SapphireIMS Associate Software Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

Round duration - 120 minutes
Round difficulty - Hard

This round was very difficult. I never do these much difficulty level of coding questions. But i give my best, and just do every questions by using step by step process.

Q1. 
Hourglass Pattern Problem Statement
Given an integer 'N', print an hourglass pattern based on the value of 'N'.
Input:
The first and only line of input contains an integer, denoting the value of N.
Out...read more
Ans. 
Print an hourglass pattern based on the given integer 'N'.
• Read the integer 'N' as input

• Print the top half of the hourglass pattern with decreasing numbers

• Print the bottom half of the hourglass pattern with increasing numbers

• Handle the constraints for 'N' values between 1 and 50
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Q2. 
BFS Traversal in a Graph
Given an undirected and disconnected graph G(V, E) where V vertices are numbered from 0 to V-1, and E represents edges, your task is to output the BFS traversal starting from the ...read more
Ans. 
BFS traversal in a disconnected graph starting from vertex 0.
• Use BFS algorithm to traverse the graph starting from vertex 0.

• Explore neighbor nodes first before moving to the next level neighbors.

• Consider bidirectional edges in an undirected graph.

• Output the BFS traversal sequence for each test case in a separate line.

• Ensure the BFS path starts from vertex 0 and print connected nodes in numerical sort order.
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Q3. 
Sort a Stack Problem Statement
You are given a stack. Your task is to sort the elements within the stack in ascending order using only push and pop operations. You are allowed to use one additional stack ...read more
Ans. 
Sort a given stack in ascending order using only push and pop operations with the help of an additional stack.
• Use one additional stack to assist in sorting the elements.

• Pop elements from the input stack and push them onto the auxiliary stack in sorted order.

• Keep track of the current minimum element to maintain ascending order.

• Pop elements from the auxiliary stack back to the input stack to get the sorted order.
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Round duration - 90 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This round is also coding round in this round we have a small video call interaction too, in which hr ask few questions to only those whose coding question is correct.

Q1. 
Next Smaller Palindrome Problem Statement
You are given a palindrome number represented as a string S. Your task is to find the largest palindrome number that is strictly less than S.
Example:
Input:
T...read more
Ans. 
Find the largest palindrome number strictly less than a given palindrome number.
• Iterate from the middle towards the start of the number and decrement the digits to create the largest palindrome less than the given number.

• Handle cases where the number is all '9's by changing the middle digit to '9' and decrementing the rest of the digits.

• If the number has an odd length, simply mirror the first half to create the largest...read more
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Q2. 
Rotting Oranges Problem Statement
You are given a grid containing oranges where each cell of the grid can contain one of the three integer values:
• 0 - representing an empty cell
• 1 - representing a fre...read more
Ans. 
Find minimum time to rot all fresh oranges adjacent to rotten oranges in a grid.
• Use Breadth First Search (BFS) to simulate the rotting process.

• Track the time taken to rot all fresh oranges.

• Return -1 if all fresh oranges cannot be rotten.

• Handle edge cases like empty grid or no fresh oranges.
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Q1. What is your experience with managing on-premises Linux servers?
Ans. 
I have extensive experience managing on-premises Linux servers, focusing on performance, security, and automation.
• Configured and maintained Apache and Nginx web servers for hosting applications.

• Implemented security measures using firewalls and SELinux to protect server data.

• Automated server updates and backups using cron jobs and shell scripts.

• Monitored server performance with tools like Nagios and Grafana to ensure up...read more
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Q2. Devops tools AWS kubernetes in depth
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Chrome and Firefox Browser automation

Log file tail last n lines where n is configurable. Followup question on how you can optimize it further incase log file size is in TBs and incase it is cluster of servers

Q1. Detailed Technical background check and discussion on past projects.
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Q2. Messaging queue and best practices
Ans. 
Messaging queues are used to manage asynchronous communication between different components of a system.
• Use a reliable messaging queue system like RabbitMQ or Apache Kafka

• Ensure messages are properly formatted and serialized

• Implement message acknowledgement and retry mechanisms

• Monitor queue health and performance

• Consider message ordering and partitioning for scalability

• Avoid long-running tasks in message handlers
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Q3. Binary Search Tree twisted question
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Q4. Map Reduce concept for solving dictionary keywords
Ans. 
MapReduce is a programming model for processing large data sets in parallel.
• MapReduce divides the input data into chunks and processes them in parallel.

• It consists of two phases: Map and Reduce.

• Map function takes input data and converts it into key-value pairs.

• Reduce function takes the output of Map as input and combines the values with the same key.

• It is used for solving dictionary keywords by mapping each word to a k...read more
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Normal 3 leetcode medium questions

Machine coding round to design tail -f

Q1. Questions on internal working of os
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Q2. Questions on projects
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Implement tail -f command

Q1. Kafka partitions
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Q2. Elasticsearch queries
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Q1. Why Browserstack?
Ans. 
Browserstack is a popular cloud-based cross-browser testing tool used by developers worldwide.
• Provides access to a wide range of browsers and devices for testing

• Allows for parallel testing to save time and increase efficiency

• Integrates with popular testing frameworks like Selenium and Appium

• Offers features like screenshots, video recordings, and debugging tools

• Used by companies like Microsoft, Twitter, and Airbnb for t...read more
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Q2. Any challenge you faced at current company?
Ans. 
Yes, I faced a challenge in integrating a new third-party API with our existing system.
• Had to understand the documentation of the API thoroughly

• Encountered compatibility issues with our system

• Worked closely with the API provider to troubleshoot and resolve issues
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MCQ based Questions from topics of DSA , web development

Q1. Asked us to live code tail -f unix command
Ans. 
Implementing the 'tail -f' command to continuously monitor and display new lines added to a file.
• Use 'open' to access the file in read mode.

• Utilize 'seek' to move to the end of the file initially.

• Implement a loop to read new lines as they are added.

• Use 'time.sleep()' to pause between reads to avoid busy waiting.

• Handle file rotation by checking if the file has been recreated.
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Machine coding round

Q1. TCP/IP related questions, what happens when you search a webpage?
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Q2. Past projects discussions
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Q1. Behavioural questions on how would you tackle a particular scenario
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