Name:

Ankit Narang

Experiences:
Hello guys,

I appeared in Amazon,Flip Kart,Intel and Cisco and finally cleared the Cisco both for intern and Full
time.First I will quickly tell you the exam and interview pattern of Amazon and Flipkart (as I didn't
able to get through the 1st round in both) and then my interview experience of Intel and Cisco
(which will surely help you a lot...hope it will not bore you as I tried to cover each aspect that is
important...please go through it)

Here goes my experience with all the companies:

Amazon Experience:

Simple Funda : Prepare all the Amazon sets from Geeksforgeeks

Online Exam - 1 and half hours Test - 22 Questions (20 Objective Type Questions from Aptitude and
Technical + 2 Coding Questions from Array and Tree DS)

Only 17 people were able to get through to the interview rounds.

3-4 Interviews rounds - total on Data Structures

FlipKart Experience:

Online Test : 90 mintues coding test - 2 questions(Dynamic Programming and Tree traversal)

4 hours Machine coding Test - Making a game - they prefer Java coders,mainly focused on the
Designing of the game and OOPS concepts used in it. Output doesn't matter if your design is
impressive.
(The person who got the job and intern in Flipkart wasn't able to solve it completely,but his
approach was impressive)

2-3 Interview rounds - again on Data Structures and but they see your on spot question solving
ability.

Intel Experience:
No written exam

Shortlisted directly on the basis of Resume (Prepare your resume well and put OS and Linux based
projects or any project on OS- kernel/ system level programming or related work if you have done
any)

mainly I will focus on the questions interviewer asked rather than the answers I gave

1st Technical round: (one on one)

Interviewer started the interview by explaining the work happening in his department and some of
the technologies where they work and then after 2-3 mintues he asked me the 1st question.

1st Que: Tell me about yourself? (Best way to drive your interview is to prepare well for this
question..I hav always driven mine..Believe me it helps!!)

I ended my introduction with my major projects over last 1 year

2nd Ques: Interviewer took my resume and asked me to explain 2 of my projects - one by one

I explained my both the projects very well...he asked me some questions in between.

3rd Ques: Tell me about the OOPS concepts?

I explained all the concepts one by one with proper examples instead of focusing on the definition
of the concepts

4th Ques: He again saw my resume and since I was Experience holder, he started asking me about
the projects I hav worked on in the Industry

(....)

5th Ques: Since the interviewer had the experience on Linux , he saw that I have mentioned about
the Linux Project in my resume (which was my BTech Final year Project) , he asked me to explain
that project?

In between he asked me many question on the Linux File System

6th Ques: Next he asked me to share my Linux Knowledge ?

I did

7th Ques: He started asking me the questions from Linx - Command , Scripting knowledge , About
File system of Linux...etc..

and finally after half an hour he told me wait outside for the 2nd interview

After 1 hour I was called for the 2nd Interview....

2nd Technical Round (Two on one)

1st Ques: Tell me about yourself?

(...)

2nd Ques: He asked to expain one of my project and my role in the project?

Another Ques: Since I had the working knowledge on .NET, he started asking me about the .NET?

Some 7-8 questions only on the .NET...Interviewer was continuously asking me the questions one
after the other to create pressure on me.

Prepare well about all the technologies you have written in your resume!!

Another Ques: Then he switched from .NET to Java and JSP , Struts framework, since I had the
project on these in OOAD

Again some 6-7 questions . In between he asked me write some code as well on JSP, JQuery , Java-
Backend coding etc...

Ques: Finally he came to SQL as well ?

He asked me to write queries, then some questions on stored procedures , triggers , joins, etc...

Finally he doesn't look so impressed with me and said me "Thank you" .

I wasn't able to make it for the HR Round.

Over all Intel Experience: some people had 2-3 rounds and some people had 4-5 rounds , it all
depends on your resume getting shortlisted on the number of departments came for the interviews.

