Part A: Pre-interview assessment (3-4 days virtual)
1. After filling the registration form, each of us was given a problem statement through mail to implement a type-ahead feature similar to Google search for a given set of inputs and a regex for the pattern to be searched.
2. We were given a time period of about 3 days to complete and send the assignment with liberty of using any language suitable for it.
3. I implemented the same using C++ with an in-built regex library for matching the pattern.
4. My focus was to first modularize the code as much as possible and at the same time making use of available features like classes, objects and functions to make the code organized with proper access control.
5. After achieving this I wrote some comments highlighting the important parts of the program and changed it to a menu driven program.
6. This helps the person reviewing the code to understand the flow of your code while at the same time make him/her acknowledge that you can give more options like changing the regex pattern or set of inputs, give an option to view current regex pattern, etc.
7. I submitted the code snippet along with screenshots of the output for the test cases given by them as well as considering some corner cases e.g. If only ‘*’ is given as input for pattern then the output should display all words. Tip: Always attach screenshots of your output for such assignments. Sometimes the reviewers may not have time to go through your entire code. But if they see if the output for various cases matches their expectations, that is certainly helpful.
Considering the above submission I was shortlisted for the interview – which was initially mentioned to progress as two separate interviews. I was a bit nervous since this was the first time I was ever shortlisted for an interview.
Here’s a link for my submission in CPP:
[https://onecompiler.com/cpp/3wmjzcnqk]
P.S. Based on conversations with other people who applied off-campus, this problem statement is different for each hiring drive. So while you may get a different problem statement, the process of presenting your code in an efficient manner remains the same.
Do not memorize the code. Understand how it works.