HSBC Group Hadoop Developer Interview Questions and Answers

Skills: Java Application Development

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: My resume had a couple of projects and a paper publication added to it, which was a part of my second year intern at TCS Innovation Labs.

Tips: I believe that the resume shortlist to appear for the test is just a formality and not a big deal to get through. Most of the students are allowed to appear for the test which is where, the main shortlisting occurs.
Although, the company does cut off people from certain departments. For example, none of the Agriculture and food engineering students were shortlisted for appearing for the test.
Also, from what I have heard, the company runs resumes through a program to take out the shortlist. Hence, certain key words such as "Scholar" or "Conference" may get you a good chance to get through the shortlisting.

Round: Test
Experience: The test is mainly quant based and how fast you can think and rationalize. They expect excellent speed; they ask you 20 questions to be answered in 30 minutes.
Tips: Normally, if a student is asked to appear for this right after his JEE examination, he would be able to get through it easily. But since our analytical thinking goes way down once we actually get in, it has to be worked upon again. I'd suggest you to solve all the quant questions of any CAT preparatory book for the American Express test. The test questions are quite similar to those that the CAT students prepare for.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: In general, the American Express interviews are considered to be pretty peaceful compared to the interviews of other companies. I was just asked about my work at TCS Innovation Labs and the paper I would be publishing based on that work and the courses I have done in Data Analytics and what all do I know in it. They do not test the knowledge you say you possess.
Tips: While I was preparing for my interview, I was told to read about Amex and its products. Secondly, and most importantly, I was aksed to read a lot about credit card frauds and suggest ways of preventing that. Even during my time, a lot of people were asked about this and judged severely on that. This is a must must if you would be appearing for its interview.

Also, you would do well if you are able to connect with the interviewer. For instance, if both of you have been a part of the same inter IIT or have the same tastes, etc.

Also, the interviews are that peaceful that you are able to direct the interview in your favour. There are certain parts of your CV that you can easily talk about and certain parts that you would want to avoid. If you are able to think on your feet, it is easy to re direct the interview in your favour and the things that you would like to talk about; in my case, it was my work at TCS.

Round: Puzzle Interview
Experience: The main decision whether you have to be taken in or not is decided in your first round of interview after which, the puzzle interview is just a formality and to find out whether you are able to think on your feet or not. Not a big deal, pretty easy.
Tips: Nothing to be worried about, the puzzles asked are pretty easy and most probably, you would have already heard them if you have a nag of solving puzzles.

General Tips: Do not worry or stress yourself much. The interview is pretty easy if you have an edge in the skills that the company wants. I had started studying Data Analytics in my second year summer vacations, just 1 hour a day for hardly about a month. Which gave me enough of an edge. The main hurdle lies in getting through the test round where about 300 people are simply cut off.
Skill Tips: You should be able to code efficiently. Knowledge in Python and SQL is a big plus.
Also, I had done a course on Coursera called "Machine Learning" of Stanford University. Today, the company does not expect a lot of knowledge in Data Analytics from students which is why this course gave me the edge I needed to get through the interview. It's a pretty easy course and not very demanding. I would recommend this if you want to find out even whether you'd be interested in Data Analytics or not.
I was asked about the things I know and whether I have ever implemented them.
Skills: Analytics And Coding
Duration: 2
College Name: IIT Kharagpur
Motivation: American Express is known to have a good working culture and is currently the third best company to work for in India. The internship stipend is largest compared to any other company in India along with accommodation and travel. The company has a well structured internship program and also has good challenging work to offer.
Funny Moments: After the test, I was not shortlisted for the interview round.. Which broke my heart.
Just after the presentation, I walked up to the person presenting and handed him a hard copy of my resume asking him to at least give me a shot at the interview if they think my profile is good enough.
I believe that this was a turning point of this entire experience. I believe, at that moment itself, I gained their favour to take me in. Which is probably why my interview was peaceful, which is probably why I could get through even though my interview was the last among a bunch of 25 students..