Cisco Experience:
Pattern of written exam questions varies every year, our seniors had very easy paper but ours was
tough...only 60 out of 130 cleared written exam whereas the stats in our senior batch was
88/140(approx)...So my advice is don't things for granted....work hard for the written as well.

Written Exam : Pen Paper - 1 hour , 50 Objective type Questions (20 Aptitude + 30 Technical
Questions) ,

NO NEGATIVE MARKING

Aptitude Questions: Medium Level - Series,probability,clocks, problem on ages, mathematical

solving questions , trigonometry, Venn diagram,assertion and reasons...

Most of questions are general problem solving questions instead of focusing on hard core topics like
Time and distance, time work,SI,CI etc...But prepare all type of questions...

Technical Questions : Medium - Easy level - 5-6 C output questions on pointers , functions , arrays,
union , structures, pointers with functions as well., DS and Algo basic questions , 5-6 Networking
questions , some ELECTRONICS subject questions,some questions form OS and Digital electronics
and from computer architecture as well - mantissa , Multiplexer, Counters,etc..

To clear exam:
Try to solve most of the aptitude questions.17 or 18 questions out of 20 questions.

If you are from CS background - focus on your subjects and C language and If you are from Non- CS
background - focus on electronics subject questions and C language.
Whether you are CS or Non- CS , you can easily solve around 15/30

so the final will be 17+ 15 = 32/50, good enough to clear written. I also solved 34/50

Interview Rounds : Conducted under 3 departments (IT dept, Software Engineering dept, and
Networking dept) for which you have to fill the choice even before appearing for the written exam.

2-3 rounds (1 or 2 Technical rounds and 1 HR round) - depends on the department

I had 1 Technical + 1 HR Round

During PPT , they said they will hire full time + intern in Networking and SE Profiles and only
internship for IT Profile

I opted for SE Profile ...Before the Technical Round, HR called me and said my written marks are not
good enough for SE profile and he sent me for the IT Profile interview (same thing happened with
many people as they had to switch profiles before interview...It usually doesn't happens but It
happened during our batch). I didn't thought too much about it as I didn't had the internship till
that time and they were offering only internship in IT Profile.I went for it.

Technical Round: (Two on one) - IT Profile

Both the interviewers explained about their department and kind of work they do and then started
with the 1st obvious question...

1st Ques: Tell me about yourself? (Again I started driving my interview my way as I am always
prepared well for this answer and I know where to take my interview from this point!!)

As usual I ended my intro with major projects I have worked on during last 1 year.

2nd Ques: He told to explain one project?

Since the interviewers were sitting away from me, I took the initiative to explain the project in the
White board starting with the purpose of the project, team size and then with proper diagrams,
architecture and finally explaining about he technologies used.

They got impressed with that!!

3rd Ques: About My Industry Experience? The Projects I have worked on?

(...)

4th Ques : Since I had written many languages and technologies on my resume, Interviewer asked
me which language I am comfortable with and why? and the some chaining questions on that

I was expecting that he will make me write some code after that, but he didn't told me to do so....he
got convinced about my abilities from my words only.

5th Ques: Interviewer went through my resume and saw two of my old projects(since I had
mentioned the time duration of my projects, he picked old ones) and told me explain both of them
one by one.

Again I stood up and explained both projects one by one in the White Board...Interesting thing was
that they didn't interrupted me anytime, they listened to me until I chose to spoke, didn't even ask a
single question in between..don;t know what they were trying to judge.Good for me as I didn't had
to answer there chaining questions.

6th ques: What was the worst experience on my project and how I handled the situation?

Here I got the chance to explain my another project. I started by giving the real experience I
had/suffered while working on the Data Modelling project.

Hence I was able to mention and explain my another project as well and they got convinced with
my answers as well since they asked few questions in between while i was answering.

7th ques: Then Interviewer asked me about the best project and why I think it was the best one?

