The Infosys Interview
I had cleared both InfyTQ and HackWithInfy to earn an interview opportunity for Infosys and was quite happy with myself. I was already patting myself on my back for my exceptional performance in the TCS CodeVita interview. I suggest you read that before proceeding any further. There I was just bragging about my skills, and now I’m with a completely different story.
Let me first take an anticipatory bail. It was a tough week for me before the interview: examinations, assignments, placement training, and final year project came all together, driving me out of sync with my preparation. Well, I know these are lame excuses. I still managed to refresh my data structures and algorithms, database management, Java, and other handpicked topics, which I thought would be relevant.
I was allotted the 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM slot. Clearly, the interviewer seemed exhausted after hearing a lot of candidates bragging about themselves. By the time I came in, he had lost his cool and was wearing only a banyan, that too a semi-yellow, stretched one. An excellent start, isn’t it? I might get more technical in this article as I wish to discuss the questions asked and how I responded to them.
He asked me to introduce myself. Well, this question is pretty straightforward. I had a minute long answer pre-prepared just for this to get a great first impression. Into the first 10 seconds of the introduction, he just stood up and left from the frame and came back as I finished. In addition to this, there was some parallel meeting happening supposedly in the adjacent room. I could hear someone scolding some tech guy for not meeting the deadlines. Nice motivation!
The first question was to write a program to find the transpose of a matrix. Piece of cake! This question is not even worthy of finding a place in an interview. The next question was to code merge sort. Easy one once again! Woohoo… I was pretty pleased with myself already. Next, he asked me to write an SQL query to find the 5th highest salary. Damn, I knew that one, but the key-part was completely erased from my brain. The correct answer is “SELECT salary FROM employee ORDER BY SALARY DESC LIMIT 5, 1”. I tried something with chaining queries in the shared screen sharing platform. He didn’t seem to be interested in my attempts.
Next, he moved to Operating Systems. I thought I was kinda good at it. So I thought, “fire away”! The first question was, “what are the different types of operating systems”? Remember the last modules of the book that you study only at the last moment and forget forever? This was one such topic. Doesn’t matter, next question, please. “What are the different layers in an operating system”? Wait, what? There are layers in an operating system? Dammit! “At least, tell me what a kernel is”; I managed to give a decent reply for that one.
Okay, since you are not much good at Operating System, let’s move to Microprocessors (Really!). I couldn’t even understand how he framed the question :( Something to do with interrupts with a twist. Realizing I was not good at this, he asked general questions in the subjects that almost everyone can answer decently.
Next, he moved to Database. Finally, he had come to my stronghold. He asked me to explain the different normalizations. Bull’s eye! I explained 1NF, 2NF, and almost started 3NF when he interrupted and changed the subject. Supposedly, he didn’t want to ask questions which I could answer well.
Next, he asked about the parts of an IP address, TCP/IP protocol, HTTP, and stateless protocols. I could answer most of them, at least in bits and pieces.
Next, he asked two logical questions. I don’t understand why I fumbled on the first one. It was too easy and straightforward. I think the back-to-back questions which I could not answer made my mind numb. I shall reproduce the questions anyway:
- Four people wanted to cross a bridge. The time taken for each person to cross the bridge is given (1 min, 2 min, 5 min, and 7 min). Only one torch is available, and it is a necessity while crossing the bridge. At a time, at-most two people can cross the bridge. Find the minimum time taken to cross the bridge (For example, if 1 and 5 go together, it will take 5 minutes to cross the bridge and so on). The answer is 14 minutes.
- You have two candles. A candle will completely melt in one hour. You are allowed to burn the candles from both ends. How will you measure 45 minutes?
Next, he moved to Data Structures. I was prepared for this one. One final chance to prove myself perhaps, or it is already too late. He asked, “what is a binary tree, and what are its applications? Also, how do we find the leaf node at the largest distance from the root node”. I was expecting these kinda questions and had prepared well for them. So I just fired away.
Finally, the interview came to an end. The interviewer asked me if I had any questions for him. Unfortunately, my magic question didn’t work-out the charm this time. No worries. Everything seems impossible until it’s done. Just explore, dream, and discover…
EDIT: To my surprise, a month later I got the offer letter for Systems Engineer-Specialist role (5 LPA) for successfully clearing the interview, welcoming me to the Infosys family.