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: Technical on paper test questions:(dis was only for 12 among d 26 shortlisted ppl after apti...others directly had interviews)
5 wer selected in this test who wer nw sent for interviews
TECHNICAL INTERVIEW: (pls list the questions asked in all the rounds)
26 shortlisted after apti (14 directly for interviews & 12 had one more technical on paper test...mentioned above)
der wer min 2 technical rounds for each of them...max were 5

- You are given course dependencies
A->B,C
B->D
C->A
D->nothing
The above dependencies mean...if you want to take course A...you should take courses B and C first....To take B,Course D must be taken first....D is an independent course and can be taken without any prior requirements.
Now you are told these dependencies.Come up with an appropriate data structure to represent these dependencies.Then write a code that finds out all the courses that the student can take up...in this case the student can first take course D because its independent.Now that course D has been taken he can next take up B as it depends on B alone...But the courses A and C can never be taken because they depend on each other...So here all the courses that can be taken are B and D.
After i wrote the code....he asked for all possible test cases
-Given an array of length N....It can be filled with nos. only from 1 to N....find which nos are repeated in the array
-Given pointers to two nodes in a binary tree....find their least common ancestor...each node has pointer to only the parent node...not the left and right child..
-In a binary tree(Not necessarily a BST)...suppose the weight of any node is defined as the product of the key value of the node and the level of the node(Root at level 1)...find the node with maximum weight in the binary tree
-A sorted array of size n is right circularly rotated k times and this rotated array is given to you as input...Find out the value of k in log n time .
-There are some processes running at time T....and there are processes running at time T+30.
You have to find out
1)Which processes died at time T+30,which were alive at time T
2)Which are the new processes at time T+30,which were not there at time T
3)Which are the processes that were there at time T and are still running at time T+30
What data structure will you use to represent the process lists and write code to find out the answers to the 3 questions above
-Given a binary search tree...and a target sum...starting at the root...which all paths add up to the target sum?...if there are multiple paths....return the path with least no. of nodes.


College Name: Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai [ VJTI ]

Eligibility criteriaAbove 7 CGPAMorgan Stanley interview preparation:Topics to prepare for the interview - Data Structures, Algorithms, System Design, Aptitude, OOPSTime required to prepare for the interview - 4 monthsInterview preparation tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Must do Previously asked Interview as well as Online Test Questions.
Tip 2 : Go through all the previous interview experiences from Codestudio and Leetcode.
Tip 3 : Do at-least 2 good projects and you must know every bit of them.

Application resume tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Have at-least 2 good projects explained in short with all important points covered.
Tip 2 : Every skill must be mentioned.
Tip 3 : Focus on skills, projects and experiences more

Final outcome of the interviewRejected

Eligibility criteriaAbove 7 CGPAMorgan Stanley interview preparation:Topics to prepare for the interview - Data Structures, Algorithms, System Design, Aptitude, OOPSTime required to prepare for the interview - 6 monthsInterview preparation tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Must do Previously asked Interview as well as Online Test Questions.
Tip 2 : Go through all the previous interview experiences from Codestudio and Leetcode.
Tip 3 : Do at-least 2 good projects and you must know every bit of them.

Application resume tips for other job seekers

Tip 1 : Have at-least 2 good projects explained in short with all important points covered.
Tip 2 : Every skill must be mentioned.
Tip 3 : Focus on skills, projects and experiences more.

Final outcome of the interviewRejected

Round: Test
Experience: The test was for two and half hours where 1 hour was for general aptitude, 1 hr was for coding aptitude(either on java or C or C++as you choose) and 1/2 an hour for two coding questions.

Round: Technical Interview
Experience: In technical round they asked puzzles, aptitude questions and basic C coding. I was asked to write the code for two questions(one was on sort and search) and was asked the logic of two questions.They asked basics of linked lists, stacks, queues. Infact they were not very interested in the syntax and were pressing on the logic

General Tips: Being a non software branch students is not at all a problem. The company took 4 interns where 3 were from core branches. The fact that we had to work in JAVA and most of us didn't know JAVA, the company only looks for aptitude and ability to learn. So if you don't know anything, tell frankly that you don't know that part, rather than guessing. Be thorough with what you know and confidentially answer all the questions.
Also do not be tensed and take things lightly, if the interviewer is joking. Be candid.
Skill Tips: Learn basics of coding from books . Aptitude can be done from sites likes geeks for geeks, etc. The level of aptitude is not very high and infact the coding aptitude is also theoretical and does not involve in depth knowledge.
Skills:
College Name: NIT Surathkal

Round: Test
Experience: Online Test (General aptitude, C aptitude ,Programming problems).

General Tips: Study basics of C and DSA well. Utilize the last summer vacations for studying for placements. Be confident and Honest.
Yes it is challenging and exhausting. It tests your patience. But final reward is also great so we must keep going toward it.
Skill Tips: Online coding sites such as Codechef, etc. Narasimha Karumanchi for data structures and algorithm will help in preparation.
Skills:
College Name: NIT Surathkal

Round: HR Interview
Experience: I had done many web and android apps. They asked me about my institute experience, things I have done here. It was an easy walk for me.

Skills: SQL, Java Programming
Duration: 2
College Name: IIT Madras