Aditya Tanwar: Placed at Glean

Name Aditya Tanwar Roll Number 200057 Programme BT Department CSE, studying in IIT Kanpur will be joining Glean (SE). Here are some brief insights.

Shortlisted Profiles & Companies:

• Da Vinci (C++ SE) - Databricks (SE) - Sprinklr ("Product Engineer"/SE) - Google (SE) - Capital One (SE) - Cohesity (SE) - Quantbox (Systems, Quant) - Worldquant (QR) - Quadeye (Systems, Quant) - Infurnia (SE) - Navi (SE) - Stripe (SE) - Plutus (SE)

Selection Process of the Company you are selected in 1) Resume Shortlist, 2) GD, 3)Test

1)For Glean, the process is similar to the one they follow for internships. The initial shortlisting is based on resume (huge emphasis on branch and CPI, cutoff ~9.3 iirc). 2)The shortlisted candidates are directly interviewed on the first day of placements with 2-3 technical rounds, followed by a final behavioral/HR round.

Insights on the interview process

1)Each technical round has a simple question in the beginning, you are expected to explain your approach while also writing code for the same. 2)Each time you solve a question during a round, new constraints/subparts are introduced - progressively increasing the difficulty. 3)Sometimes you might get stuck, your approach might be incorrect, you might not understand the question completely, or something similar - in any of these cases, feel free to discuss the difficulty you are facing with your interviewer, they will help you out as much as they can. Do NOT shy away from taking help, it might otherwise harm your candidacy. 4)The last round is more or less an HR round. Your reasons for joining Glean should be clear; try to phrase them before the interview if you're not confident. There might also be a technical question or two in this round.

Sample Interview Questions?

1. A very crude example for Glean Start with a BFS-like solution, then Dijkstra, and finally conclude with Bellman-Ford. Ofcourse, the actual solutions you will be expected to implement will not be so standard, but hopefully it gives you an idea of how the question difficulty progresses in a technical round. Each round was ~1 hr. 2) For Da Vinci For the initial shortlisting, there was a subjective exam which included 2-3 coding questions and some other theoretical questions (from CSE topics). The questions were not too difficult to solve in themselves. A lot of emphasis was given on the style of code (code was likely checked manually), and good practices. Post this subjective test, there were group discussions [on zoom], where they asked open-ended questions and anyone willing to answer was given the floor. Candidates were likely judged based on originality as well as relevance to the expected solution. For the software GD, being familiar with good coding practices (in actual industry-level C++ code) is desirable. 3) On the final day, you will likely be asked to implement some functionality that is used daily in the company. It will be reduced to a toy functionality so that you can actually implement it in a single round. You will be given a brief explanation about the functionality and the features expected, feel free to ask for clarifications. There was a single round of ~40 mins on the final day.

Preparation Resources

1. I had exhausted InterviewBit during the intern season and did not feel the need to do it again. So, I directly moved to giving CF contests and practicing the problemset on CSES. The questions there are relevant and to-the-point, and when you solve a question, there are nice green colours to keep you motivated. 2) For DBMS and Networks, I stuck to the course slides provided at IITK, they are sufficient in my opinion. I did not revise topics like OS, Compilers, Computer Architecture/Organization since I was not aiming for a systems role at an HFT but I strongly advise you to revise them if you are considering systems@HFT, especially OS and Architecture. 3) I did however revise C++ paradigms by reading the articles on learncpp.com, the articles there are nicely organized (both on a micro scale as well as a macro scale), and they also provide MWE's to get the point across. Having a strong hold on C++, both theoretically and practically, is also recommended for systems@HFT.

Advice for students (do's and don'ts)

Do - Start practicing right as your intern ends. In any case, do not be any late than the beginning of the semester. - Upsolve the questions you're not able to solve in a test, they are often repeated. On the same vein, discuss solutions with your peers. - Ask for help from friends with scheduling your interviews/submitting your resumes in December. - Read about the company (their history, their clients, what they do, their product, etc.) you're interviewing for and articulate why you want to join them. A lot of companies gauge how interested a candidate is in them. Do not - Stop practicing when the tests start. Both can be done together, and is recommended. - Be afraid to "mess" around the testing environment and find out. More often than not, there are loopholes (within the grounds of morality) that you can use to your advantage. For example, you might be able to print test cases in some environments if you're clever enough. There are better examples that I do not want to include here. - Lose hope ) - There are bound to be some upsetting shortlists, some disappointing environments. Push through it, it will be worth it.