Placed !!

Placements Over :)
Got placed in the only company I had been shortlisted for on Day 2(and perhaps for the entire placement process!!) - Oracle.

Here is my interview experience:

Round 1: Tech
The notification of Round 1 being scheduled at 08:00 came at 07:50 in the blog. So I hurried up to breakfast - and reached the place; only to hear that it had been rescheduled by an hour.
However,since I had already reached, the interview started off at 08:30. After a short formal introduction and a look at my resume and projects, the questions began.

Question 1: Given a set of points representing some data set obtain the point at the middle(or say equidistant from others)
This consumed almost 20 minutes - where I initially thought of a binary search sort of scheme based on some ordering of the vertices - then got caught how to provide a distance measure to create that ordering - then gave a recursive divide into 3 parts and find minimum distant vertex set and combine.
The interviewer and I both still had doubts on whether it was correct, yet I got another question..
Question 2: Given a linked list without head pointer; delete a random node given a pointer to it
I gave an inefficient solution - that of pulling the neighbor node's data and proceeding until the end of the list; only to realize later that all I had to do was to copy the data of the successive node into given node and delete that successive node!

After Round 1, I was very doubtful of making to Round 2 - but to my surprise, I was called for Round 2!


Round 2: Tech
I was called for round 2 in a short while, and again there were 2 questions

Question 1: Given 2 dates in DD-MM-YYYY format, how do you find the time duration, in same format
Fairly obvious question I thought - and went ahead to give the solution starting from the year, and go backwards to the day, and capture the difference and decrement the values when needed etc.
But alas, missed a few corner cases - that the interviewer spotted immediately - and I went on to correct them
Question 2: Add 2 numbers represented in singly linked lists with one value per node.
Again , standard question; so I said reverse the lists and add from units place with carry propagation - leading to the next obvious question - How do you reverse a linked list?
I gave the recursive algorithm that I had memorized; so the interviewer asked to give an iterative one instead.
Here again, I began to fiddle with the code, missing and messing a few things - using three pointers, jumping twice per node and all, and finally got to it with the interviewer's tip to forget what I already had in mind partially about how the code should look like...

Again, after Round 2, I wasn't very sure about going ahead to the next round..


Round 3: Tech
Surprised again - I got called to Round 3 and I think this is the one round where I gained confidence and performed well..

Question 1: Give an optimal solution for a Snake and Ladder problem - with data representation of my choice.
I got full 20 minutes to develop the solution - so I went on writing classes for the board, ladder, snake and the logic of choosing the maximum distance reached from one of the six rolls of the dice until reaching the end.
The interviewer saw the solution for a moment, and then remarked - Why make it so complex when you can order the ladders to reach in minimum possible moves. I nodded my head for the same and kind of completed the solution..
Question 2: Write a singleton class.
8th sem B.E project in action - though I wrote a mix of C++ and Java syntax code, I covered it up and explained it correctly. Apparently the interviewer seemed pleased..


Round 4: HR
HR interview was cool - all standard questions like:
Tell me abt urself
Why Oracle, and why Apps?
Why Mtech when you got placed well in B.E itself
Why low CPI ?
Will you be joining if placed ?
Are you shortlisted for any other companies(obviously no :D)

Then the HR explained the Compensation details, and how the Apps profile differs from OFSS.
Meanwhile I asked for workplace preference of Bengaluru - for which the HR said mostly but cannot be totally confirmed right now.
Another question from my side was where do I see myself in next 2 years - usually asked from the other side of the desk!
All through the HR round - I was trying to look the HR in the eye - and not the dorky here and there look that is my default setting around the women lore :D : Interview Etiquette !!

It seemed to me like the HR was more confident about my getting in while explaining the compensation details and so on - and hence by the end of the interview, I thought the interview process was over.
But surprise again - There was one more technical round!


Round 5: Tech, again
One question: Draw an E-R diagram of a railway ticket booking system
Hopefully I still had remnants of the Entity, attributes and relationships concepts and modelling in my head.
I came up with a fairly good design - which still had shortcomings such as detachment of certain compartments, booking between any 2 stations in the way which the interviewer pointed out. So I had to plugin those modifications and add some more relations as well.
In response, the interviewer went into depth explaining how product development involves your own problem scope and refining it to add features and cover inadequacies; unlike application development aimed at satisfying set of features demanded by a client.
He then concluded that it would be a Yes from his side but had to wait for the others


5 rounds and I was done by 12 -> 3 and a half hours and I was all done.
But then I came back for lunch, had lunch and went back to the interview corner - waiting for 2 more hours doing nothing but waiting, got tired and came back to hostel again awaiting posting of the results online.

Finally all done - Got the Job!
So no more placement tension - actually there was never much of it since I had applied for a few companies(relative to few others..). And happy to have cleared the first and only company I was shortlisted in - nostalgically related with Cisco internship..

All said and done: Time to switch back to MTP mode !!