even at my full time jobs, if I wasn’t satisfied I practiced DSA and other important subjects like Computer Networks, DBMS, Operating Systems and OOPS on a daily basis. I used to practice for an hour before going to the office, watch various HLD and LLD youtube videos in cabs to office and practice for an hour or two after coming from office.
Not getting a PPO from Amazon initially, left me completely demotivated as I had put my best effort into that internship. But now when I look back at my journey, I believe if you put in genuine effort everything does fall into place. Although the year after my internship has been nothing short of a rollercoaster, I doubt I would have changed a thing.
And as cliché as it sounds, please TRUST THE PROCESS.
Some General Tips-
- Do not apply without a referral [Make sure you are already connected to people from good companies on LinkedIn, so that you don’t have to wait for your connection requests to be accepted at the last minute]
- Practice.Revise.Repeat- DSA is challenging at first, but it becomes easy if you practice frequently and understand the fundamentals.
- Give coding contests (atleast leetcode weekly and biweekly)
- Don’t undervalue CS Fundamental subjects, I was asked 1–2 questions about DBMS and OS in almost every interview.
- HLD Concepts can be a game changer and improve the quality of your answers in interviews.
- If you don’t have prior relevant experience, make personal projects.
- DO NOT COMPARE YOUR JOURNEY WITH OTHERS.
Good Luck with your interviews!
I hope that this article offered you an understanding of what SDE interviews at different firms look like. Please share it with people who can benefit from it as well.
Please feel free to leave a remark if you would like more information.