I answered diplomatically about the two projects and then finally shared the working experience on
one of the projects giving proper relevant examples to prove why it was the best one and again they
got impressed (I guessed because they were always smiling!! a good sign)

Finally they gave me chance to ask few questions? I asked them 2-3 questions to them, basically to
show my interest towards the job :)

and finally they said "Thank you" and opened the door for me :)

After waiting for 15- 20 minutes they called 8 of us in the room where all the Interviewers were
present and they said we all 8 are through from their side and now it all depends on HR to decide.

After 2-3 hours , our HR round happened together for all 8 people

HR Round:

Since we all 8 people were there ,questions were open to all.

Introduce yourself?
Why Cisco?
Tell me few good things and few bad things about Cisco?
(We listened well during PPT and hence was able to tell bad things as well about Cisco, because HR
forced us to say bad things as well)
Then HR discussed and told a lot of things about Cisco and after some time it went into discussion
round, we started asking silly questions and lot of questions to HR and it went up to some 30
minutes.

and Finally after some time results were declared and we all 8 got the internship IT Profile!! :) :D

and the surprise part was....next day Cisco announced the full time offer as well for all the 8 IT
Profile guys!! :)

For SE , they took a Pen paper coding round test for half an hour. and finally selected only 1
candidate at the end.

Well this was only for IT Profile, please look out for other profile experience as well...they had
different kind of interviews unlike the IT Profile.

Thanks for reading my experience and hope this will help you in your placements....All the best!!

You can always reach out to me for any further queries..

Ankit Narang
ankit.narang@iiitb.org
ankit.5389@gmail.com

To what extent, projects, coding competitions, previous workEx are

referred?

1. Projects : Choose your projects very well (if you have the option) and work hard on the project.
Learn the part of the project which you are not doing as well.. I just meant you should have sound
knowledge of the whole project because in Interviews , you have to explain the whole project and
Interviewer can ask any part of it..Have good knowledge of the technologies and ideas used in the
project. Know about the cause of making the project

2.Coding: Never ever stop coding until you get placed (even after that you can do,its personal
choice) Lot of companies specially the good ones have coding round as their 1st or 2nd round,Some
are online and some are in paper (hand written). Make habit of coding in paper pen also while you
think of the approach before coding.

If you start coding at least 1-2 questions daily, you will cover a lot before placements and then no
one can stop you from cracking the coding round easily. Work hard on it...Once you start coding
well, try to improve the efficiency of your code (in terms of complexity I am talking)

3.Work Experience : This helps a lot. At least for me , it helped me during interviews. While telling
about yourself you can give a brief explanation of your work experience (even if it is less than a
year...it matters) While asnwering any question, you can easily relate it to your work
experience...some interviewers prefer work ex guys, because they can straight away start working
on the project once they join their company.

Any comments or words of guidance if you would like to add for your
juniors..

My personal advice is if you are looking for the big fish, start working from the day itself...Even if
you give 1-2 hours of preparation time for the placement...you will easily get a lot of knowledge
before placement starts.

Plan your work and work accordingly..

Prepare your resume well for different companies, you can have different resumes.(know about the
company well in advance)

Know your resume well...whatever you have written in your resume , you should know each and
everything.Take the guidance of seniors while preparing your resume.

Focus more on basics of everything - C,C++, Java ,OOPS , DS,OS, Networks, DBMS...try to solve as
many question on that as you can.

Focus more on Data Structure concepts.Start solving Karumanchi and Cracking the coding
interview , geeksforgeeks

Before the placement, focus on aptitude questions as well covering all the topics.

Work on all the previous GATE questions for all the subjects (you will get them easily in
geeksforgeeks)

Prepare well for Managerial and HR questions if you are not a good speaker, because it is all about
sharing your experience and relating things which you already know while answering any question.
Well that's it from my side....Thanks...hope my advices will help you...All the best!!

If you need anything , we seniors are always there for you to help..Ask Ask Ask....that's all you have
to do...Thanks again :)