Interview Experience with Amazon for SDET and Java Developer with Ramco Systems

I have attended the Interview with Amazon for the SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) in Chennai on Dec 3rd 2011. First i wanted to be clear that SDET is a not a Test Engineer position. A SDE's knowledge will grow in depth of the product and a SDET's knowledge will grow in breadth. In fact some times a SDET has to do more coding than a Software Developer. A SDET has to develop frameworks and tools to test the product. So a SDET should be strong in two things 1. Programming Language and 2. Algorithms & Data Structures.

Amazon interview was fairly straight forward. There were three questions and they are,

1. Find the NEXT highest Integer using the Same Digits from the Given number

e-g: Given Number is : 5236

     Output should be : 5326

Note: The catch in this question is for numbers like 1000, 9999, 1110, etc.

2. Consider the following BST and apart from data, it will also store(maintain) data about sum of the sub-trees

                                    20 (10-5-3+6)

     

                 10 (-3)                             -5 (6)

      3                   -6                  4                             2

Fairly a straight Question

3. Sort a Doubly Linked List

E-g: 1->3->1->2->3->1->2->1->1

We can use any of the programming languages of our choice and almost all the rounds (1 written + 5 F2F) will be about Algorithms and Data Structures. The important thing is we have to write a working code and the code should be of less complexity.

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RAMCO SYSTEMS EXPERIENCE

At Ramco Systems in Chennai I attended for the Java Developer position. The first round was written technical round, fairly simple and straightforward.

After waiting for more than 3 hours i had my second round until I was reading Forbes India in the waiting hall. The interviewer looked very old and his impression i understood he is not a technical guy. My went inside the room and introduced myself and he asked about myself.

Then he asked What is Java? - I told him the answer and he didn't look convinced. Second question was difference between Enterprise Applications and Small Scale Application, I answered him and he has little convinced with that. Third he asked what do you can offer for the company in terms of Java.  Blah Blah..

He asked me what is a collections. I said collections is a Framework. He said it is not. I strongly  said Collections is a Framework and Collection is an Object in the Collections Framework. He said I am wrong and I stuck with my answer.

And then few basic questions about previous company and my interests an salary expectation.

On my experience I can say that Amazon Interview was a great experience and Ramco was the worst experience. And the Ramco, he is a crazy old man who doesn't even know the difference between Collections and Collection.

Fingers Crossed and Waiting for the results.

For Amazon follow and prepare with the book "Cracking Coding Interviews" i have embedded here.